“This is the true gospel, the pure doctrine of our God, full of grace and mercy, full of comfort, salvation, and eternal life, given to us by God from grace without our merits and works of the law, for the sake of the only eternal and precious Saviour Jesus Christ”
–early Anabaptist writer and theologian, Dirk Phillips quoted in Anabaptism: Neither Catholic Nor Protestant by Walter Klassen
In a sermon, Albert Martin powerfully exhorts people to live the gospel before the world. What a challenging, convicting sermon!
Note: As of late, The White Horse Inn and others who emphasize a strong Law/Gospel distinction (R. Scott Clark, etc.) have tended to disparage the phrase “live the gospel”. While I understand their concerns, I think they are a little off base in taking a generally good idea and a needed caution (being careful about how we use the gospel in our expressions) and bringing it to near absurdity.
I know that there are some people who say “live the gospel” and mean questionable and simply wrong things (like the idea that the gospel is just a life style or some sort of moralism). I will join Horton and Clark in their critique of that. However, I won’t join them in their sweeping disparagement of people that say “live the gospel”.
I want to defend those people who say “live the gospel” and use it in an orthodox, God-honoring way. When many say “live the gospel” they effectively mean, as Al Martin said in the sermon “A life that embodies the transforming power of the gospel”. They don’t mean “Live [because your life is] the gospel” (which would be wrong), they just mean “Live [in light of] the gospel” or “Live [out] the gospel” or “Live [by] the gospel” or “Live [a life marked by] the gospel”. Would that we would all seek our lives to be characterized by that!
Anyone with an interest in the theological development and happenings of the Apostolic Christian Church (Nazarene) in the 1980′s will be interested to hear that for the first time ever (as far as I know) issues of the 1980′s publication “The ACC Journal of Theology” (1983-1988) have been posted in their entirety online! I’ve posted all the issues that I have.
These publications were edited by Jim Fodor and Dennis Feucht in the 1980′s. They were really at the cutting edge of what was going on in the ACC at the time. In my opinion, even though I am not longer in the ACC, these journals are of great historical value. They prove that there have been thoroughgoing quests for theological truth and exploration of ideas in the ACC. What follows below are both links to the journals, but also descriptions of their contents.
As you may notice, I’m missing all but one of the issues from Volume 1. If anyone can help me get these, I’d greatly appreciate it.
Volume 1 – Number 1 (summer of 1983)
Volume 2 – Number 1 (summer of 1984)
Volume 2 – Number 2 (autumn of 1984)
Volume 2 Number 3 (winter of 1985)
Volume 2 – Number 4 (spring of 1985)
Volume 3 – Number 1 (summer 1985)
Volume 3 – Number 2 (autumn of 1985)
Volume 3 – Number 3 (Winter 1985)
Volume 3 – Number 4 (spring of 1986)
Volume 4 – Number 1 (summer of 1986)
Volume 4 – Number 2 (autumn of 1986)
Volume 4 – Number 3 (winter of 1986)
Volume 4 – Number 4 (spring of 1987)
Volume 5 – Number 1 (summer of 1987)
This places the running total for books completed in 2011 at 12.
I’m now finished 26.3% of the books which make up my Q1 (Jan-Mar) goal–and Q1 is 38% done.
Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531) was an early Swiss reformer. Here are a few selected items from his sixty-seven articles:
“II. The sum and substance of the Gospel is that our Lord Jesus Christ, the true Son of God, has made known to us the will of his heavenly Father, and has with his innocence released us from death and reconciled God.”
“III. Hence Christ is the only way to salvation for all who ever were, are and shall be.”
“X. As that man is mad whose limbs (try to) do something without his head, tearing, wounding, injuring himself; thus when the members of Christ undertake something without their head, Christ, they are mad, and injure and burden themselves with unwise ordinances.”
“XXIV. That no Christian is bound to do those things which God has not decreed, therefore one may eat at all times all food, from which one learns that the decree about cheese and butter is a Roman swindle.”
“LIV. Christ has borne all our pains and labor. Therefore whoever assigns to works of penance what belongs to Christ errs and slanders God.”
