Podcasts about robert bellah

Support the show on Patreon and get the second part in this series right now! https://www.patreon.com/posts/early-episode-2-119362620 Check out the merch store! https://llbdmerch.com/ Once upon a time in Japan, shitty landlords, high taxes, and religious persecution united a diverse band of Christians, Samurai, Ronin, and farmers under the leadership of a teenager, believed to be an Apostle, in order to rise up against the Lords of Shimabara and the Shogun himself. Part 1/3 Sources for this series: Robert Bellah. Tokugawa Religion. Ivan Morris. The nobility of failure: tragic heroes in the history of Japan Jonathan Clements. Christ's Samurai: The True Story of the Shimabara Rebellion

Christian ministries and other non-profit organizations have played a huge, positive role in American culture. If you don't believe me, just read Benjamin Franklin, Alexis de Tocqueville, Robert Bellah, Rodney Stark, Arthur Brooks…the list goes on. Because of the positive influence in our culture, our laws encourage their work. They are not required to pay taxes on revenue, and donors to them get tax advantages as well. In exchange for these advantages, we ask only a couple of things: First, that they actually do the good work they promise to do, and – secondly – that they disclose enough details about their work so that the donor public can confirm that. That disclosure is a Form 990, which all tax-exempt bodies except churches must file with the federal government. However, churches are exempt from that requirement. That exemption makes some sense, since most churches are small and all of the donors to a local church were members of the church. Today, however, we live in an era of mega churches that are often the center of an ecosystem of related entities – both profit and non-profit. We also have religious advocacy groups that are claiming to be churches even though they don't have regular services, don't ordain clergy, don't marry or bury their members, don't do anything that we think of as the normal activity of a church. This state of affairs have led some – including those of us here at MinistryWatch – to believe that we need a new regimen of regulations and laws that update those written in another era. Sharing some of these views is Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame. He and his coauthor Ellen Aprill have written a new paper outlining changes that need to happen to fix – or at least to bring a bit more up to date – the current situation. Links to articles mentioned in today's program. https://ministrywatch.com/law-professor-advocates-changing-irs-definition-of-church-association-of-churches/ https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4346286 https://theconversation.com/how-the-us-government-can-stop-churches-from-getting-treated-like-real-churches-by-the-irs-237922 That brings to a close my interview with Dr. Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame. We'll have links to the articles we discussed today in the show notes for today's program. The producer for today's program is Jeff McIntosh. I'm your host Warren Smith. Until next time, may God bless you.

We often feel we have one of two options when looking at the pressure of living in a secular culture: We can either separate or assimilate. The book of Daniel shows us there is a third option: We don't have to separate or assimilate, but we can redemptively participate in the cultural moment we find ourselves in. God has called us to radically integrate into our culture in order to accomplish His redemptive purpose on the earth. Daniel shows us in order to do that we must be consecrated people, set apart and obedient to the Lord, all the while being totally present to our current cultural moment. “Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell prostrate before Daniel and paid him honor and ordered that an offering and incense be presented to him. The king said to Daniel, ‘Surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, for you were able to reveal this mystery.'”Daniel 2:46-47(NIV)“Modern man, however, seeks to be ‘true to himself.' Rather than conform thoughts, feelings, and actions to objective reality, man's inner life itself becomes the source of truth. The modern self finds himself in the midst of what Robert Bellah has described as a culture of “expressive individualism”—where each of us seeks to give expression to our individual inner lives rather than seeing ourselves as embedded in communities and bound by natural and supernatural laws. Authenticity to inner feelings, rather than adherence to transcendent truths, becomes the norm. This modern self, then, is not accountable to the theologians who preach on how to conform oneself to God but to the therapists who counsel how to be true to oneself.”Carl Trueman - Strange New World

Sermon Resources: 1. “The first thing about America that strikes observation is an innumerable multitude of men incessantly endeavoring to obtain the petty and paltry pleasures with which they glut their lives. Each of them, living apart, is a stranger to the fate of the rest; his children and his private friends constitute to him the whole of mankind. As for the rest of his fellow citizens, he touches them, but he does not feel them.” -Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America" 2. “We have been led to believe that the self is sacred. Just as in an earlier time it was thought never fitting to deny God, now it seems never right to deny oneself.” -Robert Bellah, "Habits of the Heart" 3. “We've forgotten we belong to one another.” -Mother Teresa 4. "A Hidden Life," film directed by Terrance Malick 5. “The most important thing in your life is not what you do. It is who you become.” -Dallas Willard 6. “We often seek to find ourselves somehow in the work of making others happy. Therefore we throw ourselves into the work. As a result we get out of the work all that we put into it: our own confusion, disintegration, and unhappiness. It is useless to try to make peace with ourselves by being pleased with everything we have done. In order to settle down in the quiet of our own being we must learn to be detached from the results of our own activity. We must withdraw ourselves, to some extent, from effects that are beyond our control and be content with the good will and the work that are the quiet expression of our inner life. We must be content to live without watching ourselves live, to work without expecting an immediate reward, to love without an instantaneous satisfaction, and to exist without any special recognition.” -Thomas Merton, "No Man Is An Island"

Resources mentioned in this episode:Habits of the Heart by Robert Bellah

Award-winning author, journalist, and fellow podcaster Brian T. Kaylor joins Ken to talk about his soon-to-be-released (June 6, 2024) book, Baptizing America: How Mainline Protestants Helped Build Christian Nationalism. Brian adds a significant contribution to the discussion about the pervasive Christian Nationalism so prevalent today - the movement that became highly visible in the January 6th assault on our nation's Capitol. It's a little-discussed fact that the foundation for Christian Nationalism was laid by the “Seven Sisters” - the mainline denominations that far and away dominated the American religious scene before the explosion of evangelical denominations in the 1960s and 70s. Brian Kaylor asserts that despite its spurious claim, “Christian Nationalism isn't Christian.” Ken and Brian unpack this thesis and review his well-researched, compelling book. They discuss Robert Bellah's “Civil Religion” and the prescient warnings from Paul Tillich and H. Richard Niebuhr. Other topics include The National Prayer Breakfast, The Family, St. John's Episcopal Church (“The President's Church”), the National Cathedral, and traditional hymnology (including the prolific hymns written by Fanny Crosby). All of this has culminated in MAGA Trumpism and the complete takeover of the Republican Party. The American Flag and the Christian Flag have been standards in mainline denominational churches throughout out history - the Confederate Flag, too. Kaylor draws on Greg Boyd's Myth of a Christian Nation to underscore the vast difference between the biblical notion of the Kingdom of God and America as the New Israel. SHOW NOTESBecome a Patron | Ken's Substack PageSupport the Show.

Welcome to our first episode of 2024! Joining us in the Greenhouse for an MLK Day special, we have Professor Hajar Yazdiha to discuss her book The Struggle for The People's King, a book that seems to have captured the entire spirit of everything we try to talk about here on Greenhouse Gaslighting when it comes to the strategic use of political rhetoric and social iconography, as well as the manipulation and distortion of collective memory when it comes to our shared history. Plugs from today's episode https://www.zinnedproject.org/ https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/ Follow Hajar's work at: https://www.hajaryazdiha.com/ Check out The Struggle for The People's King: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691246475/the-struggle-for-the-peoples-king Referenced Books/Articles/Media from the episode: Robert Bellah's Civil Religion in America - http://www.robertbellah.com/articles_5.htm Hajar's piece in the LA Times: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-08-28/march-on-washington-martin-luther-king-racial-progress-black-americans Civil Racism by Lynn Mie Itagaki Prophet of Discontent by Jared A. Loggins and Andrew J. Douglas As always - our links available at https://linktr.ee/greenhousegaslighting End: Excerpt from MartinLuther King Jr.'s speech titled The Three Evils of Society (1987): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8d-IYSM-08

In his message at TGC Netherlands 2023, Collin Hansen discusses Tim Keller's insights into cultural apologetics and mission in a post-Christian era, focusing on the background of Keller's book Making Sense of God.Keller, influenced by thinkers like James Davison Hunter, Charles Taylor, Alistair McIntyre, Philip Rieff, and Robert Bellah, critiques the Enlightenment and its inability to provide meaning and justice in the absence of Christian resources.Hansen outlines seven steps inspired by Keller's approach, including challenging prevailing social assumptions, integrating multidimensional faith, and demonstrating Christian community. Hansen's messages emphasizes the urgent need for apologetics in a cross-pressured, secular age.Original conference media courtesy of: https://www.geloofstoerusting.nl/

Çerçeve podcastte Aybike Boyacıoğlu ve İlkan Dalkuç, Yasin Ege Akgün ile birlikte Amerikan Sivil Dininde Tanrı Egemenliği yazsısını, Robert Bellah'ı, Amerika ve Türkiye'de sivil din kavramını konuşuyorlar.Yazı: https://daktilo1984.com/yazilar/amerikan-sivil-dininde-tanri-egemenligi/

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION“…the number-one rule of acting is, ‘Do not seek approval from the audience.' People don't realize that. You can't do stuff to get applause. You have to live in the truth.”~Chadwick Boseman (1976-2020), award-winning actor When we “think we are most free, we are most coerced by the dominant beliefs of our own culture. For it is a powerful cultural fiction that we not only can, but must, make up our deepest beliefs in the isolation of our private selves.”~Robert Bellah (1927-2013), UC Berkley professor of sociology “Christianity is the only major faith built entirely around a single historical claim. It is, however, a claim quite unlike any other ever made, as any perceptive and scrupulous historian must recognize. Certainly, it bears no resemblance to the vague fantasies of witless enthusiasts or to the cunning machinations of opportunistic charlatans…. [For Saul of Tarsus] it is the report of a man who had never known Jesus before the crucifixion, and who had once persecuted Jesus' followers, but who also believed that he had experienced the risen Christ, with such shattering power that he too preferred death to apostasy. And it is the report of countless others who have believed that they also—in a quite irreducibly personal way—have known the risen Christ.”~David Bentley Hart, philosopher and scholar, in The Atheist Delusion “God accepts only the forsaken, cures only the sick, gives sight only to the blind, restores life to only the dead, sanctifies only the sinners, gives wisdom only to fools. In short, He has mercy only on those who are wretched…. Therefore, no proud saint, no wise or just person, can become God's material, and God's purpose cannot be fulfilled in him. He remains in his own work and makes a fictitious, pretended, false, and painted saint of himself, that is, a hypocrite.”~Martin Luther (1483-1546), German reformer “Like wheat and tares, true ideas and false ideas have grown together throughout church history, and it's up to faithful Christians to be watchful and diligent to compare every idea with the Word of God and see if it lines up.”~Alisa Childers in her book Another Gospel? “We need the gospel…. We need the life-giving, identity-establishing, purpose-defining gospel of Jesus Christ.”~Eric Mason, Philadelphia-based pastorSERMON PASSAGEGalatians 1:1-5, 11-24 (NASB) 1 Paul, an apostle (not sent from men nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead), 2 and all the brethren who are with me, 3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be the glory forevermore. Amen. 6 I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; 7 which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! 9 As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed! 10 For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ. 11 For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. 12 For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. 13 For you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it; 14 and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions. 15 But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother's womb and called me through His grace, was pleased 16 to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood, 17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went away to Arabia, and returned once more to Damascus. 18 Then three years later I went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted with Cephas, and stayed with him fifteen days. 19 But I did not see any other of the apostles except James, the Lord's brother. 20  (Now in what I am writing to you, I assure you before God that I am not lying.) 21 Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. 22 I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea which were in Christ; 23 but only, they kept hearing, “He who once persecuted us is now preaching the faith which he once tried to destroy.” 24 And they were glorifying God because of me.

