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Christopraxis And Resurrection (PhD Edit)
Originally published February 1, 2014 with edits and revisions for April 23, 2023 and an entry on academia.edu.
Paradise versus Resurrection
2 Corinthians 12: 4 from the New American Standard Bible:
The Apostle Paul:
'was caught up into Paradise and heard
inexpressible words, which a man is not permitted to speak.'
Note from the Greek it translates 'he was caught into the paradise'. So, Paul did not seemingly reason he went via the clouds in the physical realm, but rather to another realm, a spiritual one, whether he was in the body or not (12 verse 2). Marshall (p. 545). Marshall below..
This is describing the New Testament
'paradise' where the spirit of the believer in Jesus Christ exists post-mortem.
This is not yet, the full-fledged physical resurrection of 1 Corinthians 15,
Revelation 20-22 and 1 Thessalonians 4 as New Testament
examples.
1 Thessalonians 4: 13-18 : New American Standard Bible (NASB)
13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep [a]in Jesus. 15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive [b]and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a [c]shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive [d]and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.
Footnotes a 1 Thessalonians 4:14 Lit through b 1 Thessalonians 4:15 Lit who c 1 Thessalonians 4:16 Or cry of command d 1 Thessalonians 4:17 Lit who
The
second coming of Jesus Christ, also known as the second advent and the
resurrection of the dead in Jesus Christ and the transformation to resurrection
of those alive, is futuristic and requires a futurist interpretations of sorts.
These things are mentioned with the New Testament and will take place in the
future. (see also 1 Corinthians 15 and Revelation 20-22).
Christopraxis
Ray S. Anderson defines Christopraxis
as the continuing power of Jesus Christ, as his ministry works with followers
through the Holy Spirit.[1] Anderson’s theory of
Christopraxis assumes a bodily resurrection of Christ, which Anderson states is
a fact of history,[2] but presently Christ
works through the Holy Spirit in this world.[3] The inner core of
practical theology, as Anderson views it, is the life of a historical Jesus
Christ, his resurrection and the work of the Holy Spirit of God continuing the
gospel plan on earth.[4] Anderson deduces that
the concept of Christopraxis includes the Holy Spirit of God working with
Scripture to bring about revelation and reconciliation to persons within the
Christian Church.[5]
A helpful traditional practical
explanation that the resurrection awaits those who trust in Christ, is both
theoretically and practically sound, and may be of comfort to a believer.[6] Yes, God is a creator
who demands justice, but through the atoning work and resurrection of Christ,
his love and grace is also shown to followers. The resurrection of Christ, from
a traditional perspective, is also not purely a theological concept, as the
Kingdom of God is progressing towards its culmination.[7] It can be pointed out
practically that the resurrection of Christ as King has to take place for a
culminated Kingdom of God to ultimately occur.[8] An actual Kingdom would
require the resurrection of a historical Christ.[9] The historicity of
Christ in detail is obviously out of the scope of this thesis, but my point is
that it is vital to ground Christian practical theology in the historicity of
Christ. If Christ was not a real person, and his supernatural
resurrection untrue, then the Biblical doctrines concerning his resurrection
cannot be trusted.[10] Christ’s resurrection
validates his ministry, according to Erickson.[11] There would be no hope,
from a traditional Christian perspective, for everlasting life and salvation
for those who have died without the resurrection. Death would thus end all
hopes of ultimate reunion between those who remain and those who have died.[12]
Moltmann writes that the resurrection
message of the early Christian community was the anticipation of what was to come.[13] The resurrection of
Christ created the hope for the eventual world of a new righteousness.[14] In the new heaven and
new earth, the life of the believer will be transformed in completion.[15]
---
ANDERSON, RAY S. (2001) The
Shape of Practical Theology, Downers Grove, Illinois, InterVarsity
Press.
DARROW, CLARENCE (1928)(1973) ‘The Myth
of the Soul’ in The Forum, October, in Paul Edwards and Arthur Pap (eds), A
Modern Introduction To Philosophy, New York, The Free Press.
ERICKSON, MILLARD (1994) Christian
Theology, Grand Rapids, Baker Book House.
ERICKSON, MILLARD (2003) What
Does God Know and When Does He Know It? Grand Rapids,
Zondervan.
FLEW, ANTONY, R.M. HARE, AND BASIL
MITCHELL (1983) (1996) ‘The Debate on the Rationality of Religious Belief’, in
L.P. Pojman (ed.), Philosophy, The Quest for Truth, New York,
Wadsworth Publishing Company.
