I have drafted a statement which explains the friendship and cooperation I have with Ahmed El-Sherif (an Arab-American Muslim) and Samuel Nachum (an Israeli-American Jew) as we work together in the Let The Children Play for Peace project. It goes like this: Read more
So I ask you for the umpteenth time, dear blog reader, what does it mean to be saved? Does it mean some part of you, your spirit let’s say, is saved to exist in a non-spatial, non-temporal existence following your death? That your spirit is “harvested” for a “spiritual” postmortem existence? A saved ghost preserved in a heavenly museum? If so, small wonder that some think we’ve got heaven and hell all rolled into one.
Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while
Yes, I know the Bible can be read in such a way that salvation looks like this — part of you is saved for another time and place — but it’s a tragic misreading. And, sadly, it’s a common misreading. Which, I suppose, is to be expected, thanks to the massive doses of Platonism and Gnosticism which seem to be the very religious air we breathe. The “vapors” of Gnostic Platonism have caused popular American Christianity for the past two centuries to be unabashedly dualistic; to the extent that a dualistic reading of Scripture seems to be orthodox, when in fact it is entirely unorthodox.
It’s frustrating.
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The Good Life. We all want it. But what is it?
This was the great question of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.
For them the answer was an examined life that led to a life of virtue.
Not bad.
For the modern western world the Good Life has little to with virtue. We live in age of ethical poverty.
Materialism having won the battle for the heart and soul of the post-Enlightenment West, the Good Life now has to do with achievement and acquisition. Position and property. Social status and being able to buy lots of stuff. Climbing the latter of success and finding a Best Buy at the top. The American Dream gone to seed.
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