Sermon Resources: 1. “You may be an ambassador to England or France You may like to gamble, you might like to dance You may be the heavyweight champion of the world You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls But you're gonna have to serve somebody.” -Bob Dylan, "Gotta Serve Somebody" 2.“Freedom is not given to us merely as a firework to be shot off in the air. There are some people who seem to think that their acts are freer in proportion as they are without purpose…That is like saying that one is richer if he throws money out the window than if he spends it. Neither the spending of money nor the waste of money is what makes someone rich. He is rich by virtue of what he has, and his riches are valuable to him for what he can do with them. As for freedom, it grows no greater by being wasted, or spent, but it is given to us as a talent to be traded with until the coming of Christ.” -Thomas Merton, "No Man Is An Island" 3. Study on America's overwork problem: https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_071326/lang--en/index.htm 4. Pew Research Study on Dating: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/08/20/nearly-half-of-u-s-adults-say-dating-has-gotten-harder-for-most-people-in-the-last-10-years/ 5. “We have been led to believe that the self is sacred. Just as in an earlier time it was thought never fitting to deny God, now it seems never right to deny oneself.” -Robert Bellah, "Habits of the Heart" 6. “Their request is nothing less than a change in Israel's foundational commitment to God…This rejection is not a new happening but is characteristic in the history of Israel (v. 8). The whole history of Israel is one of “forsaking” and going after other gods. This request for a king is one more step in the continuing performance of mistrust (c.f. Psalm 106). The issue of monarchy in God's speech is perceived as Israel's unwillingness to have God as the source and rule of life.” -Walter Brueggemann, Interpretation Commentary Join us below: Facebook: www.facebook.com/midtownpreschurch Instagram: www.instagram.com/midtown.pres Website: www.midtownpres.org Community Groups: www.midtownpres.org/community-groups Sunday Services: www.midtownpres.org

In the 1970s, sociologist and religious scholar Robert Bellah  predicted neoliberal economics would create a hole in many communities that would one day be filled by an authoritarian populism. Bellah also made famous the idea that as America lost its Christianity, it would create a so-called civil religion.

This week, Kelly and John take on July 4th and ask if it's possible to wrestle it away from the darker side of American history as well as its increasingly Christian Nationalist connotations. Even though (or maybe because) America is not, in fact, a Christian nation and has no official religious identity, is July 4th a religious holiday? Has the project of state that (purportedly) guarantees freedom of religion and keeps the government (purportedly) independent of any religious affiliation actually made American history and its icons objects of religious devotion? Also this week: The good news is dogs and Bears. And we spend too much time on Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA". Plus, we talk about how where you are in America often reflects what you're actually celebrating on Independence Day, we bring up Robert Bellah's 1967 article "American Civil Religion", that time Thomas Jefferson tried to take all the miracles out the New Testament, and the fact that most of the founders were deists. And we somehow make no references to the 1996 movie, while Kelly attempts to accurately employ the phrase "go to bat for".

Today on TSQ, Matt talks about a very powerful force in American life:  The American Civil Religion.  This is not a new concept, but it is one that isn't discussed as much as it used to be.  A  civil religion is a phenomenon whereby the nominally secular state takes on things normally associated with organized religion, such as dogmas, holy sites or shrines, sermons, incantations and prayers.  It's creepy as all get out, and should offend us all, whether we are religious or not.Robert Bellah's Articlehttp://www.robertbellah.com/articles_5.htmTragedy of US Foreign Policy Bookhttps://www.fpri.org/books/tragedy-us-foreign-policy-americas-civil-religion-betrayed-national-interest/#:~:text=the%20National%20Interest-,The%20Tragedy%20of%20U.S.%20Foreign%20Policy%3A%20How%20America's,Religion%20Betrayed%20the%20National%20Interest&text=Pulitzer%20Prize%E2%80%93winning%20historian%20Walter,foreign%20policy%20ever%20since%201776 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit statistquo.substack.com

In Episode 32 of Season 3, Drew and Mick evaluate three trends affecting the church in America, including a significant pruning, a conversion of the background civil religion, and a generally unhealthy society in the West. Listen in to part one of two episodes reviewing these themes and how the church can respond in this hour. Connect with us at ideologypc@gmail.com // feel free to share, subscribe, rate, and/or comment Episode notes: - Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell - The work of Robert Bellah regarding "civil religion"

We live in a world constantly bombarding us with messages about who we are, what the good life looks like, and how we can obtain it. In a culture carried by the whims of personal desire and comfort, we hear values like “follow your heart;” in a culture where we are constantly divided from one another, we start to believe that our spite is justified; in a culture that is constantly blaming others, we jump into the blame game. Yet each of these notions lead us not to life, freedom, or peace, but further into death, captivity, and anxiety. In Jesus' ministry, He regularly spoke against all sorts of notions that we consider commonplace today, and in listening and applying His words together, we will find a lasting, peaceful, joyous life in the midst of a culture mired in anxiety, division, and hatred. Watch as Pastor Clint explores the common contemporary mantra, "Follow Your Heart," the ways that it has pervaded our hearts and minds, and the radical alternative Jesus teaches us in order to find true, lasting life: to take up our cross and follow him. Sermon Resources: 1. “We have been led to believe that the self is sacred. Just as in an earlier time it was thought never fitting to deny God, now it seems never right to deny oneself.” -Robert Bellah, "Habits of the Heart" 2. “When Jesus calls someone He bids them come and die.” -Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "The Cost of Discipleship" 3. “The cost of non-discipleship is far greater…Non-discipleship costs abiding peace, a life penetrated throughout by love, faith that sees everything in the light of God's overriding governance for good, hopefulness, that stands in the most discouraging of circumstances, power to do what is right and withstand the forces of evil. In short, it costs exactly that abundance of life Jesus said he came to bring. The cross-shaped yoke of Christ is after all an instrument of liberation and power to those who live in it with him and learn the meekness and lowliness of heart that brings rest to the soul…The correct perspective is to see following Christ not only as the necessity it is, but as the fulfillment of the highest human possibilities and as life on the highest plane.” -Dallas Willard, "The Spirit of the Disciplines" Join us below: Facebook: www.facebook.com/midtownpreschurch Instagram: www.instagram.com/midtown.pres Website: www.midtownpres.org Community Groups: www.midtownpres.org/community-groups Sunday Services: www.midtownpres.org

“And Jesus came and touched them, saying, ‘Get up and do not be afraid…” (Mt. 17). Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2D12 Last Epiphany (Year A) 11:00 a.m. Sunday 19 February 2023 Exodus 24:12-18 Psalm 99:1-8 2 Peter 1:16-21 Matthew 17:1-9 Last week in an email my friend Hugh Morgan observed that when it comes to social justice the Old Testament prophets sound strikingly modern to him. He wonders if the Old Testament has a stronger social justice message than the New Testament. [1] Today we consider this question.   But first let's define social justice as equality in wealth, political influence, cultural impact, respect… in opportunities to make a difference, to love and serve others. It involves creating a society in which every person is treated with dignity as a child of God, as bearing God's image. Jesus calls this the realm of God. Martin Luther King calls it “the beloved community.”   Today we celebrate the Last Sunday of Epiphany. Epiphany means a shining forth. You might call it a realization that utterly transforms us. The culminating story of this season occurs on a mountain top when Jesus' friends experience a mystical encounter with God.   In a recent conversation the law professor Patricia Williams spoke about two epiphanies that she had had. [2] For her whole life she had taken at face value family stories she had heard about her great-great-grandmother. These described her as a lazy person who was constantly fishing, as someone that no one liked. Then when Williams was in her twenties her sister discovered the bill of sale for their great-great-grandmother. In an instant she realized the truth. At the age of eleven her great-great-grandmother had been sold away from all that she had ever known. Two years later she was pregnant with the child of the dissatisfied thirty-five year old man who had bought her. She was traumatized so alienated from his children, who were taught to look down on her, that the only thing they chose to tell her descendants was that she was unpopular. To get to the truth Patricia Williams had to interpret those two stories together and to have empathy for someone's suffering. We have to do the same thing in order to understand the Bible.   Getting back to our question, Hugh makes a wise observation about the importance of social justice in the Old Testament. The deceased Berkeley sociologist Robert Bellah (1927-2013) wrote a book called Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age. He asks about how religious belief makes large human societies possible. He notes that Israel first appears in Egyptian records in the year 1208 BCE, long before anything written in the Bible.   He points out two notable features about the social world that produced the Old Testament. First, that this it attempts to establish a society not on the role of one man as a divine king (like most Egyptian pharaohs) but rather on a covenant between God and the people. Moses is a prophet not a divine king.   The second thing he notices is that the prophets, for instance, Amos does not just condemn failures of religious ritual but the mistreatment of the weak and poor. Amos criticizes both foreigners and his own people. He writes, “Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Israel, and for four I will not revoke the punishment; because they sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes” (Amos 2). [3]   At this point I feel compelled to tell you more about the Old Testament. It will be a long time before Chat GPT can write an accurate sermon. I am totally astonished by how incorrect search engine results are when it comes to some of the most basic issues in religion. This includes how we determine when these books were written. There was no journalist taking notes in the Garden of Eden or the court of David. The books of the Bible were not written in the order in which the events they record happened, or in the order in which they are presented. One way to look at it is to see them growing up around the two ideas I just mentioned from the prophet Amos – that there is one God for all people and that God cares how the poor are treated. Scholars believe that the words of the prophet Amos were among the first in the entire Bible. So it is not as if the world was created, Noah built an ark, Abraham met God, God chose the Tribes of Israel, David's kingdom was established, many other kings reigned and then social justice became important. Social justice, this idea of God's universality and the dignity of every person, comes first. The other stories are ancient but put together by writers with this conviction in mind.   So the twentieth century rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel calls the prophets, “the most disturbing people who ever lived” and “the [ones] who brought the Bible into being.” They “ceaseless[ly] shatter our indifference.” They interpret our existence from the perspective of God. Heschel writes that the prophets have assimilated their emotional life to that of the Divine so that the prophet, “lives not only his personal life but also the life of God. The prophet hears God's voice and feels His heart.” [4]   The Old Testament was written mostly in Hebrew with three main types of literature the Torah (instruction or) the law, the Nevi'im or prophets, and the Ketuvim or the writings. The New Testament was written in Greek under Roman occupation and includes totally different genres: gospels, epistles or letters, and John's apocalyptic conclusion the Book of Revelation. As Jesus alludes to in the Book of Matthew, the New Testament is built on the foundation of the old – that there is one God for all the nations who cares about human dignity. It has a different feeling because it is composed at a different time, under different social circumstances for a different audience. But for me it is not less focused on social justice. Christians do not worship the Bible, but the person of Jesus. Jesus is how we understand our lives and our connection to God.   We see this in today's gospel. The story of the Transfiguration is not so much about a private mystical experience, but a meditation on Christ's passion. It exists to shape our response to Jesus' death on the cross. Imagine the Book of Matthew. We climb up one side through Jesus' teaching and healing until we finally hear Jesus describe how his death will be. The disciples cannot take it in. We go down the other side to Jerusalem where Jesus will be killed. And for a reassuring moment we linger at the mountaintop.   Let me briefly tell you three things about the Greek text. Matthew uses the emphatic word idou or “Behold! Look!” three times. First, before the appearance of Moses who represents the law, and Elijah who stands for the prophets. Then again when a shining cloud appears and yet again when God says, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased” (Mt. 17). Jesus' friends feel so afraid they fall down like dead people. Jesus tells his friends to rise up and uses the same word he does when he says that the Son of Man will be raised from the dead. Jesus touches them in a reassuring way. The Greek word hapsamenos means to touch, hold or grasp. But it also can be translated as to light or ignite a flame.   What does it mean for social justice, to have at the heart of our religion a man who gives up his life and is executed? It is not just what Jesus says that matters. He gives his life to help make real this idea that God loves every human being, that each life has innate dignity. This includes the truth that death is not the end.   Although Christians often get lost in the belief that faith is about an isolated individual's personal salvation, there is a deep tradition of meditating on the way Jesus' death reverses the overwhelming evil all around us. I do not have time for more examples but I would like to mention Basil of Caesarea (330-379).   In the Gospel of Luke Jesus tells the story about a rich man who has so much property that he decides to build a bigger barn to hold it all so that he can “eat, drink and be merry” (Lk. 12). That night the foolish man dies. So the fourth century Basil wrote a sermon about this. He says that what we think we need constantly changes. We are metaphorically building smaller and bigger barns all the time. When we think we need too much we cannot be generous to others.   Basil says, “How can I bring the sufferings of the poverty-stricken to your attention? When they look around inside their hovels… [and] find clothes and furnishings so miserable… worth only a few cents. What then? They turn their gaze to their own children, thinking that perhaps by bringing them to the slave-market they might find some respite from death. Consider now the violent struggle that takes place between the desperation arising from famine and a parent's fundamental instincts. Starvation on the one side threatens horrible death, while nature resists, convincing the parents rather to die with their children. Time and again they vacillate, but in the end they succumb, driven by want and cruel necessity.” [5] The Christian tradition in every generation is filled with appeals like this. They beg us to recognize the full humanity of every person.   Let me tell you the second of Patricia Williams' two epiphanies. When she was a child there were very few women or Black people who were judges, law professors, law partners, attorney generals, etc. Virtually all law had been written by white men. Because of this there were blind spots, basic failures to understand society that had crucial legal ramifications. [6]   Professor Williams and other intellectuals invented Critical Race Theory to address this, to help the law work for all people, not just those in power. These debates were largely for people in universities until about ten years ago. In our conversation Professor Williams expressed her surprise when she heard a powerful political consultant talk about how he had made millions of Americans fear and hate this social justice project. He had successfully convinced them to regard Critical Race Theory as divisive and dangerous to white people. He explicitly stated that increasing their anger was a means of getting their votes. [7]   The great twentieth century Jewish expert in building healthy religious congregations Edwin Friedman frequently repeats this warning. “Expect sabotage.” [8] When we are working for good, to change how things are, we will be opposed. Those who care about social justice need to understand that there will be people who actively seek to thwart it.   Patricia Williams is a prophet for me, shattering my indifference. Many here this morning are prophets to me also. Behold. Be ignited. Shine forth. Let the realization of Jesus' love utterly transform us. [1] Hugh Morgan, 9 February 2023. “In reading Isaiah and the minor prophets, I am struck by how modern they sound, when calling out issues of social justice.  Of course, our thinking has been influenced by the enlightenment and all that came after it, so my brain may be predisposed to see these threads in the text.  But they are there. You do not see the same strength of views on social justice in the New Testament, certainly little about upsetting the then current order.  And I do not think you see similar messages supporting the oppressed in Greek or Roman writings (I have a super limited sense of what these are.) And, you do not see "social justice thought" - a very modern thing - called out, developed, emphasized from the OT texts in the early church, nor through the reformation, not even in the revivals in America and England in the late 1800s. Two questions to ponder 1. Where did the social justice message in the OT come from? 2.  Are there strains of this message in church history that I / we are not aware of?” [2] Patricia J. Williams on the Grace Cathedral Forum, 1 February 2023. https://youtu.be/8h-xHY7OIuY . Also see Patricia J. Williams, The Alchemy of Race and Rights: Diary of a Law Professor (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991) 17-19. [3] Robert Bellay, Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011). Quoting Michael Walzer and David Malo on a covenant between the people and God (310f). Amos' ethical statements (302). [4] Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets: An Introduction, Volume One (NY: Harper, 1962) ix-26. [5] “How can I bring the sufferings of the poverty-stricken to your attention? When they look around inside their hovels… [and] find clothes and furnishings so miserable… worth only a few cents. What then? They turn their gaze to their own children, thinking that perhaps by bringing them to the slave-market they might find some respite from death. Consider now the violent struggle that takes place between the desperation arising from famine and a parent's fundamental instincts. Starvation on the one side threatens horrible death, while nature resists, convincing the parents rather to die with their children. Time and again they vacillate, but in the end they succumb, driven by want and cruel necessity.” Basil of Caesarea, “I Will Tear Down My Barns.” Tr. Paul Shroeder. Cited in Logismoi. http://logismoitouaaron.blogspot.com/2010/03/on-social-justice-by-st-basil-great.html [6] Professor Patricia J. Williams and I talked about “stand your ground” laws that result in much higher rates of death among Black men, because white people are more likely to be afraid of them. [7] In an online interaction I heard from someone who is monomaniacally focused on the idea that Critical Race Theory must necessarily involve government forced discrimination against white people. He did not have the time to see the Patricia Williams interview. He had already made up his mind. [8] “Sabotage is part and parcel of the systemic process of leadership.” Edwin Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix (NY: Church Publishing, 2017 revised).