GEBARA, IVONE (2002) Out of the
Depths, Translated by Ann Patrick Ware, Minneapolis, Fortress Press.
MARSHALL, ALFRED (1975)(1996) The
Interlinear KJV-NIV, Grand Rapids, Zondervan.
MOLTMANN, JÜRGEN (1993) The
Crucified God, Minneapolis, Fortress Press.
MOLTMANN, JÜRGEN (1999) ‘Perseverance’,
in Alan Richardson and John Bowden (eds.), New Dictionary of Christian
Theology, Kent, SCM Press Ltd.
MOUNCE, ROBERT H. (1990) The
Book of Revelation, Grand Rapids, William B. Eerdmans Publishing
Company.
MOUNCE, ROBERT H. (1995) The
New American Commentary: Romans, Nashville, Broadman & Holman
Publishers.
PHILLIPS, D.Z. (2005) The
Problem of Evil and the Problem of God, Fortress Press, Minneapolis.
SLOAN, ROBERT B (1991) ‘Unity in
Diversity’, in David Alan Black and David S. Dockery (eds.), New
Testament Criticism and Interpretation, Grand Rapids, Zondervan
Publishing House.
THIESSEN, HENRY C. (1956) Introductory
Lectures in Systematic Theology, Grand Rapids, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Company.
WHALE, J.S. (1958) Christian Doctrine, Glasgow, Fontana Books.
[1] Anderson (2001: 29).
[2] Anderson (2001: 52).
[3] Anderson (2001:
52).
[4] Anderson (2001: 52).
[5] Anderson (2001: 54).
[6] Anderson (2001:
54).
[7] Moltmann (1993: 171-172).
[8] Moltmann (1993: 171-172).
[9] Moltmann (1993: 171-172).
[10] The Apostle Paul admits
this would be the case in First Corinthians 15: 12-19.
[11] Erickson (1994:
691-693).
[12] Anderson (2001: 54).
[13] Moltmann (1993:
177).
[14] Moltmann (1993: 177).
[15] Mounce (1990: 388).
Ovi / Bookforum/Op-ed News/Newsblaze/Newser/Beforeit'snews/Helium/others
ReplyDeletereview: The Final Freedoms©Creative Commons/non-commercial/web content only.
If anyone thought the on going, worldwide scandals of pedophile priests and sexual abuse shaking the roman catholic church [among others] were going away because of a duffer new pope and the soft PR job coming out of the Vatican they were sadly mistaken. Yet however abominable this institutional and individual corruption is, it will look a mere trifle compared to the perfect storm that appears to be on the way.
The question is could two thousand years of scholastic exegesis, tradition and the faith of millions be wholly in error? And no longer just a rhetorical question for mud slinging between atheist and religious, we are on the threshold of discovering that answer!
For on the horizon is an approaching religious and cultural furore so contentious, any clash of civilisations may have to wait. For what science and religion thought impossible has happened; history has its first literal, testable and fully demonstrable proof for faith. Described within a manuscript entitled The Final Freedoms, it confronts all the gravitas religious tradition and secular pretensions can bring to bear.
Thus the first wholly new interpretation for 2000 years of the Gospel and moral teaching of Christ is published on the web. Redefining all primary elements including the very nature of Faith, the Word, Law, Baptism, the Trinity and especially the Resurrection: questioning the origins of all existing Christian tradition, focusing specifically on marriage, Love and human sexuality, it overturns all natural law ethics, theory and theology.
What first appears a counter intuitive challenge to the religious status quo, on closer examination contains a wisdom scholastic theology and tradition either ignored, were unable to imagine or out of shear intellectual vanity, dismissed out of hand. An error of presumption which could now leave tradition staring into the abyss and prove humbling for secular speculation.
Using a synthesis of scriptural materials drawn from the Old and New Testaments, the Apocrypha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Nag Hammadi Library and annotated with great poetry, it both describes and teaches a single moral Law, a single moral principle and is finds expression within a single test of faith.
Radically different from anything known from history, this new teaching is predicated upon the 'Promise' [Word] of a precise, predefined, and predictable experience in which the reality of God responds directly to an act of 'perfect faith' with a direct, individual intervention into the natural world, 'raising' up within a man an Enlightened heart, realigning his moral compass by correcting human nature with a change in natural law, altering biology, consciousness and human ethical perception beyond all natural evolutionary boundaries. Thus freed from the corruptions that natural law is heir to, a man is 'created' in the image and likeness of His Creator.
