S - PAST WITNESS FILES
- Jonathan Sacks - Phil Saviano - Philip Schaff - Donald W Shriver - Robert Schuller - Robert Shuler - Richard Sibbes - Charles Simeon - AB Simpson - Ichabod Spencer - John Shelby Spong - Jimmy Stauddy - Isaac Stavely - H. Steinthal - Timothy Stewart - William Still - Sohaib Nazeer Sultan - Emanuel Swedenborg
JONATHAN SACKS
Jonathan Henry Sacks, Baron Sacks (8 March 1948 – 7 November 2020) was an English Orthodox rabbi, philosopher, theologian, and author. Sacks served as the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth from 1991 to 2013. As the spiritual head of the United Synagogue, the largest synagogue body in the United Kingdom, he was the Chief Rabbi of those Orthodox synagogues but was not recognized as the religious authority for the Haredi Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations or for the progressive movements such as Masorti, Reform, and Liberal Judaism. As Chief Rabbi, he formally carried the title of Av Beit Din (head) of the London Beth Din. At the time of his death, he was the Emeritus Chief Rabbi.
May 23, 2023: Jewish Insider : Rabbi Sacks Legacy launches new Shavuot guides based on his teachings
As Jews around the world prepare to hold a Tikkun Leil Shavuot, an all-night study session for this week’s Shavuot holiday, they will have two new resources to consider this year based on the teachings of the late British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.
As Jews around the world prepare to hold a Tikkun Leil Shavuot, an all-night study session for this week’s Shavuot holiday, they will have two new resources to consider this year based on the teachings of the late British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.
Sept 9, 2021: Jewish Journal: Repentance is Re-Creation
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks pointed out that the rationale for the recitation of Kol Nidrei, a legal formula recited immediately before Yom Kippur begins, allowing the revocation of past and future oaths, is because it is by means of such a revocation of an oath that God Himself “repented” of His decision to destroy Israel after the sin of the golden calf, (Exod. R. 43:4, discussing Exod. 32:11).
Aug 15, 2015: Religion & Ethics: Evangelicals and LGBT; Rabbi Jonathan Sacks; Our Lady of Guadalupe Basilica
Growing social acceptance of same-sex marriage and other LGBT issues poses new challenges for evangelicals; Britain’s former chief rabbi leads a global effort against religious extremism and violence; an ancient vision in Mexico of the Virgin Mary inspires millions of religious pilgrims.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks pointed out that the rationale for the recitation of Kol Nidrei, a legal formula recited immediately before Yom Kippur begins, allowing the revocation of past and future oaths, is because it is by means of such a revocation of an oath that God Himself “repented” of His decision to destroy Israel after the sin of the golden calf, (Exod. R. 43:4, discussing Exod. 32:11).
Aug 15, 2015: Religion & Ethics: Evangelicals and LGBT; Rabbi Jonathan Sacks; Our Lady of Guadalupe Basilica
Growing social acceptance of same-sex marriage and other LGBT issues poses new challenges for evangelicals; Britain’s former chief rabbi leads a global effort against religious extremism and violence; an ancient vision in Mexico of the Virgin Mary inspires millions of religious pilgrims.
Mar 20, 2015: Jonathan Sacks: Israel Unseen: Jonathan Sacks – Why Do We Sacrifice? Vayikra
April 14, 2015: Jonathan Sacks: Israel Seen: Jonathan Sacks – The Second Tithe and the Making of a Strong Society
Sept 27, 2014: Salon: Jonathan Sacks on Richard Dawkins: “New atheists lack a sense of humor”
Noted philosopher tells Salon atheism deserves better than new atheists, and how science and religion can get along
Sept 27, 2014: Salon: Jonathan Sacks on Richard Dawkins: “New atheists lack a sense of humor”
Noted philosopher tells Salon atheism deserves better than new atheists, and how science and religion can get along
phil saviano
Dec 30, 2021: Religion News: Observers, detractors and preachers of religion who died in 2021
Phil Saviano. The clergy sex abuse survivor was a whistleblower who played a prominent role in bringing to light sexual abuse by U.S. Roman Catholic priests.
Saviano died Nov. 28 at 69.
His story was featured in “Spotlight,” the 2015 film that depicted the investigation by The Boston Globe of a cover-up by scores of priests who had molested children. In the wake of the scandal, Cardinal Bernard Law, the prelate in Boston, resigned and the church made settlements with hundreds of victims. “My gift to the world was not being afraid to speak out,” Saviano told The Associated Press in mid-November.
Though movie watchers may have learned relatively recently of Saviano, who is pictured on his website wearing a “Recovering Catholic” T-shirt, he broke his silence in 1992 and described how he was sexually assaulted by his confessor and priest, David Holley of Worcester, Massachusetts. Holley, who died in prison in New Mexico in 2008, received a 275-year sentence for molesting eight boys.
According to Saviano’s website, after winning a settlement that did not restrict him from speaking freely, he established the New England chapter of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
Saviano also expanded SNAP’s website, which became a communication tool for survivors and reporters, and he served on the organization’s board.
Phil Saviano. The clergy sex abuse survivor was a whistleblower who played a prominent role in bringing to light sexual abuse by U.S. Roman Catholic priests.
Saviano died Nov. 28 at 69.
His story was featured in “Spotlight,” the 2015 film that depicted the investigation by The Boston Globe of a cover-up by scores of priests who had molested children. In the wake of the scandal, Cardinal Bernard Law, the prelate in Boston, resigned and the church made settlements with hundreds of victims. “My gift to the world was not being afraid to speak out,” Saviano told The Associated Press in mid-November.
Though movie watchers may have learned relatively recently of Saviano, who is pictured on his website wearing a “Recovering Catholic” T-shirt, he broke his silence in 1992 and described how he was sexually assaulted by his confessor and priest, David Holley of Worcester, Massachusetts. Holley, who died in prison in New Mexico in 2008, received a 275-year sentence for molesting eight boys.
According to Saviano’s website, after winning a settlement that did not restrict him from speaking freely, he established the New England chapter of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
Saviano also expanded SNAP’s website, which became a communication tool for survivors and reporters, and he served on the organization’s board.
philip schaff |
- Wikipedia -
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Philip Schaff (January 1, 1819 – October 20, 1893) was a Swiss-born, German-educated Protestant
theologian and ecclesiastical historian, who spent most of his adult life living and teaching in the United States.
theologian and ecclesiastical historian, who spent most of his adult life living and teaching in the United States.
May 1, 2023: Gospel Coalition: Westminster Confession of Faith: Faithful, Pastoral, Global, and Enduring
Philip Schaff also considered the Confession’s teaching on Scripture to be the definitive Protestant counterpart to Roman Catholic teaching on the subject: “No other Protestant symbol has such a clear, judicious, concise, and exhaustive statement of this fundamental article of Protestantism.”
Philip Schaff also considered the Confession’s teaching on Scripture to be the definitive Protestant counterpart to Roman Catholic teaching on the subject: “No other Protestant symbol has such a clear, judicious, concise, and exhaustive statement of this fundamental article of Protestantism.”