John 8:12, 9:1-5How do you read the Bible? Is it a reference book like a dictionary? Or is it a rule book for you? What if we read it as revelation about God? Good news: Jesus wants us to know who he is! In the second “I am” saying, Jesus shows us that he is the Light of the world. As we walk with him we become more like him. Our world could use a little more light.Quotes:Dallas Willard:  “God has yet to bless anyone except where they actually are, and if we faithlessly discard situation after situation, moment after moment, as not being ‘right,' we will simply have no place to receive his kingdom into our life.Larry Nixon" “We cannot make the wind blow.  But we can set the sails.  Prayer sets the sails.Robert Bellah: "We should not underestimate the significance of the small group of people who have a new vision of a just and gentle world. The quality of a culture may be changed when 2 percent of its people have a new vision." A.W. Tozer:  "Our most pressing obligation today is to do all in our power to obtain a revival that will result in a reformed, revitalized, purified church.  It is of far greater importance that we have better Christians than that we have more of them."To discover more messages of hope go to tallowood.org/sermons/.Follow us on Instagram, X, and YouTube @tallowoodbc.Follow us on FaceBook @tallowoodbaptist

Guests: Tim Matthews and Jonathan Teague Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution By Carl R. Trueman Strange New World is an abbreviated edition of Dr. Trueman's longer book titled The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution In this book, Dr. Trueman is going to examine how a person became a self, the self became sexualized, and sex became politicized. The radical change that Dr. Trueman observes is that rather than conform thoughts, feelings, and actions to objective reality, man's inner life itself becomes the source of truth.   Chapter 1 Welcome to This Strange New World “Expressive individualism” was coined by the American scholar Robert Bellah, who defines it as follows: Expressive individualism holds that each person has a unique core of feeling and intuition that should unfold or be expressed if individuality is to be realized. In short, the modern self is one where authenticity is achieved by acting outwardly in accordance with one's inward feelings. Great article and explanation from John Stonestreet at The Colson Center about the Philadelphia Flyers hockey player Ivan Provorov who refused to wear a jersey for the NHL's “Pride Night.” Jonathan - who is the arbiter of what is “ok” - can't be culture…left up to the individual themselves, which presents a huge problem when someone else's opinion conflicts with yours. Tim - why aren't the opinion and feelings of Ivan Provorov taken into consideration and protected as well? In this book, I do not wish to deny that expressive individualism has aspects that are good and commendable. I am concerned, however, with how its triumph as the normative self has led to some of the strangest and, to many, most disturbing aspects of our modern world. If the individual's inner identity is defined by sexual desire, then he or she must be allowed to act out on that desire in order to be an authentic person. Obviously, Western society still has sexual codes and places limits on sexual behavior - pedophilia, for example, continues to be outlawed in the United States - but those limits are increasingly defined not so much by the sex acts themselves as by the issue of whether the parties involved have consented to those acts. Again, notice what the sexual revolution has done: it has brought us to the point where sexual acts in themseles are seen as having no intrinsic moral significance; it is the consent (or not) of those engaging in them that provides the moral framework.   Chapter 2 Romantic Roots Rene Descartes (1596-1650) - “I think; therefore I am.” Thinking is the ground of certainty. Dan's comment: God is no longer the source of truth; each individual person is! Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) - First, he locates identity in the inner psychological life of the individual. Feelings for Rousseau are central to who we are. And second, he sees society (or perhaps better, culture) as exerting a corrupting influence on the self. In short, society makes us inauthentic. Jonathan's comment - while this might be profound, the problem is that it puts the brightest light on man, and makes man the center of existence…replacing God on the throne of life. Rousseau rejects the Christian doctrine of original sin - it is society that corrupts the individual… Dan's question - if society corrupts the individual, what corrupted society? Isn't society just the collected thoughts/wills of the various individuals - and if the individuals are good and pure, why wouldn't the collective (society) be good and pure as well? Everyone else is first and foremost a potential threat to my authenticity. Rousseau - The Social Contract - Man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains. Rousseau's “noble savage” - uncorrupted by the demands of civilized society with its hyprocrises and sharp antithesis between outward behavior and that inner voice of nature… Tim's comment - many of the restraints that society places on individuals is actually for our flourishing, for the benefit of all.

According to many Christians today, faith isn't based on external facts or evidence, but instead is thought of as an internal subjective feeling, intuition, or experience. But is this idea biblical? Does the Bible actually say that faith is related to our feelings? Where do other religious traditions stand on this issue? Shane Rosenthal investigates these questions and talks with Craig Parton, author of Religion on Trial.SHOW NOTES• Related articles by Shane Rosenthal: “Is Faith a Feeling?” (published at Beautiful Christian Life), “What is Faith?”, and “Why Should We Believe the Bible?”• Related books: Religion on Trial by Craig Parton, Habits of the Heart by Robert Bellah, God in the Whirlwind, by David Wells, and 1984 by George Orwell.• To help support the work of The Humble Skeptic podcast, use the TIP JAR or consider upgrading to a paid subscription via Substack using the green button at the bottom of this page. For more information about our vision, click here.• Click the image below to begin the next episode: #5 Religion on Trial The Humble Skeptic is a listener-supported podcast. To support this work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Get full access to The Humble Skeptic at shanerose.substack.com/subscribe

Richard Hughes—whose scholarship ranges across religious history, vocation, and the role of race in American religious culture—joins us for a conversation about some “troublesome questions” that have driven his thinking and scholarly work. An accomplished storyteller, Richard shares with us significant moments of rejection and criticism in his life and how these made him reconsider his most deeply held beliefs. Richard reflects on the influence of Victor Frankl, Robert Bellah, James Noel, and Martin Marty on his life and work. As he unpacks his new “memoir-of-sorts,” The Grace of Troublesome Questions: Vocation, Restoration, and Race, he reminds us of the ways that “losing oneself” can be a gift. Our vocations are not “tickets to the good life,” but rather moments to live into difficulties and challenges—and to hear how we need to change. 

Join Eythen Anthony and Ana Knudsen, cohosts of "From the Archives," as they look back, re-listen, and reconsider past talks, lectures, and speeches given at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. Today, they listen to a lecture by sociologist of religion Robert Bellah called "Marriage: Sacred Institution or Obsolete Tyranny?” In his speech, Bellah responds to what he sees as the modern opposition to institutions. He believes that in modernity, there is a popular idea that institutions are inherently oppressive, or that all of our inherited traditions are unexamined and backwards.  Bellah disagrees with this. He argues that institutions are absolutely essential. Without them, he claims, we would all be dead. "What's particularly interesting," says Ana, "is the way Bellah argues that institutions are necessary. The institution that Bellah uses to illustrate his point isn't actually the institution of marriage. Instead, he bases his argument on the institution of language." Listen now. New episodes every other Friday. https://open.spotify.com/show/43VvqBgDYEDcGOPp1ib0Vf?si=e506f2921f4448f2 (Subscribe) to the Interactions podcast. Read more articles on the intersections of law and religion on https://canopyforum.org (Canopy Forum).