ReplyDeleteAlways intended to be understood metaphorically, where 'death' and darkness are ignorance and Life and light are knowledge, this direct personal experience of transcendence and moral purpose is ones Resurrection, the allegorical Sign of Jonah and justification of faith. By this act of new 'creation' a man is restored and reborn, to flourish on a perfectly objective foundation of moral principle, virtue and righteousness, where the good Life begins.
Called the first Resurrection is the sense that the Resurrection of Jesus was always intended to demonstrate absolutely Gods willingness to reveal himself by intervening directly into the natural world for those obedient to His Law and will, paving the way for access by faith to omnipotence, omniscience and ultimate proof.
ReplyDeleteSo the first ever viable religious conception, capable of leading reason to observable consequences which can be tested and judged is a fact. A teaching that delivers the first ever religious claim of insight into the human condition, that meets all Enlightenment criteria of verifiable evidence based truth embodied in action and experience. For the first time in history, the world must contend with a claim of new revealed truth, able to demonstrate a moral wisdom not of human intellect origin or imagination.
'As in the beginning' this is religion, the basis of a relationship with God, without any of the conventional trappings of tradition. An individual, spiritual virtue ethic, independent of all culture reference, contained within a single moral command, a universal moral Law, that finds its expression of obedience and form within a new Genesis of marriage between one man and one woman. It requires no institutional framework or hierarchy, churches or priestcraft, no scholastic theological rational, dogma or doctrine, no ones permission or license and stripped of all myth, worship requires only conviction, the necessary self discipline and faith to accomplish a new, single moral imperative and then fidelity to the new divinely created reality.
If confirmed and there appears to be a growing concerted effort to test and authenticate this teaching, this will represent a paradigm change in the nature of faith, while advancing the moral and ethical potential of human nature itself; untangling the greatest questions of existence: consciousness, identity, purpose, suffering, evil, sustainability and free will. While simultaneously addressing the most profound problems of our age.
Providing its own means to ends, this new teaching is asking humanity: choose the future you prefer? The existing status quo, with religious traditions mired in their own contradictions, scandal, corruption, hypocrisy, sectarianism and hocus-pocus, offering little but pretensions and divisiveness and where political process can only feebly respond by spin and white wash to fears of chaos, war, terrorism, economic injustice, environmental degradation, natural disaster, plague and pandemic or comprehend that human nature, prisoner to its evolutionary root, exists within fixed limits of understanding and moral potential. But by taking new personal responsibility, in a single change of mind, heart and conduct, by faith transcend those limits and blow the status quo straight to oblivion.
Trails of this new teaching are open to all and well under way. Colloquial evidence already suggests confirmations are taking place. It's now only a matter of time before a sufficient number of individuals confirm this teaching to establish this 'Resurrection' and moral insight as a absolute, irrefutable fact.
With apologies to Shakespeare: To test or not to test that is the question?
For individuals able to shake off their existing prejudices, imagine outside the box of history and culture, stand against the tides of group think and fashionable thought and spin, who have the humility and moral courage to learn something new and will TEST, discover and confirm this new insight for themselves, an intellectual and moral revelation is under way; where the once impossible becomes inevitable, by the most potent, political, progressive, Non Violent Direct Action any human being can take to advance peace, justice, change and progress.
ReplyDeleteThe tragedy for our species will be if existing religion and theology, skepticism and atheism have all so distorted, corrupted and discredited the very idea of God, that humanity is unable to re-imagine, discover and experience just how real this potential is.
Published [at the moment] on the web, a typeset manuscript of this new teaching is available as a free [1.4meg] PDF download from an increasing number of links including:
http://www.energon.org.uk
I see no reason not to hold to a Biblical, contextual view of the resurrection...
ReplyDeleteCB @ 60
ReplyDeleteI think some computer editing was done...
ReplyDeleteI like the pic!
ReplyDeleteThank you, sir...
ReplyDeleteNeeds to be read by as many Americans as possible.
ReplyDeleteRead while sipping a strong drink.
This comes from a letter by Professor Laura Hollis of Notre Dame.
November 20, 2013
The unveiling of the dictatorial debacle that is Obamacare absolutely flabbergasts me.It is stunning on so many levels, but the most shocking aspect of it for me is watching millions of free Americans stand idly by while this man, his minions in Congress and his cheerleaders in the press systematically dismantle our Constitution, steal our money, and crush our freedoms.