May 25, 2023: University of Chicago: Connection and Celebration at the World's Parliament of Religions
Philip Schaff, a Protestant leader who had worked years for unification efforts within Christianity, argued that the Parliament would further his vision of Christian ecumenism based on “ethical unity” and “Christian freedom” by opposing a “spirit of pride, selfishness and narrowness.” Prince Serge Wolkonsky from Russia urged in his address, “Universal Brotherhood,” that attendees embrace an already existing human connection. He stated: “Human brotherhood is not a club where membership is needed to enjoy the privileges. Not by instituting societies or associations shall we inspire feelings of brotherhood, but in breaking the exclusiveness of those which exist.” Kaufman Kohler, a prominent leader of Reform Judaism, emphasized human unity, the divine image, and the “bonds of human brotherhood” in his talk. The repeated claims about the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of humanity have seldom been noted, but they are examples of multiple religious leaders (even beyond the Jewish and Christian traditions) who sought to expand the circle of human connection beyond blood ties, national boundaries, and even inherited religious traditions. At the height of racism in the US and Western colonialism, the Parliament was one attempt to mitigate human division and the sectarian passions nurtured and released by religious certainty.
Philip Schaff, a Protestant leader who had worked years for unification efforts within Christianity, argued that the Parliament would further his vision of Christian ecumenism based on “ethical unity” and “Christian freedom” by opposing a “spirit of pride, selfishness and narrowness.” Prince Serge Wolkonsky from Russia urged in his address, “Universal Brotherhood,” that attendees embrace an already existing human connection. He stated: “Human brotherhood is not a club where membership is needed to enjoy the privileges. Not by instituting societies or associations shall we inspire feelings of brotherhood, but in breaking the exclusiveness of those which exist.” Kaufman Kohler, a prominent leader of Reform Judaism, emphasized human unity, the divine image, and the “bonds of human brotherhood” in his talk. The repeated claims about the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of humanity have seldom been noted, but they are examples of multiple religious leaders (even beyond the Jewish and Christian traditions) who sought to expand the circle of human connection beyond blood ties, national boundaries, and even inherited religious traditions. At the height of racism in the US and Western colonialism, the Parliament was one attempt to mitigate human division and the sectarian passions nurtured and released by religious certainty.
Philip Schaff, one of the greatest scholars of the past generation, in his splendid volume entitled "The Person of Christ," recounting the above facts, points out that another striking thing concerning this unique person--that of sinlessness. He ably argues, that the sinlessness of Jesus Christ is, in itself, a stronger argument for his deity, than were the miracles of which Christ performed. Jesus, himself, pointed to his miracles as answer to the question of his identity, when he told the disciples of John the Baptist: "Go and shew John again those things which ye do and hear and see: The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them." (Matt 11:4-5).
Since Christ miracles were considered as credentials of his deity, by Christ himself, they must not be checked off as evidences. Miracles appear so easy to Christ, as if they dropped from his sinlessness constituted even greater evidence. Therre were others who performed miracles, but there was none others of whom sinlessness could be truthfully predicated. He only could stand before his enemies and challengingly ask, "Which of you convicts me of sin?" (John 8:46). When submitted to this supreme acid test, he was sinless, putting him into a class entirely alone.
Since Christ miracles were considered as credentials of his deity, by Christ himself, they must not be checked off as evidences. Miracles appear so easy to Christ, as if they dropped from his sinlessness constituted even greater evidence. Therre were others who performed miracles, but there was none others of whom sinlessness could be truthfully predicated. He only could stand before his enemies and challengingly ask, "Which of you convicts me of sin?" (John 8:46). When submitted to this supreme acid test, he was sinless, putting him into a class entirely alone.
donald w Shriver jr
Dec 30, 2021: Religion News: Observers, detractors and preachers of religion who died in 2021
The Rev. Donald W. Shriver Jr. The Rev. Donald W. Shriver Jr. died July 28, 2021. Photo courtesy of Union Theological Seminary
The Presbyterian minister and Christian ethicist wrote widely to encourage white Americans to face and repent of their racist past.
Shriver died July 28 at 93.
The president of New York’s Union Theological Seminary from 1975 to 1991, he hired Black clergy and scholars such as Cornel West, James Forbes and James Melvin Washington as well as feminist theologians such as Phyllis Trible and Beverly Wildung Harrison.
His most celebrated 2005 book, “Honest Patriots: Loving a Country Enough to Remember its Misdeeds,” compared the work of public repentance in South Africa and Germany with that in the U.S.
American culture will never be truly reformed, Shriver wrote, “unless the past we ought to mourn is mourned, in fact, in public, and in the context of concrete gestures and measures that put the past behind us in our very act of confronting it.”
The Rev. Donald W. Shriver Jr. The Rev. Donald W. Shriver Jr. died July 28, 2021. Photo courtesy of Union Theological Seminary
The Presbyterian minister and Christian ethicist wrote widely to encourage white Americans to face and repent of their racist past.
Shriver died July 28 at 93.
The president of New York’s Union Theological Seminary from 1975 to 1991, he hired Black clergy and scholars such as Cornel West, James Forbes and James Melvin Washington as well as feminist theologians such as Phyllis Trible and Beverly Wildung Harrison.
His most celebrated 2005 book, “Honest Patriots: Loving a Country Enough to Remember its Misdeeds,” compared the work of public repentance in South Africa and Germany with that in the U.S.
American culture will never be truly reformed, Shriver wrote, “unless the past we ought to mourn is mourned, in fact, in public, and in the context of concrete gestures and measures that put the past behind us in our very act of confronting it.”
Robert H Schuller
Jan 15, 2023: CBN: Rev. Robert Schuller's Wife Dies at 84
Arvella Schuller, wife of Robert H. Schuller, has died at the age of 84.
Carol Schuller Milner said her mother passed away unexpectedly and peacefully Tuesday.
Arvella Schuller, wife of Robert H. Schuller, has died at the age of 84.
Carol Schuller Milner said her mother passed away unexpectedly and peacefully Tuesday.
Sept 27, 2021: Mail & Guardian: Happy Jele has given ‘The Ghost’ much to smile about
“That was music to my ears. And looking around his office, I saw a lot of framed rugby jerseys. I knew they were from players grateful to have been helped and that gave me hope. I did everything he instructed me to do during the rehab programme after the surgery. I also read some positive books such as Robert H Schuller’s Tough Times Never Last But Tough People Do and Joel Osteen’s It’s Your Time, which helped make me strong mentally.”
“That was music to my ears. And looking around his office, I saw a lot of framed rugby jerseys. I knew they were from players grateful to have been helped and that gave me hope. I did everything he instructed me to do during the rehab programme after the surgery. I also read some positive books such as Robert H Schuller’s Tough Times Never Last But Tough People Do and Joel Osteen’s It’s Your Time, which helped make me strong mentally.”
"I was called to start a mission, not a church....you don't try to preach....what is sin and what isn't sin. A mission is a place where you ask nonbelievers to come and find faith and hope and feel love."
--Robert Schuller
--Robert Schuller
robert shuler
July 13, 2020: Baptist News Global: California and the making of American evangelicalism
Robert “Fighting Bob” Shuler — not to be confused with Robert Schuller who later founded the Crystal Cathedral — led the charge for evangelicals to break ranks with the Democratic party. An American evangelist and radio broadcaster, Shuler had been a lifelong Democrat. He possessed a flair for being a combative and accusatory radio personality. After the Federal Radio Commission revoked his broadcasting license for “numerous abuses,” Shuler made a strong but ultimately unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate on the Prohibition ticket. His popularity and political evolution, however, helped open the opportunity for a new alliance between evangelicalism and corporate business.
