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December 27, 2007
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=========================== TODAY'S ARTICLE ==========================
It's Still Christmas, by Rubel Shelly
There is a wonderful line from the American scholar Stephen L. Carter
that is worth pondering this Christmas season: "Religion is, at its
heart, a way of denying the rest of the world." He is astutely and
gloriously correct.
Faith's view of this world is strangely skeptical. No, more than that.
It is a posture of unequivocal distrust leading to rejection! When the
world recites its mantras -- you matter only if you are beautiful, the
most important thing is money, winning is everything, Look Out for
Number One -- faith protests them all. It adopts a posture of doubt and
incredulity. It rejects them.
I refuse to believe that selfishness is acceptable or that it is
permissible to resent another's good fortune. I will not swallow the
world's way of thinking in order to justify prejudice, aggression, and
hatred. No believer can be anything but incredulous about this world's
claim that she is entitled to anything she can get her hands on or that
he should not feel guilty about exploiting and using people.
So distrust the alleged certainties of sense that cancel the mysteries
of faith. Fight the tendency of the masses to look forward only for the
sake of declaring the impossibility of living with hope. Deny the
inevitability of such greed, hatred, and violence in the world that we
cannot prove the reality of love.
The Bible warns against being blinded by this world and speaks of the
danger of the blind leading the blind. That warning puts us on notice
that things, people, and ways of thinking totally rooted in the finite
world of time, space, and matter will keep us from discovering,
experiencing, and delighting in the greater realities of God, spirit,
and eternity that can only be known by faith.
Faith isn't self-talk or self-deception. It is neither wish projection
nor wishful thinking. It is our willingness to hear and stand with the
things God has shown us through events and people as awe-inspiring as a
trembling, smoking mountain in the desert and as modest as a baby's
first cry in the village of Bethlehem.
See Immanuel!
So let Christmas deny the hold of this world on your heart. Let it open
your eyes to what the willfully blind will never see, your ears to
things the incorrigibly deaf can never hear.
See Immanuel -- and know God is with us.
Hear the song of angels -- and receive God's peace offered to anxious
hearts.
Hold the confusion, cynicism, and antagonisms of this troubled world
suspect -- and choose God's rule as your way of affirming the true
realities.
It's still Christmas, if you will let Jesus open your heart!
---------
(c) 2007 Used by permission. From Rubel Shelly's "FAX of Life"
printed each Tuesday. See Faith Matters for previous issues of
the "FAX of Life."
RELATED LINKS:
* Keeping Christ in Christmas
http://www.heartlight.org/articles/200711/20071128_Christmas.html
* What Is It You See in Christmas?
http://www.heartlight.org/articles/200612/20061224_seeinchristmas.html
* Too Busy with Christmas for Church
http://www.heartlight.org/articles/200512/20051222_toobusy.html
* RubelShelly.com
This article can be found on the web at:
http://www.heartlight.org/articles/200712/20071227_stillchristmas.html
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