As a one-time member of the small sect with Anabaptist roots called the ACCN (Apostolic Christian Church-Nazarene) from 2000 to 2005 and, now from the outside, I’ve always been pretty interested in history and documents pertaining to the group.
The group has a rich history. Though there are ways in which I would strongly critique my past religious heritage, there are also ways in which I appreciate it. And, in any case, it is part of my personal history and it is a area in which there is a dearth of publicly available materials (probably first of all because not much has been published, and then second of all, because not much has been digitized).
I’m thankful to have played in a small role in bringing various resources on the ACC to the internet over the years–some resources of the resources would likely be otherwise obscure and difficult to find. Even though I no longer call the denomination home, I find these documents interesting.
Here are a few ACC documents I’ve published over the years.
1. Account of my first experiences in America, a letter by Wendel Kalman (among the first ACCN elders, who happened to give the advice that led to the founding of my former home congregation, Windsor) describing in detail events surrounding the split (between the ACCA and ACCN) of the early 1900′s in the USA. Originally posted on Free Indeed, a website I ran from 2003-2007, this is perhaps the most significant and unique thing I’ve ever published to the Internet in relation to the ACCN. Since I’ve published it, I’ve noticed it (the copy I published) has been cited in a scholarly journal article and also a master’s thesis.
2. The ACC Journal of Theology, a journal edited by Jim Fodor
3. A portrait of Samuel Froehlich that got utilized in a Wikipedia entry
4. A couple Samuel Froehlich letters (these are of less significance than they were at the time because of the subsequent release of PDF files of The Writings of S. H. Froehlich)
5. A couple of booklets by Samuel J. Braun
6. Many Christian Friendship Messenger (an ACCN news publication) issues from the late 1960′s and the early 1970′s–note that these are merely the ones I’ve published in PDF format, I have many image scans from the late 1960′s and early 1970′s that will not be released until I have time to output them into PDFs
For the vast majority of the world, these things are insignificant. But for people who are interested in the history of the movement started by Samuel Froehlich (known to most of us as the “ACC”), these items are of deep significance.
In the future, Lord willing and time permitting, in the near future I would love to do following:
Quite frankly, very few people in Windsor or Essex County have heard of New Canaan.
New Canaan is currently listed as a displaced rural community. Formerly, it was a small settlement between Essex and McGregor. When the Harrow became part of Essex in the 1999 amalgamation, New Canaan was part of Harrow.
According to the government of Canada, the longitude/latitude of New Canaan is 42° 07′ 05″ N 82° 56′ 31″ W.
New Canaan was initially settled in the 1820′s by African-Americans who escaped slavery, apparently many of them were from Kentucky. Another wave of settlers arrived when the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was enacted.
Apparently the people were given plots of 100 acres a piece, with 20 families by 1852. One person estimated that there were about 40 families there. William Ruth projected that the place wa “going to be one of the finest and most beautiful places. It has every advantage necessary to make it a fine settlement. It is covered with heavy timber and first rate soil”.
Though there are currently no churches on the land known as “New Canaan”, there was an African Methodist Episcopal Church and records from the 1850′s show a “New Canaan Baptist Church” applying an Amherstburg Baptist association.
One of the settlers was Delos Rogest Davis (1846-1915), a lawyer and teacher from Maryland. He escaped via the Underground Railroad in 1850 and ended up on a farm in New Caanan. He was educated at American Missionary Association school in New Canaan (which closed in 1859, but he continued public school education until 1863) and he ended up teaching school in Colchester, potentially at a African Methodist Episcopal school. He then studied law tutored by two Windsor men and became a notary and attorney. Some have believed that he was the first black lawyer in Canada, but it seems he was actually the 3rd. He established a practice in Amherstburg in 1887, and at that point took up residence there. He was involved in the 1879 formation of North Colchester Township.
Civil Rights activist, physician and publisher Henry Fitzbutler (1837-1901) lived in New Canaan for a while. He became the first black graduate of the University of Michigan med school and the first black to run for elective office in Louisville
There has had to have been something surreal about escaping slavery in the south and arriving at a little place in another country up north called “New Caanan”.