Robert “Fighting Bob” Shuler — not to be confused with Robert Schuller who later founded the Crystal Cathedral — led the charge for evangelicals to break ranks with the Democratic party. An American evangelist and radio broadcaster, Shuler had been a lifelong Democrat. He possessed a flair for being a combative and accusatory radio personality. After the Federal Radio Commission revoked his broadcasting license for “numerous abuses,” Shuler made a strong but ultimately unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate on the Prohibition ticket. His popularity and political evolution, however, helped open the opportunity for a new alliance between evangelicalism and corporate business.
richard sibbes
Richard Sibbes
In Matthew it is said that he shall 'send forth judgment unto victory' (Matt. 12:20). The word 'send forth' has a stronger sense in the original: to send forth with force; showing that, where his government is in truth, it will be opposed, until he gets the upper hand. Nothing is so opposed as Christ and his government are, both within us and outside us; and within us most in our conversion. Though corruption does not prevail so far as to make void the powerful work of grace, yet there is not only a possibility of opposing, but a proneness to oppose, and not only a proneness, but an actual withstanding of the working of Christ's Spirit, and that in every action. Yet there is no prevailing resistance so far as to make void the work of grace, but corruption in the issue yields to grace. -Richard Sibbes
charles simeon |
Charles Simeon (24 September 1759 – 13 November 1836) was an English evangelical Anglican cleric. He graduated B.A. in 1783 and, in the same year, was ordained a priest of the Church of England. He began his ministry as deputy to Christopher Atkinson (1754–1795) at St Edward King and Martyr, Cambridge. Renowned as a preacher, Simeon helped found the Church Missionary Society (1797) and assisted the newly founded (1804) British and Foreign Bible Society. In his Horae Homileticae, 17 vol. (1819–28; “Homiletic Offices”), he annotated the entire Bible for sermon material. In order to ensure the continuity of Evangelical teaching, he established (1816) the Simeon Trust to purchase the right to appoint clergymen to livings.
Charles Simeon
"Be not afraid, neither be dismayed; for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go," said the Lord to Joshua; and He says the same to us, "Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world! Matthew 28:20." Now, imagine a soldier with his commander and his prince always at his side; would he not be stirred up by that to acts of valor, which, in the absence of such a stimulus, he would be unable to put forth? Know, then, that your God is ever with you; and with you, not only as a Witness of your actions, but as a Helper, to strengthen you, to uphold you, to combat with you. What encouragement can you desire beyond this? Hear his own words, addressed to every soldier in his army, "Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you; yes, I will help you; yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness! Isaiah 41:10."
What does it matter, then, how many there may be against you? If they were as numerous as the sands upon the sea-shore, you may boldly say, "There are more with you than with them." In fact, "If God is for you, who can be against you?" They may assault you, and boast of their triumphs; but they can do nothing, but in accordance with his will, and in subserviency to his designs. --Charles Simeon
What does it matter, then, how many there may be against you? If they were as numerous as the sands upon the sea-shore, you may boldly say, "There are more with you than with them." In fact, "If God is for you, who can be against you?" They may assault you, and boast of their triumphs; but they can do nothing, but in accordance with his will, and in subserviency to his designs. --Charles Simeon
Dec 24, 2022: The Critic: What church for what England?
The chapter on the evangelical revival of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is fascinating in its examination of the success in organisational terms of the movement. Charles Simeon’s policy of buying up patronage of parishes to ensure an evangelical succession is partly responsible for the maintenance of evangelicalism to this day. The nineteenth century is the time of missionary endeavours, but Morris is unable to follow these in any detail — only gesture towards the importance of empire and the Anglican communion, since these lie beyond his remit. Perhaps, this will be his next project, although so great is the acrimony between Anglican Churches of the north and south, that it will be a gloomy volume. One note of hope in the Victorian period is the evidence of a strong and often successful response by the Church to industrialism and urbanization in the form of church building and pastoral provision, even if its reach to the working-class was patchy.
The chapter on the evangelical revival of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is fascinating in its examination of the success in organisational terms of the movement. Charles Simeon’s policy of buying up patronage of parishes to ensure an evangelical succession is partly responsible for the maintenance of evangelicalism to this day. The nineteenth century is the time of missionary endeavours, but Morris is unable to follow these in any detail — only gesture towards the importance of empire and the Anglican communion, since these lie beyond his remit. Perhaps, this will be his next project, although so great is the acrimony between Anglican Churches of the north and south, that it will be a gloomy volume. One note of hope in the Victorian period is the evidence of a strong and often successful response by the Church to industrialism and urbanization in the form of church building and pastoral provision, even if its reach to the working-class was patchy.
April 15, 1989: Desiring God : Brothers, We Must Not Mind a Little Suffering
Meditations on the Life of Charles Simeon 1989 Bethlehem Conference for Pastors
Meditations on the Life of Charles Simeon 1989 Bethlehem Conference for Pastors
Charles Simeon
My dear brother, we must not mind a little suffering for Christ’s sake. When I am getting through a hedge, if my head and shoulders are safely through, I can bear the pricking of my legs. Let us rejoice in the remembrance that our holy Head has surmounted all His suffering and triumphed over death. Let us follow Him patiently; we shall soon be partakers of His victory” (H.C.G. Moule, Charles Simeon, London: InterVarsity, 1948, 155f.).
My dear brother, we must not mind a little suffering for Christ’s sake. When I am getting through a hedge, if my head and shoulders are safely through, I can bear the pricking of my legs. Let us rejoice in the remembrance that our holy Head has surmounted all His suffering and triumphed over death. Let us follow Him patiently; we shall soon be partakers of His victory” (H.C.G. Moule, Charles Simeon, London: InterVarsity, 1948, 155f.).
Charles Simeon
“I love the simplicity of the Scriptures, and I wish to receive and inculcate every truth precisely in the way, and to the extent, that it is set forth in the sacred Volume. Were this the habit of all divines, there would soon be an end to most of the controversies that have agitated and divided the Church of Christ. My endeavor is to bring out of Scripture what is there, and not to thrust in what I think might be there. I have a great jealousy on this head—never to speak more or less than I believe to be the mind of the Spirit in the passage I am expounding. I would run after nothing, and shun nothing. . . . The truth is not in the middle, and not in one extreme, but in both extremes. . . . I formerly read Aristotle, and liked him much. I have since read Paul, and caught somewhat of his strange notions, oscillating (not vacillating) from pole to pole. Sometimes I am a high Calvinist, at other times a low Arminian, so that if extremes will please you, I am your man. Only remember, it is not one extreme that we are to go to but both extremes.”
— Charles Simeon, quoted in H. C. G. Moule, Charles Simeon (London, 1956), pages 77-78.
