We try to make Jesus present…
Gavin Ashenden
Firstly—yes, it does matter that man continues to attempt to make God into matter…
because that means that where the spark of the Creator remains,
the created continue to seek Him…
I was so very blessed yesterday when I got to watch the video, included below,
that was actually an interview between Bishop Gavin Ashenden and the British journalist
Rodney Hearth concerning the good bishop’s observation regarding the fire at Notre Dame.
Bishop Ashenden does a marvelous job of sorting through this emotional event from the lens
of a Protestant…
Contrary to popular belief, Anglicans / Episcopalians are Protestants…
and as I’ve tried explaining before, Catholics are not some sort of two-headed monster.
I’ve grievously come to realize that many of the Protestant faith do not understand
why everyone is making such a to do over the fire at Norte Dame.
Sadly they do not see the relevance to their own faith.
And that is in part…a lost lesson in history.
Yet I am not here today to teach but rather to share.
The good Bishop explains that humankind has always attempted to make God into what
we all can comprehend…that being matter–the same of which we are made.
This is why the ancient churches and cathedrals were built—man reaching upward
to the unseen Creator—a tangible to the nontangible.
With regard to this very tragic and very public fire,
the good Bishop notes the significance of fire and the Christian faith as a
“Theology of Fire.”
He also shares the observation of crisis—of which this fire was…
as it is just one more piece to the crisis of the collective Church in Europe,
Crisis in Greek, κρίσις, translates to judgment.
And when we stand in judgment, we are exposed to God’s fire—
It is a fire that burns away the dross… that of our sin—
It burns but it equally cleanses when we repent…becasue we are cleansed by a Holy fire.
But on the other hand, if we do not repent, we are also exposed to Holy fire—
however, this is the fire of Holy Judgement and in that unrepentance,
we are cast into an unending inferno.
It was not lost on either of the men that ironically, there is a symbol of Christianity
burning on an island that was flanked on either side by the right and the left banks…
In the reality of the current battle being waged by the culture gods of secular relativism
as they strive to prevail, working earnestly to erase any vestige of our Judaeo / Christian
heritage…the Left fights the Right over which values our culture must embrace—all the while,
in between these two warring factions sits the Church— engulfed in a raging inferno.
The key question to Christians and to all of Christianity, a question I continue to ask—-
how will we, the faithful, respond?
“Interpreting the great fire of Notre Dame.” Gavin Ashenden in conversation with Rodney Hearth.
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