Is Wokeism Civil Religion? A response to Carefree Wandering's take of Wokeism as civil religion + German-style guilt-pride. I look at Robert Bellah's article 'Civil Religion in America' and take a look at free-speech, dogmatism, cancel culture, and more. Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018

If you want to get something out of spiritual life try giving more to it. In piano lessons, at football practice, in Latin class, at work, in graduate school and your hobbies we learned that the more we put into an activity, the more we get out of it. This is true for church also. We have to work for God, in order for this to really work for us, for God to work on us. One of the things that has pleased me most in recent years is the new life I see around people associated with the Cathedral's Stewardship Committee. They have a difficult task and it has really brought out the best in them. They share a common spirit. They know that the Cathedral helps to keep their cup filled spiritually, so that they can do ministry out in the world.   Next week we will make promises as part of the baptism service. Our spiritual lives will not be complete if we cannot find a way to serve God's church. I wouldn't ask us to do this if I was not sure that this service can enrich and transform our lives, in a way that we may not even be able to imagine right now. The Old Testament book of Ruth interrupts the account of tribes, nations and empires with a story about one single family and its struggles.[i] Naomi, her husband and two sons are environmental refugees. Famine forces them to flee their home and move to the country of their enemies. After they arrive the husband dies and the two sons marry women of that country named Orpah and Ruth.   After the sons die their mother Naomi announces to these daughters-in-law that she is going to return to her own country. The three clearly love each other and weep. Orpah decides to stay and Ruth chooses to go with Naomi to the country of her enemies where they speak a strange language and follow different traditions. She says, “Where you go, I will go; Where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people and your God my God” (Ruth 1). In Israel the two women are starving. But there is a tradition that might help them, that of the family redeemer. After a man's death a nearby relative will marry his widow, caring for the family and the land. The problem is that Ruth is a foreigner and the books of Ezra and Nehemiah prohibit marrying outside of Israel. So in Ruth's case the nearest relative refuses to marry her. But Boaz generously marries Ruth. They have a son and the two women are saved from disaster. But that is not all. The story ends in a genealogy which shows that this son is the grandfather of David, the greatest king of Israel and ultimately a lineal descendent of Jesus, the savior of the world. But there is still more to this. So many people say that the story is about loyalty. But really Naomi didn't have a claim on Ruth. Nor was Boaz required to marry a foreigner. These were acts of great generosity. In fact the book follows a very tight structure. The first chapter is about terrible death and loss, and Ruth's generosity in the face of disaster. The last chapter is about the new life that comes from Boaz's generosity. It is important to notice also that at first the book seems to have nothing to do with God. The narrator never mentions God. In the first chapter Naomi cries out that, “the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me” (Ruth 1). And yet God acts behind the scenes. Through ordinary, plain people, through an immigrant and the one who helped her, but above all through human generosity, God puts in motion a plan to save the world. I have another challenging friend who talks about money all the time. That friend is Jesus. Jesus encourages generosity. I said that there were two reasons to give money to the Cathedral. The first reason is that you need it. The second is that the Cathedral needs it too. The Cathedral wouldn't need our money at all if together we had a different idea of what church should be.   Let me explain. In the 1980's Robert Bellah and some of his colleagues at UC Berkeley wrote a book called Habits of the Heart. In this sociological account of American society the authors evaluate our collective piety. One of the most memorable interviews is with a woman named Sheila. Sheila is a young nurse who actually named her faith after herself. There is not much to it. She says, "I believe in God. I'm not a religious fanatic. I can't remember the last time I went to church. My faith has carried me a long way. It's Sheilaism. Just my own little voice." She says, "It's just try to love yourself and be gentle with yourself..."[ii] The church of Sheilaism does not require generosity or money or even other people. But it is hard to see how this kind of religion can make us better, more complete or healed. It has no real content, no moral guidance, no weight of tradition, no healing but above all no community. There is no one else to challenge you if self-centeredness, or ignorance blinds you to the truth. Ralph Waldo Emerson exclaims, God, "does not act upon us from without… but spiritually through ourselves… the Supreme Being, does not build up nature around us, but puts it forth through us, as the life of the tree puts forth new branches and leaves through the pores of the old."[iii] I look around at you and I see God putting forth his life through this Cathedral, through the generosity that makes everything we do possible. In our society, in Northern California especially, there is constant pressure to be competitive, to go it alone, to resist the very kind of community that human beings were meant for. But through Grace Cathedral, together in-person and online, we become Jesus' living body in the world. We believe what the Bible teaches us, that faith is involved in every aspect of life. This does not mean our faith is perfect, only that we are trying very hard to let God transform the world through our lives together. Through our generosity, through volunteering, and working together God is shaping the modern world, just as God silently worked in the book of Ruth. My sermon today has a postscript. Earlier I mentioned that we learn generosity before we learn about death. Rowan Williams writes about how sometimes in interviews famous people are asked how they want to be remembered at the end. “[A]s if the goal of life were to arrive at a condition of maturity and control, of wise and powerful action.”[iv] In contrast to this picture, Williams talks about the way Jesus' mother Mary could simply receive the Holy Spirit without spectacular effort. Williams writes, “What if this is really the purpose of our lives? What if the point of all we achieve, all we succeed in” and I would add all that we give, “is to teach us to receive more deeply and more peacefully?” “As if what we need to produce by the time of our death is just – child-like simplicity? Being able at last just to be welcomed, to be embraced by the Real that we've so long neglected and even run away from? Whatever life is like on the far side of death, it's a reasonable guess that it is not like anything we could have imagined. It could not be another episode in the great drama of Myself, my busy, worried, ambitious, talkative, fearful self.” We give for the sake of ourselves so that we can become more mature, so that God can work through our generosity in the way of Ruth and Boaz. We give for the sake of this Cathedral so that authentic spiritual community can be possible here. Finally we give in the hope that we can learn to receive what we long for from God. Let us pray: Most generous God in a world of scarcity and abundance, we thank you for what we have, especially for each other. You make us one body in Christ with the opportunity to serve you in new and unexpected ways always rejoicing in the strength and love of your son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. [i] The Septuagint placed Ruth between Judges and 1 Samuel. The New Oxford Annotated Bible Revised Standard Version chapter introduction. [ii] Robert Bellah, et. al. Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Berkeley: University of California, Berkeley Press, 1985) 221. [iii] Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Nature," (the book, not the essay) in Selections from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ed. Stephen Whicher. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957) 50. [iv] Rowan Williams, Candles in the Dark: Faith, Hope and Love in a Time of Pandemic (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2020) 71-2.

This thing called the Great Resignation is gaining more and more attention in the United States. People have resigned from jobs in record numbers in this year alone, with one reason being that people are not treating work as the Ultimate anymore. At one point, not too long ago, generations before had their minds set on securing a job. That was the ultimate goal: job security. People in this current society are more invested in developing and prioritizing other parts of their life.  More value is placed on purpose these days. People look at what they are missing out on or tolerating and aren't willing to make certain sacrifices for work without purpose. Such work and sacrifices no longer seem worth it. Similarly, you know your calling is bigger than your job or career. How can we look for ways to support a calling through a job or career? We're going to discuss three ways to look at your paid work. Ideas in today's conversation mainly pull from research by Dr. Robert Bellah and Dr. Amy Wrzesniewski. Dr. Bellah was a sociologist in the 1950s who suggested that work has three orientations, and Dr. Wrzesniewski, from Yale, conducted a study that confirmed these orientations. The three orientations are job, career, and calling. Identifying this will help as a guide for discovering where you are at, and where you can go.  Each orientation has distinctions attached to an award. Most times we are connected to a job for material gain. In a career, we pursue a goal with the long-term in mind. Work in calling means we can live being who we are, and the reward is fulfillment. At the most basic, we really should consider work that comes from an intrinsic place, like calling. You don't have to quit in order to live out your calling, but know that you have potential to turn work into a calling more than you think. Time stamps: [00:20] - I talk about feedback I received about last week's episodes. Let's dive deeper into the relationship between work and calling. [02:50] - Your next brave step may look different, but you should have an idea of the big picture. [04:23] - Work can be viewed as three orientations: a job, a career, or a calling. [06:08] - Job, career, and calling give us three different rewards. [09:07] - What is the reward of viewing work as a calling? [11:34] - If you were to identify your work, which orientation relates most? [13:39] - It's okay to work a job, as long as it's under this one condition. [15:54] - How do you turn work into a calling? [17:20] - Here are quick tips you can take action on to shift your work towards calling. [20:11] - I wrap up the quick tips that help you make an actionable shift from work to calling. [23:08] - We're more likely to work on our calling when we participate in relationships that fuel our efforts. [24:34] - Use the tips in this episode to decide what could be your next brave step. Links: Chris Heinz Chris Heinz Co. Resources: Robert Bellah Habits of the Heart Amy Wrzesniewski Make Your Job a Calling

The standard big history of human evolution, exemplified in Yuval Noah Harari's bestseller Sapiens, sees religion and spirituality as a byproduct of survival, at best a necessary fiction.But new science is telling a different story. Research done by Robin Dunbar, Agustin Fuentes, Robert Bellah and others is showing how engaging with invisible worlds and supernatural vitalities is an ancient and central aspect of Homo culture, which took off with the emergence of Homo sapiens.Considering matters from Neanderthal art to altered states of mind, this vlog tells that story and asks why it matters today.You might also enjoy my essay - https://aeon.co/essays/how-trance-states-forged-human-society-through-transcendenceFor more about Mark - https://www.markvernon.com

In this, the second of two episodes on Robert Bellah's "Habits of the Heart," Brett explores the consequences of American individualism being removed from the traditions that once gave it a direction and purpose. Today, Americans are expected to "find themselves" independent of any outside influences. Bellah finds a deep and troubling irony in the way this philosophy opens Americans to a pervasive doctrine of consumption and conformity. In contrast to the early days of the Republic, individualism today renders Americans incredibly ambivalent towards politics and governmental power. Tragically, Bellah points out, it is precisely traditions such as civic participation that could actually give Americans a meaningful sense of self. https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/15X0LWXA5T9O2/ref=nav_wishlist_lists_4?_encoding=UTF8&type=wishlist #RobertBellah #Individualism #Conformity #Capitalism #Consumerism #BookReview #Habitsoftheheart

In today's show, Chris introduces an important study of individualism that was published back in 1985 by Robert Bellah and a team of sociologists, entitled: Habits of the Heart--Individualism and Commitment in American Life". A best-seller at the time, the book is almost forgotten today, which is a shame since the world we live in is the world they warned us about and hoped we'd avoid. The team, through field research identified four forms individualism can take in the American tradition--two of which support healthy community life, and two which undermine it. The healthy forms of individualism were in decline in 1985, and the situation is worse today. Of course, the subject gives Tom and Glenn a lot to talk about. Join the discussion and see what sort of individual you are!

In today's show, Chris introduces an important study of individualism that was published back in 1985 by Robert Bellah and a team of sociologists, entitled: Habits of the Heart--Individualism and Commitment in American Life". A best-seller at the time, the book is almost forgotten today, which is a shame since the world we live in is the world they warned us about and hoped we'd avoid. The team, through field research identified four forms individualism can take in the American tradition--two of which support healthy community life, and two which undermine it. The healthy forms of individualism were in decline in 1985, and the situation is worse today. Of course, the subject gives Tom and Glenn a lot to talk about. Join the discussion and see what sort of individual you are!

In today’s show, Chris introduces an important study of individualism that was published back in 1985 by Robert Bellah and a team of sociologists, entitled: Habits of the Heart–Individualism and Commitment in American Life”. A best-seller at the time, the book is almost forgotten today, which is a shame since the world we live in […]

In today’s show, Chris introduces an important study of individualism that was published back in 1985 by Robert Bellah and a team of sociologists, entitled: Habits of the Heart–Individualism and Commitment in American Life”. A best-seller at the time, the book is almost forgotten today, which is a shame since the world we live in […]

In today's show, Chris introduces an important study of individualism that was published back in 1985 by Robert Bellah and a team of sociologists, entitled: Habits of the Heart--Individualism and Commitment in American Life". A best-seller at the time, the book is almost forgotten today, which is a shame since the world we live in is the world they warned us about and hoped we'd avoid. The team, through field research identified four forms individualism can take in the American tradition--two of which support healthy community life, and two which undermine it. The healthy forms of individualism were in decline in 1985, and the situation is worse today. Of course, the subject gives Tom and Glenn a lot to talk about. Join the discussion and see what sort of individual you are! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-theology-pugcast/support

In this, the first of a two part review on "Habits of the Heart" by Robert Bellah, Brett explores Bellah's historical account of three major traditions that flow through American history: the Biblical, the Republican, and the Individualistic. Bellah finds that even as these traditions remain influential, they have each been ripped off from a wholistic understanding of the American as an independent but engaged citizen. As America transformed from an agrarian to an industrial society, a cool and calculating self-interest ascended to create the isolated form of individualism Americans know and embrace today. Discussion Questions: 1.) Where do you see the three traditions influencing public life today? Can you think of specific examples in both liberal and conservative circles? 2.) Why does the therapist replace the independent citizen as the ideal representative American? 3.) How do you connect the meaning of your home life and work life? Do they serve the same ultimate purpose? Why or why not? Burt's Book Wish List: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/genericItemsPage/15X0LWXA5T9O2?type=wishlist&_encoding=UTF8  

Jeffrey Broadbent was a student of Shunryu Suzuki, Robert Bellah, and Lewis Lancaster who studied and taught at the university level in Japan and studied Zen there as well. He's a professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota.  