— Charles Simeon, quoted in H. C. G. Moule, Charles Simeon (London, 1956), pages 77-78.
ab simpson
AB Simpson
Faith is necessary in order to have acceptable and effectual prayer. This our Lord very distinctly states in this passage. He commands the disciples to have faith in God, and then adds, “When ye pray, believe that ye receive them.” But this is not the only place where this necessity is emphasized, for we are told in Hebrews that “without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” There must be a believing recognition of God’s personal existence and of His goodness and graciousness, and that He does hear and answer prayer.
So, again, in speaking of prayer for healing, it is declared that “the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up.” If we would understand what James means by the prayer of faith, we have only to turn to the first chapter and hear him say, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally” (or rather, “of course”), “but let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.” The language here is very emphatic. “Of course” God will give to all, but they must take by faith what God gives, or the giving is in vain. The man who wavers does not take, cannot receive. He is like that poor victim in the hospital who died in agony, with water held to his lips, but unable to swallow a single drop through the spasms which contracted his throat, arising from the most terrific of all human diseases. There are people to whom the Lord gives the Water of Life, but they will not drink it. There are people whose tables God has spread with the blessings of faith, but they do not partake of its bounties. There are prayers which God has answered, but we do not enjoy the answers. There are souls whom God has long ago forgiven, but they are in darkness and despair because they did not trust His pardon. Therefore, when the troubled and despairing father came to Him about his child, crying, “I spake to thy disciples that they should cast him out; and they could not . . . but if thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us, ” the Master simply answered, as He turned the whole question back upon the man, “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.”
It is perfectly right that God should require us to believe before He answers our prayers, because faith is the law of the New Testament and the gospel dispensation. The Apostle Paul speaks of two laws in the third chapter of Romans, the law of works and the law of faith. The former has been superseded, and the principle on which the whole gospel is based is the law of faith. “To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” We have already suggested why this law has been adopted. No doubt in the light of eternity we shall find many reasons for it which we could not now fully apprehend, but it is enough to know that as it was through unbelief that men fell, so it is through faith that they must be restored. In a word, we must come back to the point from which we started in a wrong direction. When Bunyan’s pilgrim found that he had lost his roll on the Hill of Difficulty, he simply went back to the place where he had lost it and started on again. And so we must begin at the point of departure from God, by learning to trust Him. God is bound to act upon this principle if it be the law of this dispensation, and He cannot justly acknowledge our plea if we do not present it according to the prescribed rule. --AB Simpson
So, again, in speaking of prayer for healing, it is declared that “the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up.” If we would understand what James means by the prayer of faith, we have only to turn to the first chapter and hear him say, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally” (or rather, “of course”), “but let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.” The language here is very emphatic. “Of course” God will give to all, but they must take by faith what God gives, or the giving is in vain. The man who wavers does not take, cannot receive. He is like that poor victim in the hospital who died in agony, with water held to his lips, but unable to swallow a single drop through the spasms which contracted his throat, arising from the most terrific of all human diseases. There are people to whom the Lord gives the Water of Life, but they will not drink it. There are people whose tables God has spread with the blessings of faith, but they do not partake of its bounties. There are prayers which God has answered, but we do not enjoy the answers. There are souls whom God has long ago forgiven, but they are in darkness and despair because they did not trust His pardon. Therefore, when the troubled and despairing father came to Him about his child, crying, “I spake to thy disciples that they should cast him out; and they could not . . . but if thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us, ” the Master simply answered, as He turned the whole question back upon the man, “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.”
It is perfectly right that God should require us to believe before He answers our prayers, because faith is the law of the New Testament and the gospel dispensation. The Apostle Paul speaks of two laws in the third chapter of Romans, the law of works and the law of faith. The former has been superseded, and the principle on which the whole gospel is based is the law of faith. “To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” We have already suggested why this law has been adopted. No doubt in the light of eternity we shall find many reasons for it which we could not now fully apprehend, but it is enough to know that as it was through unbelief that men fell, so it is through faith that they must be restored. In a word, we must come back to the point from which we started in a wrong direction. When Bunyan’s pilgrim found that he had lost his roll on the Hill of Difficulty, he simply went back to the place where he had lost it and started on again. And so we must begin at the point of departure from God, by learning to trust Him. God is bound to act upon this principle if it be the law of this dispensation, and He cannot justly acknowledge our plea if we do not present it according to the prescribed rule. --AB Simpson
ichabod spencer
Ichabod Spencer
Thoughtlessness is the common origin of unconcern. We do a far better office for men when we lead them to think, than when we think for them. A man’s own thoughts are the most powerful of all preaching. The Holy Spirit operates very much by leading men to reflection—to employ their own mind. I should hesitate to interrupt the religious reflections of any man in the world, by the most important thing I could say to him. If I am sure he will think, I will consent to be still. But men are prone to be thoughtless, and we must speak to them to lead them to reflection.
– Ichabod Spencer; A Pastor’s Sketches
– Ichabod Spencer; A Pastor’s Sketches
john shelby spong
John Shelby "Jack" Spong (June 16, 1931 – September 12, 2021) was an American bishop of the Episcopal Church, born in Charlotte, North Carolina. He served as the Bishop of Newark, New Jersey from 1979 to 2000. Spong was a liberal Christian theologian, religion commentator, and author, who called for a fundamental rethinking of Christian belief away from theism and traditional doctrines. He was known for his progressive and controversial views on Christianity, including his rejection of traditional Christian doctrines, his advocacy for LGBTQ rights, and his support for interfaith dialogue. Spong was the recipient of many awards, including 1999 Humanist of the Year. He was a contributor to the Living the Questions DVD program and was a guest on numerous national television broadcasts. Spong died on September 12, 2021, at his home in Richmond, Virginia, at the age of 90. (SOURCE: Wikipedia)
Dec 30, 2021: Religion News: Observers, detractors and preachers of religion who died in 2021
Bishop John Shelby Spong. The progressive theologian was the first to ordain an openly gay male priest in the Episcopal Church, in 1989. Spong died on Sept. 12 at age 90.
He eventually ordained three dozen LGBTQ clergy in the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, New Jersey, and made sure any diocesan church seeking a new priest interview at least one woman candidate.
The author of more than a dozen books, including “Living in Sin: A Bishop Rethinks Human Sexuality,” he would draw hundreds of people during his book tours. He defended his rejection of miracles and denial of Christian doctrines such as the resurrection of Jesus and the virgin birth.
“We’re space-age people,” he told Religion News Service in 2013. “All I’m saying is that the world the Christian church was born in is not the world we live in, and if you confine it to the world it was born in, Christianity will die, because that world is dying.”
Bishop John Shelby Spong. The progressive theologian was the first to ordain an openly gay male priest in the Episcopal Church, in 1989. Spong died on Sept. 12 at age 90.
He eventually ordained three dozen LGBTQ clergy in the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, New Jersey, and made sure any diocesan church seeking a new priest interview at least one woman candidate.
The author of more than a dozen books, including “Living in Sin: A Bishop Rethinks Human Sexuality,” he would draw hundreds of people during his book tours. He defended his rejection of miracles and denial of Christian doctrines such as the resurrection of Jesus and the virgin birth.
“We’re space-age people,” he told Religion News Service in 2013. “All I’m saying is that the world the Christian church was born in is not the world we live in, and if you confine it to the world it was born in, Christianity will die, because that world is dying.”
