A lifeless galaxy?

 In a book launch speech, James Franklin uttered this memorable line:

"The explosion of a lifeless galaxy is just a firework, the death of a human is a tragedy".

Right on both counts, but wrong in coupling the two.

If the evolutionary view is right, then life came from the cosmos and is derivative of it. It has no inherent value because the cosmos has no inherent value. It contains no locus of value. It is axiologically neutral.

This morning at our ecclesium the prayer said words to effect: 'from the beginning of time, millions of years ago...' then went on to list the very forces at work which are the outcome of that very same materialist conception of the world.

He has bolted his Christian understanding onto the very world view that seeks to undo the Christian understanding.

It was a pulling-the-carpet-from-under-one's-own-feet moment.

Yet Genesis has it differently.

God is the father of live and he 'breathed' it into Adam whom he formed from the ground. Adam connected both, then, to the material world, and the life of God.

God, creating in the days of our experience shows our place in the hierarchy of dependency of creation, and before God as one 'like' him. God shows his active presence in that creation; working in the 'space' he has created by creating over the very days that constrain and govern the tempo of our experience of that domain. God with us indeed. God's action, like ours: in time the basis for fellowship.

12 essentail reads

 A friend crafted a list of books to give to a contact he'd made with a book store assistant. The assistant had not before encountered a Christian who could make his faith dynamic, inviting, and interesting. She wanted to know what to read.

The Bible of course: gospel of John. But also some books to help build the context (the 12th is my suggestion...only because I wanted 12 books; a good dozen, or maybe 13: a baker's dozen):

1. The Screwtape Letters: Lewis

2. The Great Divorce: Lewis

3. Schaeffer's Trilogy: Schaeffer -- Three books that set Western cultural history in a Biblical context: The God Who is There, Escape from Reason, He Is There and Is Not Silent.

4. Degenerate Moderns: Jones

5. The Devil's Delusion: Berlinski

6. Does God Exist?: Miethe/Flew

7. Darwin on Trial: Johnson

8. Sick Societies: Edgerton

9. In Defence of History: Evans

10. Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Scruton

11. A Fatal Conjunction: Kimm

12. The End of History: Windschuttle

13. Destructive Generation: Collier and Horowitz

Our credal recitation today

 Congregational recitation of a creed is an important part of our collective worship. Also good, mind you, for private devotional contemplation. Maybe do it once a week, slowly think through a creed (maybe not the Athanasian; it's a little long).

Whether it's the Apostles or the Nicene, particularly, we are reminded of the basic structure of our faith's foundation. So commit both to memory!

Today we used an important passage in the New Testament instead of one of the early creeds.

There appear to be a number of credal passages in Paul particularly. We recited this one (Colossians 1:13-22):

He rescued us from the  domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of  His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For  by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him.

He  is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.

Although [we] were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled [us] in His fleshly body through death, in order to present [us] before him holy and blameless and beyond reproach.

What to we call our buildings?

We don't have a generic name for a church building.

Cathedral = the seat of a bishop (where his 'throne' is; rather pompous).

Minster = large building built as part of a monastery, doesn't apply.

Abbey = a type of monastery, so that's out.

Chapel = typically an adjunct facility as part of a large building, e.g. a cathedral, a large church assembly building such as a minster, a large home; adopted for a non-conformist meeting/assembly hall, sends wrong message, so, no.

Church = WRONG. This is a group of people.

Auditorium = close, but implies a one-way activity.

Meeting hall = too boring, but accurate, 'church meeting hall'? Too cumbersome

I've got it!

Eccleseum.= the assembly place of a church. Perfecto!

There we are: already a word in use:

https://www.spsnyc.org/sermon-library/sitting-together-intentionally-parashat-trumah-2021