Sources:
From The Geneva Catechism by John Calvin:
Master. – Now explain the meaning of the words [, 'Hear, 0 Israel, I am Jehovah thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage: thou shalt have no other gods before me.'].
Scholar. – At first he makes a kind of preface to the whole law. For when he calls himself Jehovah, he claims right and authority to command. Then in order to procure favour for his law, he adds, that he is our God. These words have the same force as if he had called himself our Preserver. Now as he bestows this favour upon us, it is meet that we should in our turn show ourselves to be an obedient people.
Activity is continuing at my two feeders. I’m realizing that what I’ve reported before as a flock of American Tree Sparrows actually includes many House Sparrows also.
I have no evidence that any species of birds has come to the feeders besides the three stated so far (Northern Cardinals, American Tree Sparrows, and House Sparrows). However, since I don’t monitor the feeders all day, I’m sure there have been others.
The feed is going quickly. I bought some more suet cakes and I just ran out of my4kg bag of bird seed mix I got from Canadian Tire December 30th. Doing some quick math, the birds eat about 0.148 kg of mixed bird seed per day. If the current rate were to be steady throughout the year, that would mean 54 kg of seed would be eaten in a year. Unlikely, since I’m sure winter consumption is higher. But still interesting nonetheless. Since the 4kg bag is $5.00, I looked for cheaper bulk options.
At Essex Feed Warehouse I found that I can get a 40 pound bag (which is 18 kg) for around $10. But of course, I don’t really know what the difference in quality is between the seed used in the 4kg bag and the 18kg bag, since they are different brands. Is this price difference because it is in bulk, or is it because it is bad, cheap seed? I don’t know. But at this point I don’t care too much, as long as the birds eat it. The seed I picked was Smorgas Bird Economy Wild Bird Food, which is apparently made by a local Essex company called Essex Topcrop Sales Ltd.
The last couple of days have been pretty snowy and very windy. That the feeder at the side of the house stayed up through the storm may indicate that my method of hanging the feeder using that L-bracket is at least half-descent!
“As for Nelson, his mind had frozen around his grandfather’s treachery as if he were trying to preserve it intact to present at the final judgment. He walked without looking to one side or the other, but every now and then his mouth would twich and this was when he felt, from some remote place inside himself, a black mysterious form reach up as if it would melt his frozen vision in one hot grasp.” — from The Artificial Nigger
“The fiction of Ayn Rand is as low as you can get re fiction. I hope you picked it up off the floor of the subway and threw it in the nearest garbage pail. She makes Mickey Spillane look like Dostoevsky”
– Flannery O’Connor in May 31, 1960 Letter to Maryat Lee, The Habit of Being, p.398.
Egyptian Revolution - Man Burning Photo of Mubarak
Egyptian actor and ambassador Mahmoud Kabil to UNICEF in an interview was quite succinct when he described the role of technology in this uprising:
I think if the Internet, Twitter or Facebook did not exist, we would have another 30 years of Mubarak.
In a Huffington Post article, Egyptian-born American Sahar Taman explains her view of the Egyptian revolution in My Experience With Egypt’s Central Security Forces.
Here are some excerpts:
“The fundamental problem is decades of life without personal freedoms; the lack of freedom of speech, assembly, association, press, and religion. The government enforced that through menacing”
“Although not always obvious to my American friends, Hosni Mubarak has ruled Egypt with an iron hand for 30 years and public frustration has been mounting.”
“Egypt’s 30 year martial law limits all personal freedoms and Egyptians have never had the right to bear arms. The support for the protests from expatriate Egyptians and other Arabs is enormous and there is a fervor on the ‘Net’ as Egyptians call it. Recognizing the power of the ‘Twitter’ revolution, the government has blocked the country’s Internet and mobile communications.”
“So, it is understandable why Egyptian citizens are on the streets today, braving tear gas and rubber bullets, defying curfews and enduring electronic blackouts. Quite simply, they have seen thirty years of suppression and intimidation, and they have had enough….[they] do not know an Egypt without this oppression. But they want something different. Today many of them are on the streets now demanding the government to ‘Go.’”