John Shelby Spong
Apologetic explanations do not develop unless there is a reality that has to be explained and defended. Jesus was undeniably a figure of history. --John Shelby "Jack" Spong
Apologetic explanations do not develop unless there is a reality that has to be explained and defended. Jesus was undeniably a figure of history. --John Shelby "Jack" Spong
John Shelby Spong
Christianity is not about the divine becoming human so much as it is about the human becoming divine. That is a paradigm shift of the first order.
--John Shelby "Jack" Spong
Christianity is not about the divine becoming human so much as it is about the human becoming divine. That is a paradigm shift of the first order.
--John Shelby "Jack" Spong
jimmy stauddy
Nov 19, 2009: Picayune Item: Rural Miss. church mourns stabbing death of pastor
Authorities said Tuesday that no one had been arrested in the slayings of the Rev. Jimmy Stauddy and his caregiver, Martha Stoker. Stauddy, 69, was a retired Grenada police investigator and had worked in the Greenwood office of the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics. He had been a minister more than four decades and in 2002 became pastor of Minter City United Methodist Church, a congregation of about 20 in Leflore County.
Authorities said Tuesday that no one had been arrested in the slayings of the Rev. Jimmy Stauddy and his caregiver, Martha Stoker. Stauddy, 69, was a retired Grenada police investigator and had worked in the Greenwood office of the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics. He had been a minister more than four decades and in 2002 became pastor of Minter City United Methodist Church, a congregation of about 20 in Leflore County.
isaac stavely
Sept 2, 2022: Michael AG Haykin: Desiring God: A Meal for the Journey
“May these precious seasons make me fruitful.” These words, found in the diary of a certain Isaac Staveley, who worked as a clerk for coal merchants in London during the 1770s, were written after he had celebrated the Lord’s Supper with his church, Eagle Street Baptist Church, in 1771.
In the rest of this diary, Staveley makes it evident that the celebration of the death of the Christ at the Table was a highlight of his Christian life. In the evening of March 3, he recorded that he and fellow members “came around the table of our dear dying Lord to feast on the sacrifice of his offered body, show his death afresh, to claim and recognise our interest therein, to feast on the sacrifice of his offered body as happy members of the same family of faith and love.” How many today view the Table this way?
“May these precious seasons make me fruitful.” These words, found in the diary of a certain Isaac Staveley, who worked as a clerk for coal merchants in London during the 1770s, were written after he had celebrated the Lord’s Supper with his church, Eagle Street Baptist Church, in 1771.
In the rest of this diary, Staveley makes it evident that the celebration of the death of the Christ at the Table was a highlight of his Christian life. In the evening of March 3, he recorded that he and fellow members “came around the table of our dear dying Lord to feast on the sacrifice of his offered body, show his death afresh, to claim and recognise our interest therein, to feast on the sacrifice of his offered body as happy members of the same family of faith and love.” How many today view the Table this way?
Dr H Steinthal
Heymann or Hermann Steinthal (16 May 1823 – 14 March 1899) was a German philologist and philosopher. He studied philology and philosophy at the University of Berlin, and was in 1850 appointed Privatdozent of philology and mythology at that institution. He was influenced by Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose Sprachwissenschaftliche Werke he edited in 1884. From 1852 to 1855 Steinthal resided in Paris, where he devoted himself to the study of Chinese, and in 1863 he was appointed assistant professor at the Berlin University; from 1872 he was also privat-dozent in critical history of the Old Testament and in religious philosophy at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judenthums. In 1860 he founded, together with his brother-in-law Moritz Lazarus, the Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft, in which was established the new science of comparative ('folk') psychology, the Völkerpsychologie. Steinthal was one of the directors (from 1883) of the Deutsch-Israelitischer Gemeindebund [de], and had charge of the department of religious instruction in various small congregations.
Dr. H. Steinthal Files
It is surprising how the evidences of divine wisdom and fore- sight thicken about him, who has once commenced to observe them. The defect of one of the smallest members of the hu- man frame would have rendered all the skill with which the rest was constructed abortive, and have made man’s creation a failure. Without the eye, for instance, mankind could not have subsisted. Without the tongue they would have remained for ever in a state of idiocy or barbarism. There is no more elementary truth in human advancement, than that mind must be acted on by mind in order to its culture and development. The material world furnishes an abundance of objects for every sense, and its phenomena afford endless food for reflection. But in order that the spirit may be brought to act upon what is thus furnished for it, it must be roused and stimulated by spirit. “ Iron sharpeneth iron,” said the wisest of men ; “ so a man sharpened the countenance of his friend.” A man isolated from his species from the first moment of his being, would of necessity be scarcely lifted above the brutes. Only by intercourse with his fellows can he be humanized. Hence language, the medium of intercourse between man and man, is the great humanizer ; and without the gift of speech civilization and culture would be impossible. How sublime in its simplicity, and how grand in its results, is this conception of making thought audible, and opening thus, through the medium of an outward sense, communication between mind and mind ! These invisible, intangible, immaterial, mysterious agents within us can thus be brought in contact: the thoughts, ideas, feelings, knowledge, experience of one can be forthwith imparted to another. The man of hoary hairs can put the stripling, in the outset of his course, in possession of that which he laboured long years to obtain. The man of earnest thought can stamp his impress upon those around him, and waken in them an activity like his own. Set free by the faculty of speech, man’s spirit no longer lives alone, shut up a prisoner in solitary confinement in its mortal cell. The doors are thrown wide open and the man is set in living connection with all around him. Knowledge no longer streams in barely through his single perceptions, or is the product of his single reflections. The eyes of those around see for him : their minds think for him ; for their experience and their thoughts can now be added to his own. And his intellectual power and wealth grows without limit, as the tiny drop, by kindred drops falling thick and fast around it in a summer’s shower, forms first a rill, a rivulet, a brook, a river, and at last a flood.
And yet the sphere of man, though thus vastly widened by the gift of speech, is still narrow and contracted. Speech has opened communication for us with a little circle just around us, those whom we personally meet. If we would gather up the experience of men in other lands, and add their thoughts to our own, we must, like the wise men of ancient times, Pythagoras, Plato, Herodotus, travel far and near. But few can do this jand how few of their species can he personally visited, even by those who do possess ability to travel ! From how large a part of the race are we necessarily cut off! And then the men of past generations are buried in the dust. Are they by con- sequence lost for ever to the world ? And have all their earnest thoughts and zealous labours, and careful observations been sunk irrecoverably like lead in the wide waste of waters ? Have all the genius, and the intellect of former days vanished thus, leaving no trace behind ? And must those of each age be in this way lost to their successors ? Who will give to the absent a tongue, and to the dead a tongue ? We need an instrument to annihilate for us time and space, and to prevent this monstrous waste of intellectual power and acquisition; to take the evanescent thought, and to convert it—not into an equally evanescent sound that dies away upon the ear as soon as it is uttered, but give to it a permanent and tangible and portable form. We need some magic wand, some potent spell to give immortality to thoughts ; to bring around us the great and good of this and of every land, of this and of all past ages, and bid them talk with us at our own homes, and unlade all the wdsdom they have gathered at our feet ; to put our minds into living contact with all the world at once, and all who have ever lived, so that all their rich furniture of cultivated thought and pure and elevated taste, and ripe judgment and matured experience, the intellec- tual treasures of mankind gathered through long ages, may be displayed before us. This would sound like some wild dream of enchantment, had it not all been realized, and that by a method as simple in its principles as its results are magnificent.