At first glance, the term “expressive individualism” seems benign enough. After all, people throughout the Western world value their personal freedom and the liberty to make crucial life decisions such as whether to have children and how and when they wish to die. What could possibly be wrong with the idea that everyone should be in control of his or her own body and fate to the greatest extent possible and with the least intrusion by either the state or “outdated” social mores? But there is a dark side to expressive individualism when one enters the realm of public bioethics. In his 2020 book What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics (Harvard University Press, 2020), O. Carter Snead defines for us what the term “public bioethics” encompasses and provides a much-needed genealogy of the field. He profiles key players in many of the most momentous bioethics-related developments of the post-WWII era from physicians such as Henry Knowles Beecher to jurists like Harry Blackmun and influential scholars in fields such as philosophy and sociology like Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor and Robert Bellah. Snead chronicles how the field of bioethics came to be shaped by shocking revelations of cases of inhumanity many of which are well-known (such as the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study) but many of which are rarely discussed such as medical experiments performed on near-term alive aborted babies. Such cases shocked the public and led to legislation creating commissions and other bodies designed to prevent such horrors. But Snead argues that much of the action on the public policy front failed for multiple reasons and left vulnerable groups (e.g., the aged, the cognitively disabled, the unborn) outside a legal regime built upon the precepts of expressive individualism. And even those who were supposedly able to express their wishes were often harmed by the expressive individualism paradigm and its legal framework. Snead gives examples of the many actors in the area of assisted reproduction and assisted suicide whose rights can be trampled in the name of a notion of personal liberty that does not account for changes of mind. He also demonstrates that regulation and oversight was often, for all intents and purposes, absent in many cases. Snead's book is a clarion call for what he calls “remembering the body.” This is an important book for anyone who may at some point become ill or disabled or who will end up caring for someone who is. That is, it is a book for everyone. It is by a leading scholar, but its readership is anyone with a body and who loves other people—or at least has some control over them. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At first glance, the term “expressive individualism” seems benign enough. After all, people throughout the Western world value their personal freedom and the liberty to make crucial life decisions such as whether to have children and how and when they wish to die. What could possibly be wrong with the idea that everyone should be in control of his or her own body and fate to the greatest extent possible and with the least intrusion by either the state or “outdated” social mores? But there is a dark side to expressive individualism when one enters the realm of public bioethics. In his 2020 book What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics (Harvard University Press, 2020), O. Carter Snead defines for us what the term “public bioethics” encompasses and provides a much-needed genealogy of the field. He profiles key players in many of the most momentous bioethics-related developments of the post-WWII era from physicians such as Henry Knowles Beecher to jurists like Harry Blackmun and influential scholars in fields such as philosophy and sociology like Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor and Robert Bellah. Snead chronicles how the field of bioethics came to be shaped by shocking revelations of cases of inhumanity many of which are well-known (such as the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study) but many of which are rarely discussed such as medical experiments performed on near-term alive aborted babies. Such cases shocked the public and led to legislation creating commissions and other bodies designed to prevent such horrors. But Snead argues that much of the action on the public policy front failed for multiple reasons and left vulnerable groups (e.g., the aged, the cognitively disabled, the unborn) outside a legal regime built upon the precepts of expressive individualism. And even those who were supposedly able to express their wishes were often harmed by the expressive individualism paradigm and its legal framework. Snead gives examples of the many actors in the area of assisted reproduction and assisted suicide whose rights can be trampled in the name of a notion of personal liberty that does not account for changes of mind. He also demonstrates that regulation and oversight was often, for all intents and purposes, absent in many cases. Snead’s book is a clarion call for what he calls “remembering the body.” This is an important book for anyone who may at some point become ill or disabled or who will end up caring for someone who is. That is, it is a book for everyone. It is by a leading scholar, but its readership is anyone with a body and who loves other people—or at least has some control over them. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At first glance, the term “expressive individualism” seems benign enough. After all, people throughout the Western world value their personal freedom and the liberty to make crucial life decisions such as whether to have children and how and when they wish to die. What could possibly be wrong with the idea that everyone should be in control of his or her own body and fate to the greatest extent possible and with the least intrusion by either the state or “outdated” social mores? But there is a dark side to expressive individualism when one enters the realm of public bioethics. In his 2020 book What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics (Harvard University Press, 2020), O. Carter Snead defines for us what the term “public bioethics” encompasses and provides a much-needed genealogy of the field. He profiles key players in many of the most momentous bioethics-related developments of the post-WWII era from physicians such as Henry Knowles Beecher to jurists like Harry Blackmun and influential scholars in fields such as philosophy and sociology like Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor and Robert Bellah. Snead chronicles how the field of bioethics came to be shaped by shocking revelations of cases of inhumanity many of which are well-known (such as the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study) but many of which are rarely discussed such as medical experiments performed on near-term alive aborted babies. Such cases shocked the public and led to legislation creating commissions and other bodies designed to prevent such horrors. But Snead argues that much of the action on the public policy front failed for multiple reasons and left vulnerable groups (e.g., the aged, the cognitively disabled, the unborn) outside a legal regime built upon the precepts of expressive individualism. And even those who were supposedly able to express their wishes were often harmed by the expressive individualism paradigm and its legal framework. Snead gives examples of the many actors in the area of assisted reproduction and assisted suicide whose rights can be trampled in the name of a notion of personal liberty that does not account for changes of mind. He also demonstrates that regulation and oversight was often, for all intents and purposes, absent in many cases. Snead’s book is a clarion call for what he calls “remembering the body.” This is an important book for anyone who may at some point become ill or disabled or who will end up caring for someone who is. That is, it is a book for everyone. It is by a leading scholar, but its readership is anyone with a body and who loves other people—or at least has some control over them. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At first glance, the term “expressive individualism” seems benign enough. After all, people throughout the Western world value their personal freedom and the liberty to make crucial life decisions such as whether to have children and how and when they wish to die. What could possibly be wrong with the idea that everyone should be in control of his or her own body and fate to the greatest extent possible and with the least intrusion by either the state or “outdated” social mores? But there is a dark side to expressive individualism when one enters the realm of public bioethics. In his 2020 book What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics (Harvard University Press, 2020), O. Carter Snead defines for us what the term “public bioethics” encompasses and provides a much-needed genealogy of the field. He profiles key players in many of the most momentous bioethics-related developments of the post-WWII era from physicians such as Henry Knowles Beecher to jurists like Harry Blackmun and influential scholars in fields such as philosophy and sociology like Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor and Robert Bellah. Snead chronicles how the field of bioethics came to be shaped by shocking revelations of cases of inhumanity many of which are well-known (such as the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study) but many of which are rarely discussed such as medical experiments performed on near-term alive aborted babies. Such cases shocked the public and led to legislation creating commissions and other bodies designed to prevent such horrors. But Snead argues that much of the action on the public policy front failed for multiple reasons and left vulnerable groups (e.g., the aged, the cognitively disabled, the unborn) outside a legal regime built upon the precepts of expressive individualism. And even those who were supposedly able to express their wishes were often harmed by the expressive individualism paradigm and its legal framework. Snead gives examples of the many actors in the area of assisted reproduction and assisted suicide whose rights can be trampled in the name of a notion of personal liberty that does not account for changes of mind. He also demonstrates that regulation and oversight was often, for all intents and purposes, absent in many cases. Snead's book is a clarion call for what he calls “remembering the body.” This is an important book for anyone who may at some point become ill or disabled or who will end up caring for someone who is. That is, it is a book for everyone. It is by a leading scholar, but its readership is anyone with a body and who loves other people—or at least has some control over them. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/medicine