The President, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid (with no small help from Justice John Roberts) take away our health care - and we allow it. They take away our insurance - and we allow it. They take away our doctors - and we allow it. They charge us thousands of dollars more a year - and we allow it. They make legal products illegal - and we allow it. They cripple our businesses - and we allow it. They announce by fiat that we must ignore our most deeply held beliefs – and we allow it.
Where is your spine, America?
Yes, I know people are complaining. I read the news on the internet. I read blogs. I have a Twitter feed. So what? People in the Soviet Union complained. People in Cuba complain. People in China complain (quietly). Complaining isn't the same thing as doing anything about it. In fact, much of the complaining that we hear sounds like resignation: Wow. This sucks. Oh well, this is the way things are. Too bad.
Perhaps you need reminding of a few important facts. Here goes:
1. The President is not a king. Barack Obama does not behave like a President, an elected official, someone who realizes that he works for us. He behaves like a king, a dictator – someone who believes that his own pronouncements have the force of law and who thinks he can dispense with the law's enforcement when he deigns to do so.And those of us who object? How dare we? Racists!
And while he moves steadily "forward" with his plans to "fundamentally transform" the greatest country in human history, he distracts people with cheap, meaningless trivialities, like "free birth control pills"! In fact, let's face it: this administration's odd obsession with sex in general - Birth control! Abortion! Sterilization! Gay guys who play basketball! - is just plain weird. Since when did the leader of the free world care so much about how people have sex, who they have it with and what meds they use when they have it? Does he have nothing more important to concern himself with?
'And while he moves steadily "forward" with his plans to "fundamentally transform" the greatest country in human history, he distracts people with cheap, meaningless trivialities, like "free birth control pills"! In fact, let's face it: this administration's odd obsession with sex in general - Birth control! Abortion! Sterilization! Gay guys who play basketball! - is just plain weird. Since when did the leader of the free world care so much about how people have sex, who they have it with and what meds they use when they have it? Does he have nothing more important to concern himself with?'
ReplyDeleteConcerning self and gov. with social issues related to sexual freedom and public comfort is typical for a social democrat. It is a more politically safe position, politically pragmatic to take with those on the liberal bend, which is most persons in the Western world.
2. It isn't just a failed software program; it is a failed philosophy. People are marveling that Healthcare.gov was such a spectacular failure. Well, if one is only interested in it as a product launch, I've explained some of the reasons for that here. But the larger point is that it isn't a software failure or even a product failure; it is a philosophy failure.
ReplyDeleteI have said this before: Obama is not a centrist; he is a central planner. And this – all of it: the disastrous computer program, the hundreds of millions of dollars wasted, the lies, the manipulation of public opinion, the theft of the public's money and property and freedom (read insurance, and premiums, and doctors) - IS what central planning looks like.
The central premise of central planning is that a handful of wunderkinds with your best interests at heart (yeah, right) know better than you what's good for you. The failure of such a premise and the misery it causes have been clear from the dawn of humanity. Kings and congressmen, dictators and Dear Leaders, potentates, princes and presidents can all fall prey to the same imperial impulses: “ e know what is good for 'the people.'
And they are always wrong.
There is a reason that the only times communism has really been tried have been after wars, revolutions or coups d'état. You have to have complete chaos for people to be willing to accept the garbage that centralized planning produces. Take the Soviet Union for example. After two wars, famine and the collapse of the Romanov dynasty why wouldn't people wait in line for hours to buy size 10 shoes? Or settle for the gray matter that passed for meat in the grocery stores?
But communism's watered-down cousin, socialism, isn't much better. Ask the Venezuelans who cannot get toilet paper. Toilet paper. Viva la Revolución!
Contrary to what so many who believe in a "living Constitution" say, the Founding Fathers absolutely understood this. That is why the Constitution was set up to limit government power. (Memo to the President: the drafters of the Constitution deliberately didn't say "what government had to do on your behalf." They understood that that was the path to folly, fear, and famine.)
'I have said this before: Obama is not a centrist; he is a central planner.'
ReplyDeleteHe is seeing the USA move to the left, closer to Canada and Europe and changes platform according.
Same-sex marriage for example.
Bill Clinton has done the same.
Political pragmatist more than communist in my view. If it would 'pay' more to have smaller gov., my guess is that would occur.
This in my opinion, is about people making six figures a year in public office that can make much more after office with a right, pragmatic legacy.
Think of campaign debt as well...