You can sit in your library, in your easy chair, with your fire blazing brightly on your own hearth before you, and you can there converse with men of every age and every clime. You can travel back long centuries before the Christian era, and can stand face to face with Moses and Solomon and Isaiah. Or you can sit at the feet of the Son of God himself, or talk with his apostles of all that they were commissioned to make known of the salvation he achieved. Turn to Grecian antiquity ; and the father of history will tell you all that he could learn in his long journeys and careful observations of the state and origin of ancient empires. Blind old Ilomer will sing again for youhis immortal song. Demosthenes will thunder as of old at the rostrum. Socrates and Plato and Aristotle will entertain you with their profound and elaborate inquiries. Or Rome will send you her historians and poets and orators and logicians and philosophers, all ready in their turn to communicate to you their maturest thoughts, their most brilliant conceptions, and their gathered stores of knowledge. Still seated by your own cheerful fireside, you can follow down the stream of time, and summon around you, at your bidding, the rare, commanding intellects of each successive age—those who have toiled most and achieved most in any favourite department of thought or learn- ing—till you come to the busy, bustling present. And then, if you choose, you can take up the newspaper of to-day, and learn what twenty millions have been seeing and hearing and thinking and doing yesterday, from Maine to Louisiana—in fact, what has, within a few weeks, been taking place all round the globe. You have, thus, the whole civilized world put into your service; looking out for you, listening for you, labouring to increase your stores. The astronomer, with his telescope, be he at Harvard, at Greenwich, at Berlin, or at Washington, is deter- mining for you the magnitudes and movements of the stars. The chemist is experimenting for you in his laboratory. The geologist is examining for you the structure of the earth. The traveller is inspecting for you the manners and the sights of foreign climes. The antiquarian is digging for you among the hoary ruins of Nineveh and Thebes. The orator, the metaphysician, the poet, are busy, each with their several labours, that they may increase the stores of your intellect, or add to the refinement of your taste. You have all the intellect of the world, all the eyes and ears and fingers of ancient and of modern times laid under contribution : the entire results of their labours are at your service. Instead of picking up scanty bits of knowledge by your single observations, with no assist- tance and no stimulus, nothing but the natural and uninstructed workings of your single powers, you have here gathered into one accessible and available mass the combined labours, experience, and reflections of the greatest sages, most profound thinkers, and acute observers. This is what our fairy has achieved. The fairy’s name is Writing—her magic wand,the pen. Her office is to record thought; no matter how that record be made, so that it be brought into a permanent, accessible, intelligible form, for the use of other men and other times. This alone gives permanence to intellectual achievements, and makes progressive advances in knowledge and civil- ization possible. But for this, the acquisitions of each generation would be buried with it, and an increase of knowledge from age to age would be as impossible as it was in the old mythology, for the daughters of Danaus to fill with water their casks without a bottom.
---Dr. H. Steinthal; The Origin of Writing; 1854
And yet the sphere of man, though thus vastly widened by the gift of speech, is still narrow and contracted. Speech has opened communication for us with a little circle just around us, those whom we personally meet. If we would gather up the experience of men in other lands, and add their thoughts to our own, we must, like the wise men of ancient times, Pythagoras, Plato, Herodotus, travel far and near. But few can do this jand how few of their species can he personally visited, even by those who do possess ability to travel ! From how large a part of the race are we necessarily cut off! And then the men of past generations are buried in the dust. Are they by con- sequence lost for ever to the world ? And have all their earnest thoughts and zealous labours, and careful observations been sunk irrecoverably like lead in the wide waste of waters ? Have all the genius, and the intellect of former days vanished thus, leaving no trace behind ? And must those of each age be in this way lost to their successors ? Who will give to the absent a tongue, and to the dead a tongue ? We need an instrument to annihilate for us time and space, and to prevent this monstrous waste of intellectual power and acquisition; to take the evanescent thought, and to convert it—not into an equally evanescent sound that dies away upon the ear as soon as it is uttered, but give to it a permanent and tangible and portable form. We need some magic wand, some potent spell to give immortality to thoughts ; to bring around us the great and good of this and of every land, of this and of all past ages, and bid them talk with us at our own homes, and unlade all the wdsdom they have gathered at our feet ; to put our minds into living contact with all the world at once, and all who have ever lived, so that all their rich furniture of cultivated thought and pure and elevated taste, and ripe judgment and matured experience, the intellec- tual treasures of mankind gathered through long ages, may be displayed before us. This would sound like some wild dream of enchantment, had it not all been realized, and that by a method as simple in its principles as its results are magnificent.
You can sit in your library, in your easy chair, with your fire blazing brightly on your own hearth before you, and you can there converse with men of every age and every clime. You can travel back long centuries before the Christian era, and can stand face to face with Moses and Solomon and Isaiah. Or you can sit at the feet of the Son of God himself, or talk with his apostles of all that they were commissioned to make known of the salvation he achieved. Turn to Grecian antiquity ; and the father of history will tell you all that he could learn in his long journeys and careful observations of the state and origin of ancient empires. Blind old Ilomer will sing again for youhis immortal song. Demosthenes will thunder as of old at the rostrum. Socrates and Plato and Aristotle will entertain you with their profound and elaborate inquiries. Or Rome will send you her historians and poets and orators and logicians and philosophers, all ready in their turn to communicate to you their maturest thoughts, their most brilliant conceptions, and their gathered stores of knowledge. Still seated by your own cheerful fireside, you can follow down the stream of time, and summon around you, at your bidding, the rare, commanding intellects of each successive age—those who have toiled most and achieved most in any favourite department of thought or learn- ing—till you come to the busy, bustling present. And then, if you choose, you can take up the newspaper of to-day, and learn what twenty millions have been seeing and hearing and thinking and doing yesterday, from Maine to Louisiana—in fact, what has, within a few weeks, been taking place all round the globe. You have, thus, the whole civilized world put into your service; looking out for you, listening for you, labouring to increase your stores. The astronomer, with his telescope, be he at Harvard, at Greenwich, at Berlin, or at Washington, is deter- mining for you the magnitudes and movements of the stars. The chemist is experimenting for you in his laboratory. The geologist is examining for you the structure of the earth. The traveller is inspecting for you the manners and the sights of foreign climes. The antiquarian is digging for you among the hoary ruins of Nineveh and Thebes. The orator, the metaphysician, the poet, are busy, each with their several labours, that they may increase the stores of your intellect, or add to the refinement of your taste. You have all the intellect of the world, all the eyes and ears and fingers of ancient and of modern times laid under contribution : the entire results of their labours are at your service. Instead of picking up scanty bits of knowledge by your single observations, with no assist- tance and no stimulus, nothing but the natural and uninstructed workings of your single powers, you have here gathered into one accessible and available mass the combined labours, experience, and reflections of the greatest sages, most profound thinkers, and acute observers. This is what our fairy has achieved. The fairy’s name is Writing—her magic wand,the pen. Her office is to record thought; no matter how that record be made, so that it be brought into a permanent, accessible, intelligible form, for the use of other men and other times. This alone gives permanence to intellectual achievements, and makes progressive advances in knowledge and civil- ization possible. But for this, the acquisitions of each generation would be buried with it, and an increase of knowledge from age to age would be as impossible as it was in the old mythology, for the daughters of Danaus to fill with water their casks without a bottom.