At first glance, the term “expressive individualism” seems benign enough. After all, people throughout the Western world value their personal freedom and the liberty to make crucial life decisions such as whether to have children and how and when they wish to die. What could possibly be wrong with the idea that everyone should be in control of his or her own body and fate to the greatest extent possible and with the least intrusion by either the state or “outdated” social mores? But there is a dark side to expressive individualism when one enters the realm of public bioethics. In his 2020 book What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics (Harvard University Press, 2020), O. Carter Snead defines for us what the term “public bioethics” encompasses and provides a much-needed genealogy of the field. He profiles key players in many of the most momentous bioethics-related developments of the post-WWII era from physicians such as Henry Knowles Beecher to jurists like Harry Blackmun and influential scholars in fields such as philosophy and sociology like Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor and Robert Bellah. Snead chronicles how the field of bioethics came to be shaped by shocking revelations of cases of inhumanity many of which are well-known (such as the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study) but many of which are rarely discussed such as medical experiments performed on near-term alive aborted babies. Such cases shocked the public and led to legislation creating commissions and other bodies designed to prevent such horrors. But Snead argues that much of the action on the public policy front failed for multiple reasons and left vulnerable groups (e.g., the aged, the cognitively disabled, the unborn) outside a legal regime built upon the precepts of expressive individualism. And even those who were supposedly able to express their wishes were often harmed by the expressive individualism paradigm and its legal framework. Snead gives examples of the many actors in the area of assisted reproduction and assisted suicide whose rights can be trampled in the name of a notion of personal liberty that does not account for changes of mind. He also demonstrates that regulation and oversight was often, for all intents and purposes, absent in many cases. Snead’s book is a clarion call for what he calls “remembering the body.” This is an important book for anyone who may at some point become ill or disabled or who will end up caring for someone who is. That is, it is a book for everyone. It is by a leading scholar, but its readership is anyone with a body and who loves other people—or at least has some control over them. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At first glance, the term “expressive individualism” seems benign enough. After all, people throughout the Western world value their personal freedom and the liberty to make crucial life decisions such as whether to have children and how and when they wish to die. What could possibly be wrong with the idea that everyone should be in control of his or her own body and fate to the greatest extent possible and with the least intrusion by either the state or “outdated” social mores? But there is a dark side to expressive individualism when one enters the realm of public bioethics. In his 2020 book What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics (Harvard University Press, 2020), O. Carter Snead defines for us what the term “public bioethics” encompasses and provides a much-needed genealogy of the field. He profiles key players in many of the most momentous bioethics-related developments of the post-WWII era from physicians such as Henry Knowles Beecher to jurists like Harry Blackmun and influential scholars in fields such as philosophy and sociology like Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor and Robert Bellah. Snead chronicles how the field of bioethics came to be shaped by shocking revelations of cases of inhumanity many of which are well-known (such as the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study) but many of which are rarely discussed such as medical experiments performed on near-term alive aborted babies. Such cases shocked the public and led to legislation creating commissions and other bodies designed to prevent such horrors. But Snead argues that much of the action on the public policy front failed for multiple reasons and left vulnerable groups (e.g., the aged, the cognitively disabled, the unborn) outside a legal regime built upon the precepts of expressive individualism. And even those who were supposedly able to express their wishes were often harmed by the expressive individualism paradigm and its legal framework. Snead gives examples of the many actors in the area of assisted reproduction and assisted suicide whose rights can be trampled in the name of a notion of personal liberty that does not account for changes of mind. He also demonstrates that regulation and oversight was often, for all intents and purposes, absent in many cases. Snead’s book is a clarion call for what he calls “remembering the body.” This is an important book for anyone who may at some point become ill or disabled or who will end up caring for someone who is. That is, it is a book for everyone. It is by a leading scholar, but its readership is anyone with a body and who loves other people—or at least has some control over them. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At first glance, the term “expressive individualism” seems benign enough. After all, people throughout the Western world value their personal freedom and the liberty to make crucial life decisions such as whether to have children and how and when they wish to die. What could possibly be wrong with the idea that everyone should be in control of his or her own body and fate to the greatest extent possible and with the least intrusion by either the state or “outdated” social mores? But there is a dark side to expressive individualism when one enters the realm of public bioethics. In his 2020 book What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics (Harvard University Press, 2020), O. Carter Snead defines for us what the term “public bioethics” encompasses and provides a much-needed genealogy of the field. He profiles key players in many of the most momentous bioethics-related developments of the post-WWII era from physicians such as Henry Knowles Beecher to jurists like Harry Blackmun and influential scholars in fields such as philosophy and sociology like Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor and Robert Bellah. Snead chronicles how the field of bioethics came to be shaped by shocking revelations of cases of inhumanity many of which are well-known (such as the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study) but many of which are rarely discussed such as medical experiments performed on near-term alive aborted babies. Such cases shocked the public and led to legislation creating commissions and other bodies designed to prevent such horrors. But Snead argues that much of the action on the public policy front failed for multiple reasons and left vulnerable groups (e.g., the aged, the cognitively disabled, the unborn) outside a legal regime built upon the precepts of expressive individualism. And even those who were supposedly able to express their wishes were often harmed by the expressive individualism paradigm and its legal framework. Snead gives examples of the many actors in the area of assisted reproduction and assisted suicide whose rights can be trampled in the name of a notion of personal liberty that does not account for changes of mind. He also demonstrates that regulation and oversight was often, for all intents and purposes, absent in many cases. Snead’s book is a clarion call for what he calls “remembering the body.” This is an important book for anyone who may at some point become ill or disabled or who will end up caring for someone who is. That is, it is a book for everyone. It is by a leading scholar, but its readership is anyone with a body and who loves other people—or at least has some control over them. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is the USA currently in the early stages of sectarian conflict over its civil religion? In this episode of the DHP, CJ rebroadcasts his 2016 Election Special on America's Civil Religion (in order to review the concept of civil religion & its manifestation in the United States); this is followed by new material, reflecting on how CJ's understanding of the American civil religion has changed somewhat since 2016. He then goes on to compare and contrast the current political conflicts in the US to the Protestant Reformation in 16th and 17th century Europe, as well as the pietist-vs-liturgical split in American Christianity in the 19th century, before wrapping up with some humble observations and suggestions for people who are (like CJ) nonbelievers in any civil religion & who want to weather the current conflicts as best they can. Support the Dangerous History Podcast via Patreon, SubscribeStar, or Bitbacker. CJ's official DHP Amazon Wish List Other ways to support the show The Dangerous History Podcast is a member of the Recorded History Podcast Network, the Dark Myths Podcast Collective & LRN.fm's podcast roster. External Links Hardcore History Episode 48: Prophets of Doom Full text of “Civil Religion in America” by Robert Bellah, first published in the journal Daedalus in 1967 "Religion, Morality, and American Politics" by Richard Jensen Classic George Carlin bit on why he doesn't vote George Carlin on “Stupid Hat Shit” (Hilarious — talks about the fixation of both conventional religion & civil religion with headgear) Bob Dylan, “With God on Our Side” (An excellent, haunting, live recording of one of CJ's favorite antiwar songs of all time; this song brutally exposes the American Civil Religion) “Election Outcomes Affect Testosterone Levels in Men” according to Scientific American Wikipedia's summary of the United States Flag Code CJ's Picks: Amazon Affiliate Links Upon the Altar of the Nation: A Moral History of the Civil War by Harry Stout The Cult of the Presidency, Updated: America's Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power by Gene Healy The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages, Revised and Expanded Edition by Norman Cohn The Tailor King: The Rise and Fall of the Anabaptist Kingdom of Munster by Anthony Arthur The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West by Niall Ferguson The War of the World: A New History of the 20th Century (DVD) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on TSQ, Matt talks about a very powerful force in American life:  The American Civil Religion.  This is not a new concept, but it is one that isn't discussed as much as it used to be.  A  civil religion is a phenomenon whereby the nominally secular state takes on things normally associated with organized religion, such as dogmas, holy sites or shrines, sermons, incantations and prayers.  It's creepy as all get out, and should offend us all, whether we are religious or not.Robert Bellah's Articlehttp://www.robertbellah.com/articles_5.htmTragedy of US Foreign Policy Bookhttps://www.fpri.org/books/tragedy-us-foreign-policy-americas-civil-religion-betrayed-national-interest/#:~:text=the%20National%20Interest-,The%20Tragedy%20of%20U.S.%20Foreign%20Policy%3A%20How%20America's,Religion%20Betrayed%20the%20National%20Interest&text=Pulitzer%20Prize%E2%80%93winning%20historian%20Walter,foreign%20policy%20ever%20since%201776WebsiteFacebookTwitterPatreon

For our first installment, host Andrew Schlegel narrates the 1966 essay "Civil Religion in America," written by Yale sociologist Robert Neelly Bellah (1927-2013). Special thanks to the family of Robert Bellah, who have graciously granted us permission to use this piece.

In the wake of tragedy, we are accustomed to hearing calls for “thoughts and prayers.” We have heard them from prominent political figures, both Democrats and Republicans. But more recently, such calls have drawn harsh criticism from the Left.What does it mean when a political leader says that the nation's “thoughts and prayers” are with those who are in sorrow and grief? It could mean nothing. It could be a quick way of moving on without meaning to do anything.Or it could be an expression of what is called “civil religion,” the common spiritual language of the American people. Robert Bellah, a sociologist at the University of California at Berkeley, famously argued that “every nation and every people come to some form of religious self-understanding whether the critics like it or not.” Some critics clearly do not like it. Nevertheless, expressions of civil religion are necessary for a president of the United States — any president — who must lead the nation, sometimes as mourner in chief.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  This week we talk about everyday heroes – the people who show up for work every day, doing work they do not particularly like, in order to support others for whom they care. Twenty years ago, Robert Bellah observed that we tend to think of our work in one of three categories: as a job, as a career, or as a calling. To say that our work is a job, under Bellah's scheme, is to say that we exchange our time and energy for money – and that this is our primary reason for working. We are not following a so-called higher calling, and we are not building a career. We sometimes think of work done primarily for money as "just a job", as though it has less importance than work done as a calling or even work done to further a career. But this is not fair. It is important to think about not just the money but what the money means. There can be a tendency in some quarters to think of greed, a desire for material objects, or maybe a striving for social status. But in most cases, people are working for things that can have considerably more validity than the stereotypes might suggest. They might be working to create a better life for their children, move to a safer neighborhood, reduce the chronic anxiety of financial insecurity, or maybe just to put food on the table. All of these desires, and many others, are valid – maybe even more valid than some of the so-called callings we sometimes hear about. In this episode we tell the story of one of these everyday heroes -- an amazing working mother who provided a better life for her children.

We give our take on the readings for Christmas day, year A. We're talking Isaiah 52:7-10, Hebrews 1:1-6, and John 1:1-14. Despite the New Testament’s assertion that the coming of Jesus was the fulfillment of ancient Israel’s religious hopes for the future, religious Jews find the Christian celebration of Christmas based on a belief that stands in direct opposition to the most fundamental of Jewish tenets: the oneness of God (see Deut. 6:4). Still, the church continues to find in the Old Testament words of spirit and life. Today’s lesson from Isaiah reaffirms the church’s belief that judgment is not God’s final word. The good news is that God’s movement into our lives is to accomplish salvation (v. 7). The experience of ancient Israel exemplifies that “good news.” The judgment that Israel experienced as a consequence of its infidelity was not God’s final word, for God comes to comfort Judah and redeem Jerusalem (v. 9). The coming of Jesus, then, needs to be understood against the backdrop of ancient Israel’s religious experience. It is the decisive movement of God in the world, insuring that the world will become what God always intended it to be. God will not allow our selfishness and sin to frustrate the divine will for creation. In Jesus, God has become part of creation to transform it from within. God’s self-communication, begun in creation and continued through the experience of ancient Israel, comes to perfection in the incarnation. In Jesus, God has become a human being. That is the “good news” that the church proclaims today. -Leslie J. Hoppe Let’s think first about the song. During a discussion in his excellent book on preaching Tim Keller uses “Let It Go” as a prime example of the the way contemporary culture “enthrones our passions”: The song is sung by a character determined no longer to “be the good girl” that her family and society had wanted her to be. Instead she would “let go” and express what she had been holding back inside. There is “no right or wrong, no rules” for her. This is a good example of the expressive individualism [sociologist Robert] Bellah described. Identity is not realized, as in traditional societies, by sublimating our individual desires for the good of our family and people. Instead we become ourselves only by asserting our individual desires against society, by expressing our feelings and fulfilling our dreams regardless of what anyone says. (134) But we must also think about the movie as a whole, and not merely the song in isolation. As Trevin Wax of The Gospel Coalition has pointed out, the heroine of the movie, Anna, rescues her sister from the selfish, solo life she gives into by Letting It Go. (Greg Forster has made a similar argument.) The movie’s story ends up undermining and then jettisoning the “expressive individualism of the sovereign self” Elsa tries on for size while striding up the North Mountain. I agree. Anna’s love for her elder sister, despite years of apparent coldness from her, is one of the more beautiful redemptive loves I’ve ever seen in film. And in the end, Elsa submits again to “right and wrong,” even “rules,” by taking up her queenly responsibilities in the land of Arendelle. This the movie portrays as good, not as a constriction of her individual rights. I love the love of Anna for Elsa. Romantic love isn’t the only true love, and it isn’t even always true. I want my little girl to know this. It’s the major reason I let my kids watch Frozen. So what does the song mean? Does it undermine or does it support the expressive individualism of the sovereign self? Was Tim Keller interpreting and applying “Let it Go” according to the authorial intentions of the now-famous duo who wrote it? -Mark Ward, full article at https://blog.logos.com/2016/12/pop-music-can-teach-us-interpreting-scripture/ The Gospel according to John was written out of the thrill of actual contact with its leading figure, and one senses the tremors of this contact on every subsequent page. John's phrase "full of grace and truth" is exactly synonymous with ancient Israel's frequent celebration of the Lord God's "steadfast love and faithfulness" (hesed we'emet). With the word "grace" one thinks of the wide horizontal beam of the cross and of the wide-outstretched world-embracing arms of the all-merciful, all-compassionate God, the major longing of the human heart. With the word "truth" one thinks of the vertical beam of the Cross going down deep and up high to suggest the power of straight, real, honest truth, the major longing of the human mind. This truth is powerful enough to support the wide horizontal be a of God's Grace that stretches round the world. -Dale Bruner, The Gospel of John, A Commentary

Robert Bellah, 2012 CTI Symposium by Center of Theological Inquiry

Zen teacher Norman Fischer—a teacher in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi—joins us again to speak about the religion, evolution, and Buddhism’s unique role in both. The conversation begins with an overview of American sociologist Robert Bellah’s schema on the evolution of religion throughout the ages. We then discuss the important role that Buddhism can play in the evolution of religion in the West. This is part 2 of a two-part series. Listen to Part 1, Buddhism May Need a Plan B. Episode Links: Robert Bellah ( http://www.robertbellah.com ) Everyday Zen ( http://www.everydayzen.org )

Robert N Bellah Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age ~Co-presented with Point Reyes Books~ Join Michael Lerner for a conversation with Robert Bellah—a great sociologist of religion—about religion in human evolution. Robert N. Bella Robert is a renowned author, international speaker, and Elliott Professor of Sociology Emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley. His last book, Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age, is a work of extraordinary ambition—a wide-ranging, nuanced probing of our biological past to discover the kinds of lives that human beings have most often imagined were worth living. In it Bellah offers what is frequently seen as a forbidden theory of the origin of religion that goes deep into evolution, especially but not exclusively, cultural evolution. Robert’s website has more information. Robert Bellah died in July 2013. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

It has been over a decade since sociologist Robert Bellah spoke at the UUA General Assembly on the initiative to "strengthen a sense of connectedness, interdependence, and community" within Unitarian Universalism.  How far have we come from this 1998 conversation?  Have we strayed even further from this connection within our communities or strengthened our ties? Come explore this topic and what keeps us connected as diverse individuals within Unitarian Universalism.