3. Obama is deceitful. Just as the collapse of the computer program should not surprise anyone, neither should we be shocked that the President lied about his healthcare plan. Have any of you been paying attention over the past few years? Obama has made no secret of his motivations or his methods. The philosophies which inspire him espouse deceit and other vicious tactics. (Don't take my word for it: read Saul Alinsky.) Obama infamously told reporter Richard Wolffe, "You know, I actually believe my own bullshit." He has refused to be forthcoming about his past (where are his academic records?). His own pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, told author Ed Klein, that Obama said to him, "You know what your problem is? You have to tell the truth.”
ReplyDeleteDid Obama lie when he said dozens of times, "If you like you plan, you can keep it. Period!"? Of course he did. That’s what he does.
4. The media is responsible. And had the media been doing their jobs, we would have known a lot of this much, much earlier.
The press is charged with the sacred responsibility of protecting the people from the excesses of government. Our press has been complicit, incompetent, or corrupt. Had they vetted this man in 2008, as they would have a Republican candidate, we would have known far more about him than we do, even now. Had they pressed for more details about Obamacare, Congress' feet would have been held to the fire. Had they done their jobs about Eric Holder, Fast and Furious, Benghazi, the IRS scandal, NSA spying - or any of the other myriad betrayals of the public trust that this administration has committed, Obama would likely have lost his 2012 reelection campaign. (A fact that even The Washington Post has tacitly acknowledged. Well done, fellas! Happy now?)
Instead, they turned a blind eye, even when they knew he was lying, abusing power, disregarding the limits of the Constitution. It was only when he began to spy on them and when the lies were so blatant that the lowest of low-information voters could figure it out that they realized they had to report on it. (Even in the face of blatant, deliberate and repeated lies, The New York Times has the audacity to tell us that the President "misspoke.") They have betrayed us, abandoned us and deceived us.
5. Ted Cruz was right. So was Sarah Palin. The computer program is a disaster. The insurance exchanges are a disaster. What's left? The healthcare system itself. And this, of necessity, will be a disaster, too.
ReplyDeleteMillions of people have lost their individual insurance plans. In 2015, millions more will lose their employer-provided coverage (a fact which the Obama administration also knew, and admitted elsewhere).
The exorbitant additional costs that Obamacare has foisted on unsuspecting Americans are all part of a plan of wealth confiscation and redistribution. That is bad enough. But it will not end there.
When the numbers of people in the system and the corresponding demand for care vastly exceed the cost projections (and they will, make no mistake), then the rationing will start. Not only choice at that point, but quality and care itself will go down the tubes. And then will come the decisions made by the Independent Payment Advisory Board about what care will be covered (read "paid for") and what will not.
That's just a death panel, put politely. In fact, progressives are already greasing the wheels for acceptance of that miserable reality as well. They're spreading the lie that it will be about the ability of the dying to refuse unwanted or unhelpful care. Don't fall for that one, either. It will be about the deaths that inevitably result from decisions made by people other than the patients, their families, and their physicians. (Perhaps it's helpful to think of their assurances this way: "If you like your end-of-life care, you can keep your end-of-life-care.")
6. We are not SUBJECTS. (or, Nice Try, the Tea Party Isn't Going Away). We have tolerated these incursions into our lives and livelihoods too long already. There is no end to the insatiable demand "progressives" have to remake us in their image. Today it is our insurance, our businesses, our doctors, our health care. Tomorrow some new crusade will be announced that enables them to take over other aspects of our formerly free lives.
I will say it again: WE ARE NOT SUBJECTS. Not only is the Tea Party right on the fiscal issues, but it appears that they are more relevant than ever. We fought a war once to prove we did not want to be the subjects of a king and the Boston Tea Party was just a taste of the larger conflict to come. If some people missed that lesson in history class we can give them a refresher.
The 2014 elections are a good place to start. Call your representative, your senator, your candidate and tell them: "We are not subjects. You work for us. And if the word "REPEAL" isn't front and center in your campaign, we won't vote for you. Period."
Laura Hollis is an attorney and teaches entrepreneurship and business law at the University of Notre Dame.
WAKE UP AMERICA!!!
Thomas S Drolet.
President & CEO, NRE International, L.L.C
tdrolet@tsdenergy.com
Cell: 1-828-493-1523
7085 York Street, Suite 1
Englewood, FL, USA, 34224
Larger gov. means less freedom, in many ways. Gov. should serve with public watch, as the means of law and order in society.
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