---Dr. H. Steinthal; The Origin of Writing; 1854
timothy stewart
Dec 30, 2021: Religion News: Observers, detractors and preachers of religion who died in 2021
The Rev. Timothy Stewart. The president of the Progressive National Baptist Convention was the first top leader of the historically Black denomination from its international region.
Stewart died Sept. 17 at the age of 64.
He had served three years of his four-year term and presided over the August virtual annual session of the denomination that was home to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Stewart had been pastor of Bethel Baptist Church in his native Nassau, Bahamas, since he was 25. He also was a civic leader, serving as a board member of the Bahamas Development Bank, a member of the Bahamas Juvenile Panel and a chaplain to the country’s House of Assembly.
He led the PNBC’s fundraising efforts when Hurricane Dorian hit the Bahamas in 2019 and supplies were needed for its devastated islands.
In the storm’s aftermath, Stewart told RNS he did not feel his faith was being tested “I believe that this tragedy gives me an opportunity to affirm my faith and to apply my faith,” he told RNS. “In spite and in light of what has been a very tragic, very horrendous situation, we are forced to still see the grace of God.”
The Rev. Timothy Stewart. The president of the Progressive National Baptist Convention was the first top leader of the historically Black denomination from its international region.
Stewart died Sept. 17 at the age of 64.
He had served three years of his four-year term and presided over the August virtual annual session of the denomination that was home to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Stewart had been pastor of Bethel Baptist Church in his native Nassau, Bahamas, since he was 25. He also was a civic leader, serving as a board member of the Bahamas Development Bank, a member of the Bahamas Juvenile Panel and a chaplain to the country’s House of Assembly.
He led the PNBC’s fundraising efforts when Hurricane Dorian hit the Bahamas in 2019 and supplies were needed for its devastated islands.
In the storm’s aftermath, Stewart told RNS he did not feel his faith was being tested “I believe that this tragedy gives me an opportunity to affirm my faith and to apply my faith,” he told RNS. “In spite and in light of what has been a very tragic, very horrendous situation, we are forced to still see the grace of God.”
william still |
- Temple University - Wikipedia -
|
William Still (October 7, 1821 – July 14, 1902) was an African-American abolitionist based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was a conductor of the Underground Railroad and was responsible for aiding and assisting at least 649 slaves to freedom towards North. Still was also a businessman, writer, historian and civil rights activist. Before the American Civil War, Still was chairman of the Vigilance Committee of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, named the Vigilant Association of Philadelphia. He directly aided fugitive slaves and also kept records of the people served in order to help families reunite.
He also advocated for temperance which motivated him to organize a mission Sabbath School for the Presbyterian Church. He was a member of the Freedmen's Aid Union and Commission, an officer of the Philadelphia Home for the Aged and Infirm Colored Persons, and an elder in the Presbyterian church (where he established Sabbath Schools to promote literacy including among freed blacks).
William Still is best known for his self-published book The Underground Railroad (1872) where he documented the stories of formerly enslaved Africans who gained their freedom by escaping bondage. Still’s The Underground Railroad is the only first person account of Black activities on the Underground Railroad written and self-published by an African American. He hired agents to sell the book. His book went through three editions and was exhibited in 1876 at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. Still would continue to write. In 1874, he published An Address on Voting and Laboring where he justified his support for the reform candidate as oppose to the Republican candidate for mayor of Philadelphia.
He also advocated for temperance which motivated him to organize a mission Sabbath School for the Presbyterian Church. He was a member of the Freedmen's Aid Union and Commission, an officer of the Philadelphia Home for the Aged and Infirm Colored Persons, and an elder in the Presbyterian church (where he established Sabbath Schools to promote literacy including among freed blacks).
William Still is best known for his self-published book The Underground Railroad (1872) where he documented the stories of formerly enslaved Africans who gained their freedom by escaping bondage. Still’s The Underground Railroad is the only first person account of Black activities on the Underground Railroad written and self-published by an African American. He hired agents to sell the book. His book went through three editions and was exhibited in 1876 at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. Still would continue to write. In 1874, he published An Address on Voting and Laboring where he justified his support for the reform candidate as oppose to the Republican candidate for mayor of Philadelphia.
May 7, 2023: Los Angeles Review of Books: A Historian Forgotten: On Andrew Diemer’s “Vigilance”
SOMETIME IN the fall of 1848, Henry Brown, an enslaved person living in Richmond, Virginia, made a decision. After watching slave traders carry away his wife and children, he vowed to escape to the North and raise enough money to buy his family’s freedom.
But how to do it? Escaping slavery was always dangerous, especially when fleeing from a city as far south as Richmond. His answer: a box. Against the advice of a white shopkeeper who agreed to help him, Brown decided on a far-fetched plan to pack himself inside a shipping crate and mail himself to the offices of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society at 107 North 5th Street in Philadelphia. The half-day voyage turned into a 27-hour journey, but Brown arrived safely, cramped but alive.
One of the men who welcomed Brown as he struggled out of the crate was a young Black office clerk named William Still. In the coming years, Still would lead Philadelphia’s local Vigilance Committee, an organization dedicated to stowing away hundreds, if not thousands, of freedom seekers as conductors on the Underground Railroad—the network of loosely aligned agents that illegally aided enslaved people as they escaped to freedom in the years before the Civil War.
SOMETIME IN the fall of 1848, Henry Brown, an enslaved person living in Richmond, Virginia, made a decision. After watching slave traders carry away his wife and children, he vowed to escape to the North and raise enough money to buy his family’s freedom.
But how to do it? Escaping slavery was always dangerous, especially when fleeing from a city as far south as Richmond. His answer: a box. Against the advice of a white shopkeeper who agreed to help him, Brown decided on a far-fetched plan to pack himself inside a shipping crate and mail himself to the offices of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society at 107 North 5th Street in Philadelphia. The half-day voyage turned into a 27-hour journey, but Brown arrived safely, cramped but alive.
One of the men who welcomed Brown as he struggled out of the crate was a young Black office clerk named William Still. In the coming years, Still would lead Philadelphia’s local Vigilance Committee, an organization dedicated to stowing away hundreds, if not thousands, of freedom seekers as conductors on the Underground Railroad—the network of loosely aligned agents that illegally aided enslaved people as they escaped to freedom in the years before the Civil War.
God has caused you to become pastor to some souls here who are as valuable to Him as any in the world–your quiet persistence will be a sign that you believe God has a purpose of grace for this people, and that htis purpose of grace will be promoted, not by gimmicks, or stunts, or newe ideas, but by the Word of God released in preaching by prayer.
