Andrew, you say “I think there is kind of martyrdom saga that is used as mortar to repair cracks of what passes as theology in my churchy circles” Yes, I think that this also tends to encourage an attitude where we go looking for suffering, when in effect Jesus tells us that “I have come that you will have life in all its fullness”. We should…[Read more]

Yes exactly, Andrew, “Luke gave us the structure of a living interpretive presence.” I think what James is telling us is that, Luke portrays Jesus, the definitive interpreter, as an outsider who must first induce the “insiders” to stop squabbling with each other and instead to begin to try and tell their story. It is through their failed telling…[Read more]

At table, when Jesus blessed and broke the bread and gave it to them, suddenly he is the host and they are the guests. Luke portrays this appearance of Jesus as a Yahwistic theophany, an appearance of YHWH. The disciples come to realize that it hadn’t been a “he” who was talking to them, but “I AM”, the driving force all that had happened,…[Read more]

There is absolutely nothing lame at all about your reaction to watching a network news story on the Parkland shooting, Andrew. To the contrary, I found it most insightful and moving. And, if this is the way you “have noticed the content, questions or insights from the previous Module showing up in your life”, you have had a profoundly C…[Read more]

Absolutely Andrew, this is really an excellent summary of what James is saying.

Yes, Andrew, that is a good summary of what James is teaching as he always comes back to the fact that we learn to read scripture through the eyes of Jesus our Rabbi. You will find that during the course James constantly has us reading Jesus’ commentary on the Hebrew texts, and giving his listeners an entirely new way of reading them. This is…[Read more]

Yes I agree Andrew, ‘How do you read the text” is a very good question. I think this is what James is illustrating in this session on The Road to Emmaus”; we read the text through the eyes of Jesus our Rabbi.

Andrew, I think you have an excellent, mature attitude to the reading of scripture. And Hermes was indeed the Greek messenger.

Too often we see the literal word set in stone resulting in a rigid reading of this great work of literature, which in itself can mean differing things to different people in different times. I remember someone telling…[Read more]

Yes, Andrew, “you shall have no other gods before me” is a command from YHWH and a universal, timeless truth. It is a prohibition against idolatry.

The many gods of the ancient world, and of today, are truely the stuff of human projections. Many in the ancient world saw the God of the Hebrews as just another god among many, some considered YHW…[Read more]

Yes, Andrew, I think there is a technical hitch. When I submitted the post it did not appear as it usually does under your last post. And an old post from Rich is there too, I don’t know how that happened. I actually posted my reply about four times, but it seems that it did not arrive on the Discussion Forum.

I am copying Maura Junius from t…[Read more]

Andrew, have you listened to it yet?

Yes, that is a very good point Andrew, there is an “unheard voice” to which we are not listening. I don’t think this is a command from James, but more a quaint way of expressing that we are about to hear something extraordinary.
James begins with Hebrews 1: 1?2 which describes an odd form of communication from God. In talking to us through Jes…[Read more]

Andrew, this is a process. We learn how God is communicating with us through Jesus and the Bible, and in so doing we gradually learn who we are, and how we are made in the likeness and image of God, and loved unconditionally. This is not instantaneous, but a gradual ongoing conversion in which we and inducted into the new Creation of Christ and…[Read more]

Yes, Andrew the true ‘I’ is being called into being, but in your case it seems to be from a narrative that is extremely rich and varied. As James indicates “ our Memories are produced in us over time by repetition in imitation of the gestures and sounds produced by others” and as you say “by the others who were beholding me at those times and…[Read more]

Yes Andrew, that is a good way of looking at it. James tells us that “The gospel story is a story told by people who are not good, about something which happened in their midst and which shook up their previous sense of goodness, giving them a longing for a quite other sort of goodness, which they found themselves becoming at the hands of…[Read more]

Yes Andrew, that is a good way of looking at it. James tells us that “The gospel story is a story told by people who are not good, about something which happened in their midst and which shook up their previous sense of goodness, giving them a longing for a quite other sort of goodness, which they found themselves becoming at the hands of…[Read more]

Yes Andrew, that is a good way of looking at it James tells us that “The gospel story is a story told by people who are not good, about something which happened in their midst and which shook up their previous sense of goodness, giving them a longing for a quite other sort of goodness, which they found themselves becoming at the hands of someone…[Read more]

Andrew, please excuse my tardiness, I have been travelling. What you have written here is beautiful, ‘if I insist on winning an argument over two incompatible readings of a passage, then I risk transforming the text into a tool by which to undermine an opponent.” Absolutely ! For me, the most transforming aspect of James’ teaching is learn…[Read more]

Andrew, how about we look at it like this. We put aside for the moment the words “peer’ and “equal” and think of it like this. When mimesis occurs between persons in the same immediate life setting, violence is most likely to erupt, as the model, being very similar to the subject, is always potentially a rival. (Internal mediation) When mimesis…[Read more]

Andrew, you write that “peer pressure is mimetic; but not all mimesis is peer pressure”. This is absolutely correct, mimesis is like gravity, we live in a sort of web of mimetic desire, and this is what makes us human. Peer pressure is just one of its frequent and diverse manifestations.

“The pressures exerted back and forth among parti…[Read more]