Cultural commentator Robert Bellah has characterized the typical American approach to religion as individualistic and driven by the desire for personal fulfillment. But this type of religiosity is inimical to the Biblical vision. Just listen to the opening line of our reading from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians: "Paul, called by God's will to be an apostle of Christ Jesus." Paul is not actualizing his own agenda, but rather utterly turning himself over to the higher authority who has called him, claimed him, and sent him.

sermon transcript Introduction Please, if you would, take your Bibles and open to Psalm 119. This is our third and at least for the time being, final look at this Psalm. This is a long Psalm, and there is so much in here that I probably could have kept preaching on it for another several months. What I would like you to do is study it for yourself. I have one simple goal this morning, and that's to inspire and to induce you to study the scriptures for yourself. I can't compete with you. I don't desire to. I have half an hour of your time. I don't desire to compete with the things that God can do in your life, if you just give yourself to diligence study of Scripture every single day, that you would get up a little bit earlier, maybe even a lot earlier and open the Scripture for yourself. This will probably be my most practical sermon to you. I believe in establishing practice with theology, everything that the Scripture commands us to do, there's a theology behind it, a reason for it, but I'm going to just speak to your Bible study habits from an expert, and who could be more expert than a writer of a Psalm, like Psalm 119. This was a man who clearly saturated his mind in Scripture, and I want to learn from him how he studied the Bible, and that's our desire. The answer to my question is, there is one more expert, and that is the indwelling Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit inspired the Scripture. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, He lives within you. One of the functions the Spirit has in your life is to illuminate, to open up the Scripture so that it's not a closed book for you anymore, so the text of Scripture just leap off the page and makes sense to you in a way they hadn't made sense before. That's a beautiful thing when it happens. Powerful, and that's my desire. I want to whet your appetite. I want to talk to you about the habits of your heart. Robert Bellah, a sociologist wrote a book called Habits of the Heart. It was a best seller, I think in the ‘80s, a sociological analysis of the United States. I have no interest in following the lines of his argumentation, but I found the title of his book intriguing, and that's all I did, I just lifted that title and I want to know, what are the habits of your heart? How are you with Scripture? What do you do with the Bible? How do you handle it? The fact is, when I began my sermon this morning, I asked you to open your Bibles to Psalm 119, many of you did that, and for those of you that are holding a Bible in your hand, I also want to help you to understand just what a gift that is. For three quarters of the life of the church, most commonly lay people could not do what you're doing right now, namely to hold the Bible in your hands and to be able to look down and to read it and to understand it. Some of you have seen this book which I really enjoy, The Life Millennium, pictures and illustrations and stories of the 100 most important events and people of the past 1,000 years. For those of you that looked at this, do you remember what number one was? The number one most significant event in the past thousand years to the editors of “Life Magazine” was the printing of the Gutenberg Bible. I'm trying to think what would motivate editors of “Life” to think this way. I think it's probably true, although there are other things that God has done that are just as mighty, and so there we could have an interesting debate, but this is very significant. They think it's significant because it's the beginning of the Modern Age, the expansion of the Information Age that is just pouring over us now like a deluge. In the “USA Today” newspaper, it was talking about the fact that if all the information just being poured out now by various means, internet, satellite, television, all this, were consolidated to paper and put on floppy disks, how long will it be? Before floppy disks had gone the way of all flesh, but if they're all consigned to floppy disks and you stack them up, it would be 2 million miles high, one year of information. Are you keeping up with all that folks? Are you doing your reading? Are you studying? What a deluge of information. It could be that that's what they have in mind. They trace it back to when this printer, Johannes Gutenberg in 1455, invented a new system of movable type. He was not the first, the Koreans and Chinese had movable type, but he developed some techniques that were so advanced and so clear-thinking that, in effect in the West, printing wasn't changed again until the middle of the 19th century, not substantially. So for four centuries, he charted the course for how printing was to be done. You would not have had a Bible five centuries ago. You would not have been able to turn in your Bibles to Psalm 119 and look down at it, because you couldn't have afforded a Bible. The Bible was written by hand, by scribes, by monks who would spend years and years on one copy of Scripture, therefore, the only person who would have a Bible would be somebody who could afford to pay for that labor. That would be a king, a prince, potentate, a noble, but not you and me. We would not have available to us a copy of the Scripture, furthermore, if you wanted to read the Bible, you'd go into a local church, for example, a parish church in England, you would find the Bible chained to a podium, and it'll be a huge ponderous book. You would flip to the pages and you look down and guess what, you couldn't read, you're illiterate, but even if you could, I wonder if you'd be able to understand it. That leads me to the third most significant event according to “Life”, number two is Columbus discovers the New World. Number three is Luther, Knox, Martin Luther. The contribution that Luther made to this is that when you look down at Psalm 119, it's not written in Latin. How many of you can read Latin? Luther believed that every common person should have a copy of the Scripture in his or her own language, and said the simple plowman or the maid with a copy of Scripture is more powerful than all the ecumenical councils without it. That's what he taught. Because of these two great events, you have the ability to turn in your Bibles to Psalm 119 and look down. My question is not so much, did you turn in your Bibles just now when I ask you to do it? Have you done it this week? That's what I'm asking. Did you turn in your Bible sometime this week? I'm not trying to do anything except just to motivate you and encourage you to do that. Jesus said, "Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God." How long will it take you to absorb all of this? It’s a long journey. George Müller felt it was going to take a long time. George Müller, he, of the 2,000 orphans that he cared for daily, recorded 30-50,000 answers to specific prayer in his life. He kept a prayer journal, 30-50,000 specific answers to prayer. He said some of them that same day, many of them that same hour. You think surely a man like George Müller just kind of walks with Jesus, doesn't need the scriptures. He said the will of God has absolutely nothing to do with impressions on the mind, but everything to do with the word of God. All of his prayers came from text of Scripture that he would pray back to God, promises of God. He read through the Bible 200 times in his lifetime. You may not think much of that, not a great accomplishment. How many of you have read through the Bible in one year? If you have, you realize you've got to keep a strong pace, you've got to keep going, three or four pages a day in my Bible, three or four pages a day. Then you're through once in one year, he read it over 200 times, that would be that he read through the Bible three or four times a year. So that'd be about 14-16 pages of reading of Scripture every day, just saturated his mind in Scripture, and here we are talking about him 100 some odd years later, the spiritual legacy was immense. What is our spiritual legacy going to be? I really think it's directly connected to how faithful you are to open the Bible and read. I really don't think we'll have much to offer of eternal benefit if we don't. Jesus said, "I am the vine, you are the branches. Apart from me, you can do nothing. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be given you." Do his words abide in you? That's what I want to talk to you about today. I want to give you specific practical hints on how to study the Bible, how to make the Bible's words live inside your heart in your life, and I'm getting them from Psalm 119. I'm not going to read through the whole Psalm, but I want to just read the first three verses to remind you what the purpose of the Psalm is. "Blessed are they whose ways are blameless who walk according to the law of the Lord. Blessed are they who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart. They do nothing wrong, they walk in his ways." Isn't that beautiful? Psalm 119 is given to bless you, it's given to be a blessing. It's only begun to bless my life, I've learned so much from studying this Psalm, there's so much in here, and now we're going to get really practical and see what the Psalmist says about how to study the word. He's the expert, and we're going to learn from him. How to study the Bible: Bring the proper attitude to your study Let's start with attitude. What attitude do we carry to our daily study of the Bible? What is our way of thinking? When I was trained as a missionary, I was given something called an entry posture diagram. What this means is that as you come into every cross-cultural interaction on the mission field, your entry posture makes the whole difference, it has to do with an attitude. If you come into that cross-cultural setting with an attitude of suspicion, fear, mistrust, and then they set before you, a meal that they've labored over for six hours, but it smells strange to you, will you eat it? They can see, they look in the face, they can tell, and so the attitude you bring to that meal makes all the difference in the eating of the meal, so it is with the study of Scripture. What does Psalm 119 teach us about our entry posture or attitude as we come? The first thing it says is that we need to have a seeking and a yearning heart when we come to Scripture, there needs to be a hunger. I find the more I study Scripture the hungrier I get. It's when I get away from God and away from Scripture, I get not so hungry, I'm satisfied. This world starts to feel more comfortable to me, like this is my place, this is my world, but we need to bring a hunger to Scripture. We need to come and say, "Teach me, oh God, I'm hungry, I want something." Jesus said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied." So there's a seeking and a yearning with all your heart. Look at verse 30, "I have chosen the way of truth, I have set my heart on your laws." You see the determination, the hunger, the mindset. Verse 45 says, "I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts." Verse 58, "I have sought your face with all my heart, be gracious to me according to your promise." I'm hungry for you. I want you. Verse 94, "Save me, for I am yours; I have sought out your precepts." Do you come to your Bible study time with a hungering-seeking heart? That's your entry posture. That's your attitude. We tend to be half-hearted creatures, don't we? Half-hearted, but we are to be whole-hearted in our study of the Word of God. The second entry posture or attitude that we should carry is one of awe, fear and trembling. We are about to hear the word of the living eternal God, He's going to speak to me now. He's going to say something to me. The same Word that created the universe, the same powerful God who's made all of these things is going to say something to me now. That's a fearful thing, isn't it? God is going to talk to me. aA a matter of fact, the Israelites, when they were around the mountain, said, "Moses, Please tell God to stop talking because if He keeps talking we will die." God agreed, saying, “ That's a good thing. I'll speak through prophets from now on." That's exactly what it says. “What they've said is good, from now on, I will raise up a prophet like you to speak.” Who is the final word? Jesus Christ, but we can't handle God speaking directly, so He speaks through the written word and the indwelling spirit, but He's speaking nonetheless. So we come with a measure of awe. Now we have different ways of esteeming people, even in churches, we have different ways of esteeming, who is of high esteem and who is not so much. Who does God esteem though? That matters, doesn't it? “This is the one I esteem,” [Isaiah 66:2], "he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and who trembles at my word." That's the one God esteems. Is that you? Are you humble, contrite in spirit and trembling at God's word? Look at Psalm 119:120, "My flesh trembles in fear of you, I stand in awe of your laws." Isn't that incredible? Verse 161, this is in a context of persecution, "Rulers persecute me without cause, but my heart tremble at your word." Do you see that? “I’m not afraid of them. I'm not afraid of the rulers, I'm afraid of your Word.” "Do not fear" said Jesus, “the one who kills the body, and after that can do nothing to you.I'll tell you who to fear, fear the one who after the destruction of body can throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.” The psalmist does tremble at God as Moses did. So when you come to the Scripture, come with a hungry yearning heart and come with a trembling heart, you're going to hear from God today. Thirdly, come with an obedient heart. Verse 34, "Give me understanding, and I will keep your law and obey it with all my heart." In other words, I'm coming with an attitude that I'm going to hear something I'm going to need to do, something's going to come to me and I'm going to have to obey it, and I want to obey it. Verse 145, "I call with all my heart, answer me, O Lord, and I will obey your decrees." Spurgeon says, "If you come to Scripture holding on to darling sins... " isn't that strange? “Darling sins”, “you will learn nothing from Scripture.” If you come with a disobedient heart, if there's something you're holding on to and you already know God hates it and wants it out of your life, and you have made no effort to put that sin to death, death actually, you've made a truce. The two of you have made a covenant together, you're going to continue on together, then don't expect to hear anything from God when you open the Scripture. You've got to come willing to get rid of any and every sin in your life. I'm not talking about sinless perfection. We all stumble in many ways, said James, I'm not talking about that. “If anyone says he doesn't sin, he's a liar,” [1 John], that's not what I'm talking about. It’s your attitude toward the sin. We don't marry sin, there are no darling sins, every one of them, every last one of them must be put to death, and so we come with an obedient heart. Fourthly, we come with an expectant heart, we come expecting to get something. If you come to a wealthy king or potentate and you know that he's lavish and generous, and you come into his presence, don't you expect that there may be something for you too. God is generous, his resources are limitless, his wisdom cannot be measured. We should come expecting to get something. Look at Verse 131, "I opened my mouth and pant, longing for your commands." I'm expecting to get something out of this time, this isn't going to be dry as dust, I'm looking forward to my Bible time, I'm expecting something out of this. Fifth, be thankful. Verse 62 is a challenge. "At midnight, I rise to give you thanks for the Bible." My paraphrase for your righteous laws. Have any of you have done that this week? I haven't, truth be told, get up and set your alarm at midnight and get up and say, "God, thank you for the Bible." But that's what he does, he's just so thankful for the Scripture, he's just thankful we have a book like this, the Word of God written. Summary, what is your entry posture? As you enter your time with God and his Word, do so with a whole heart, a hungry heart, a yearning heart, one which trembles with awe at the thought of hearing God speak, ready to obey anything He tells you to do no matter how difficult, one that's fully expects to hear him speak and one that is thankful in advance for what you're going to hear. That's your entry posture, attitude. 