--William Still; The Work of the Pastor
--William Still; The Work of the Pastor
To be true pastors, your whole life must be spent knowing the truth of this Word, not only verbally, propositionally, theologically, ut religiously, that is, devotionally, morally, in worshipping Him whom it reveals, and in personal obedience to Him whose commands it contains, in all the promised grace and threat of those commands. To be pastors you must be ‘fed men’, not only in knowledge, but in wisdom, grace, humility, courage, fear of God, and fearlessness of men
--William Still; The Work of the Pastor
--William Still; The Work of the Pastor
William Still
It is to feed the sheep on [biblical] truth that men are called to churches and congregations, whatever they may think they are called to do. If you think that you are called to keep a largely worldly organization, miscalled a church, going, with infinitesimal doses of innocuous sub-Christian drugs or stimulants, then the only help I can give you is to advise you to give up the hope of the ministry and go and be a street scavenger; a far healthier and more godly job, keeping the streets tidy, than cluttering the church with a lot of worldly claptrap in the delusion that you are doing a job for God. The pastor is called to feed the sheep, even if the sheep do not want to be fed. He is certainly not to become an entertainer of goats. Let goats entertain goats, and let them do it out in goatland. You will certainly not turn goats into sheep by pandering to their goatishness. Do we really believe that the Word of God, by His Spirit, changes, as well as maddens men? If we do, to be evangelists and pastors, feeders of sheep, we must be men of the Word of God.
--William Still; The Work of the Pastor
--William Still; The Work of the Pastor
john stott
sohaib nazeer sultan
Dec 30, 2021: Religion News: Observers, detractors and preachers of religion who died in 2021
Imam Sohaib Nazeer Sultan. The interfaith leader was Princeton University’s Muslim chaplain and the author of the 2004 book “The Koran for Dummies.”
Sultan died on April 16 at age 40 after a diagnosis of a rare form of cancer. Known for his faith-inspired compassionate view of life, he was a public lecturer and writer on Islam, Interfaith America noted. His interfaith work aimed to build bridges between Muslims and people of other faiths.
Prior to his Princeton role, Sultan was the first Muslim chaplain at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. In a YouTube conversation with Vineet Chander, Princeton’s Hindu chaplain, Sultan spoke about the role of rahmat, or mercy or grace, in accepting death: “Nobody wants to leave this world, there are too many attachments. … Whether you’re 40, or 80, or 120, you never want to leave, but at some point, you have to leave. This is the way that God has decreed the way the world to be.”
Imam Sohaib Nazeer Sultan. The interfaith leader was Princeton University’s Muslim chaplain and the author of the 2004 book “The Koran for Dummies.”
Sultan died on April 16 at age 40 after a diagnosis of a rare form of cancer. Known for his faith-inspired compassionate view of life, he was a public lecturer and writer on Islam, Interfaith America noted. His interfaith work aimed to build bridges between Muslims and people of other faiths.
Prior to his Princeton role, Sultan was the first Muslim chaplain at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. In a YouTube conversation with Vineet Chander, Princeton’s Hindu chaplain, Sultan spoke about the role of rahmat, or mercy or grace, in accepting death: “Nobody wants to leave this world, there are too many attachments. … Whether you’re 40, or 80, or 120, you never want to leave, but at some point, you have to leave. This is the way that God has decreed the way the world to be.”
Emanuel Swedenborg
Emanuel Swedenborg (Swedish born Emanuel Swedberg; 1688 – 29 March 1772) was a Swedish pluralistic-Christian theologian, scientist, philosopher and mystic. He became best known for his book on the afterlife, Heaven and Hell (1758).
Emanuel Swedenborg Files
"When it is known that there is both an internal and an external man, and that truths and goods flow in from, or through, the internal man to the external, from the Lord, although it does not so appear, then those truths and goods, or the knowledges of the true and the good in the regenerating man, are stored up in his memory, and are classed among its knowledges (scientifica); for whatsoever is insinuated into the memory of the external man, whether it be natural, or spiritual, or celestial, abides there as memory-knowledge (scientificum), and is brought forth thence by the Lord. These knowledges are the "waters gathered together into one place," and are called "seas," but the external man himself is called the "dry (land)," and presently "earth," as in what follows. --E. Swedenborg 1668-1772
E. Swedenborg
And in the midst of the seven lampstands One like unto the Son of man, signifies the Lord as to the Word, from whom that church is. It is known from the Word, that the Lord called Himself "the Son of God," and also "the Son of man;" that by "the Son of God" He meant Himself as to the Divine Human, and by the "Son of man," Himself as to the Word, is fully demonstrated in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem concerning the Lord (L n. 19-28); and as it is there fully confirmed from the Word, it is unnecessary to add any further confirmation here. Now, because the Lord represented Himself before John as the Word, therefore as seen by him, He is called "the Son of man." He represented Himself as the Word, because the New Church is treated of, which is a church from the Word, and according to the understanding of it. That the church is from the Word, and that such as its understanding of the Word is, such is the church, may be seen in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem concerning the Sacred Scripture (Sacred n. 76-79). As the church is a church from the Lord through the Word, therefore the Son of man was seen in the midst of the lampstands; "in the midst" signifies in the inmost, from which the things which are round about, or which are without, derive their essence, here, their light or intelligence. That the inmost is the all in the things which are round about, or without, is shown in many places in The Angelic Wisdom concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom; it is like light and flame in the midst, from which all the circumferences receive light and heat. "In the midst," has the same signification in the following passages in the Word:--
Cry out and shout, O inhabitant of Zion; for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee (Isa. 12:6).
God is my King working salvation in the midst of the earth (Ps. 74:12). God doing mercy in the midst of the temple (Ps. 48:9).
God standeth in the assembly of God; he will judge in the midst of the gods (Ps. 82:1).
They are called "gods" who are in Divine truths from the Lord, and, abstractly, the truths themselves:--
Behold, I send an angel before thee; beware of his face, for My name is in the midst of him (Exod. 23:20, 21).
"The name of Jehovah" is all the Divine; "in the midst," is in the inmost, and thence in everything of it. "The midst" also signifies the inmost, and thence the all, in many other passages in the Word, where evils are also treated of, as in (Isa. 24:13; Jer. 23:9; Ps. 5:9; Jer. 9:4, 5; Ps. 36:1; 55:4; 62:4). These passages are adduced in order to show, that "in the midst of the lampstands" signifies in the inmost, from which the church and everything of it is derived; for the church and everything of it is from the Lord through the Word.
--E. Swedenborg (1688-1772)
Cry out and shout, O inhabitant of Zion; for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee (Isa. 12:6).
God is my King working salvation in the midst of the earth (Ps. 74:12). God doing mercy in the midst of the temple (Ps. 48:9).
God standeth in the assembly of God; he will judge in the midst of the gods (Ps. 82:1).
They are called "gods" who are in Divine truths from the Lord, and, abstractly, the truths themselves:--
Behold, I send an angel before thee; beware of his face, for My name is in the midst of him (Exod. 23:20, 21).
"The name of Jehovah" is all the Divine; "in the midst," is in the inmost, and thence in everything of it. "The midst" also signifies the inmost, and thence the all, in many other passages in the Word, where evils are also treated of, as in (Isa. 24:13; Jer. 23:9; Ps. 5:9; Jer. 9:4, 5; Ps. 36:1; 55:4; 62:4). These passages are adduced in order to show, that "in the midst of the lampstands" signifies in the inmost, from which the church and everything of it is derived; for the church and everything of it is from the Lord through the Word.
--E. Swedenborg (1688-1772)