6 Practical Guidelines about how to study the Bible What about actions and habits? Is there any practical advice in Psalm 119 about how to study the Bible? Yes, I think so. First of all, it's just the issue of habit. Verse 56 says, "This has been my practice." The implication is habit. "I obey your precepts." I've made a habit of this, some people have studied human nature. I don't know if this is true or not, but I've seen similar things happen in my life that if you do something of a daily nature, every day for a month, it becomes a habit, good or bad. I'd like to harness that and use it for good. Why not do a 30-day experiment? For 30 days, do such and such with the Word, memorize a verse a day, something like that. For 30 days, meditate on something. For the 30 days, extend or double or triple your ordinary length of time in reading Scripture. Secondly, in terms of action, prayer for instruction and insight from God. We've already talked about that, but it's so important, I want all of you to see yourselves as spiritual beggars before the Scripture. “Blessed are the spiritual beggars, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” If God doesn’t give, you won't get it. I don't care if you read it the rest of your life, you’ll never get it. Repetition does not ensure understanding. Did you hear what I just said? Repetition does not ensure understanding. You can be sitting in church all your life and never get it. A prophecy of Isaiah, "Be ever hearing, but never understanding, be ever seeing, but never perceiving.” God gives understanding. Ask him for it. The psalmist does it so many times, I can't even count them. Verse 18, "Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.” Pray that every time you open Scripture, "Open my eyes that I might understand or see wonderful things from your law." Verse 34, "Give me understanding and I will keep your law and obey it with all my heart." I could read one after the other. Recently I heard a speaker, Jim Elliff, and he was talking about a boy that he knew who was slightly retarded, but he loved the Bible, he just loved to read. He'd read a line of Scripture and he'd stop and get a strange look on his face and he'd scrunch his eyes up and say, "What does that mean, Lord?" He'd wait a minute, and then he'd read it out loud again and get that same look and say, "What does that mean, Lord?" Then he'd read it out loud again and say, "What does that mean, Lord?" Pause, and then his look would change, he said, "Oh, that's what that means, Lord." I'm too intelligent, I don't need to do that. That's just pride. You do need to do it. You'll never understand if you don't humbly come to God and ask him for it. Are you a spiritual beggar before the Scripture? Our God is generous with wisdom, very generous, especially over Scripture. Thirdly, reading and recounting. “With my lips, I recount all the laws that come from your mouth.” You read it and then you speak God's words after him. You read and speak what He says again. What could be more blessed than having your mouth say words that God's mouth has already said. Like father, like son or daughter, He's like us, we want to imitate him, and the words He spoke, and we want to recount. Number four, meditation. Again, there are many scriptures on this. Verse 15, "I meditate on your precepts, and consider your ways." Verse 23, "The rulers sit together and slander me, your servant will meditate on your decrees." I don't care what kind of earthly forces are arrayed against me, I just want to meditate on Scripture. What is meditation? We need to be really careful about this. People are really into meditation these days. A lot of it's coming from the East, the oriental type of disaffected or disconnected meditation, where you're trying to get away from linear thought, getting away from kind of projecting yourself out and all this. This is damaging and dangerous. When I'm thinking about meditation, I'm not thinking about that. I'm thinking of a historical grammatical kind of meditation. What do I mean by that? I mean, historical. What has God done in the past as revealed in Scripture. How has he revealed himself? What kind of God is he? Thinking about the history of Scripture, what God has done. Also grammatical like that boy, just going over it line by line and saying, "What does this mean?" and then looking at verbs and adjectives and connected phrases like "therefore" and "so that" so that we follow a train of thought. That's what meditation is. It's like a cow carefully chewing it over slowly word by word, thinking about it. You can't hurry it. You've got to go through it and understand. And then memorization. Memorization is very important. I really think meditation and memorization go very beautifully together. Some of you say, "Pastor, I know you talk so much about memorization." I actually don't think I talk about it as much a Scripture does. How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word, Verse 11, "Your word, I have stored up or hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you. If you abide in me and my words abide in you." What is that but memorization? I don't know what else it could be. How do Christ’s words abide in us if we don't memorize them? They're printed on our hearts and our minds. Realize if the whole Gutenberg thing is true, you would not have had copies of your Scripture, and so if you wanted to meditate day and night, what would you have had to do? Have it memorized, unless you are king in ancient Judaism or a priest, other than that, you had to have it memorized. Now, you may say, "I can't memorize." My missions professor told me a story about a man who determined that he was going to memorize John 3:16. I’ve asked a number of people,"Do you memorize Scripture?" "Yep, I know John 3:16." That's good, it's a start. It's better than not knowing John 3:16. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not on perish but have eternal life." This man worked every day for two and a half months and could not recite that verse without help from the Scripture, and he said, “What is the matter with him? I mean, that's a pretty simple word.” The missions professor said to me, "The amazing thing about him was not that he was that dense, it was that he didn't give up." Think about it, if you were trying to do something like that and after two and half months couldn't do it, do you think you'd have given up by then? I think I would have. He didn't give up. Finally, on the third month, he could do it. Then over the next seven years, God opened his mind to memorize almost 2000 Verses of Scripture. God gave him a gift. You're saying can God can control my mind like that. Yes, he did it negatively to Nebuchadnezzar, he turned his mind into that of an animal. He can do the reverse thing with you, He can turn your mind into that of a Scripture memorizer. I've written a booklet on an approach to extended memorization of Scripture. This is available to anybody free of cost. This is just an approach... It's a humble title “An Approach to the Extended Memorization of Scripture.” This is just something I have found useful to me. Sixthly, all hours of the day. Just listen to these verses. Verse 55, "In the night, I remember your name, O Lord, and I keep your law." Verse 62, "At midnight, I rise to give you thanks for your righteous laws." Verse 147, "I rise before dawn and cry for help. I put my hope in your word." Verse 147-148, "My eyes stay open through the watches of the night that I may meditate on your promises. I rise before dawn, my eyes stay open through the watches of the night." Verse164, "Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous laws." The monks used to divide their days into segments, and they set them aside for prayer and meditation on Scripture. "Oh, we're too busy,” you say; then you're too busy. Daniel was the prime minister of the Babylonian kingdom. Three times a day, he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God as he had done before[Daniel 6]. Your Response & Commitment to studying the Bible The third category, responses and commitments. We've looked at the entry posture, your attitude, we've looked at specific habits, practical habits. Thirdly, what about your response and commitment? Number one, searching your heart in your life by the Word. This is something that you must do. Look at Verse 26, "I recounted my ways, and you answered me. Teach me your decrees." What does it mean to recount your ways? What it means is you take the Scripture and lay it out, and you take your life and lay it out and compare the two. What do you think is going to happen when you do that? You're going to start seeing sin, and as you lay these things out, the sin starts to bubble to the surface and you start to say, "I don't want to do that anymore, I hate my sin, I want to turn away from it." Look at Verse 59. "I have considered my ways and I've turned my steps to your statutes." I've considered my ways and I've turned now to your statutes; that's repentance, and the Scripture produces it in us. As we read, we say, "Oh, I'm not faithful here, I need to change." Look at 168. "I obey your precepts and your statutes, for all my ways are known to you." “All my ways are known to you, you know it all, Lord.” Then the final verse of the Psalm 119:176, "I have strayed like a lost sheep, seek your servant for I have not forgotten your commands.” “Come and get me, Lord, I'm drifting, I'm wandering. Come and get me, bring me back." Scripture keeps you safe. Do you see it? Keeps you safe. The second most important prayer you can pray is to pray for illumination, "Teach me, Lord," and pray that you may obey. Verse 5, “Oh, that my ways were steadfast in obeying your decrees.” Verse 10, "I seek you with all my heart. Do not let me stray from your commands. Keep me from deceitful ways," Verse 29, "Be gracious to me through your law," Verse 35, "Direct me in the path of your commands, for there I find delight." One after the other. The psalmist says, "I see what I need to do. I see clearly the obedience I must give, now work it in me." Work in me. Hebrews 13:21, “Work in me what is pleasing to you, O God." I think that's our responsibility to obey. Right? Well, it is, but God enables us to obey, it is not for a man to direct his steps[Proverbs]. Oh, that's humbling, but it's true. You try to turn over a new leaf, make a resolution. It will not work. But with the power of God, the resolution works. Thirdly, determine choosing. This is where the will kicks in. Verse 30, "I have chosen the way of truth, I have set my heart on your laws.” Verse 112, "My heart is set on keeping your decrees to the very end.” You choose to do what God wants you to do. Number four, promises and vows. Make promises to God and keep them. The psalmist makes all kinds of promises and vows to the Lord, and not just this psalmist, but other psalmists as well. Scripture interprets Scripture. Look at Verse 57, "You are my portion, O Lord, I have promised to obey your words." And Verse 106, "I have taken an oath and confirmed it, that I will follow your righteous laws.” Those are two resolutions. Do you make resolutions? New Years. That's too long. Make them every month. Every month, come to Scripture and say, "Alright, Lord, what do you want me to do this month? How can I grow this month? And with your help, by the power of the Spirit, I'm going to do these things." Then when you fail to keep your resolutions, confess it to God, it helps you realize how much you need a Savior. Come and make those resolutions again and be determined to follow him. Fifth and finally, worship and rejoicing. Finish by worshipping the God who has spoken to you. Do you realize that all of this is about producing spiritual worshippers, that's you and me? That's what this whole thing is about. That's what church is about, that's what the gospel is for; to promote eternal spiritual worship in you and me of God himself. The Word accomplishes that, that's the purpose of the Word, to produce worship in us eternally. Verse 48, “I lift your hands to my command, to your commands, which I love, and I meditate on your decrees.” Verse 108, "Accept O Lord, the willing praise of my mouth, and teach me your laws." More than anything, remember, every command of God is good. I don't fear any word from God because He's good and his commands are good. Verse 68, "You are good, and you do what is good, teach me your decrees." Praise him and worship him for who He is and for what He's done. The Scripture is given that you may know God, that you may have life and have it abundantly. “Now this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” Please, please be diligent with Scripture this week. God has given you commands, read the Scriptures, obey them. Someday, you will stand before God and you will give an account for what you've just heard. You will not be able to say, "No one told me how to study the Bible." Study the Bible this week. Don't let Satan snatch the seed off that hardened path, but let it sink in to soften soil where it produces good fruit. Will you close with me in prayer? Heavenly Father, we thank you from our hearts for your goodness in giving us this Word. Thank you for Psalm 119 and its beauty and its perfection, Oh, Holy Spirit, moving us to study your Word that we may be faithful to do what's written there in. Father, for those that do not know you, oh Lord, I pray that today would be the day of salvation, that they would come to Christ, who is the living and eternal Word, and that they might have eternal life. And then, oh Lord, they will have a hunger and a thirst for your written word. For those of us who are already Christians, increase our hunger and thirst for your Word. And for those here who are dead toward your Word, who have no interest in Scripture, who are struggling with that, oh God, revive, renew them or convert them that they might know you. Through the blood of Christ, Oh God, make us hungry and thirsty for your Word, we pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.