40. Free at Last: Experiencing True Freedom Through Your Identity in Christ - Tony Evans

As Christians, we need to know our new identity instead of constantly living in the old one. To know Christ intimately means to abide in Him. We are saints, not sinners so we need to break the strongholds (lies) of Satan by taking each of our thoughts captive to Christ.  [Reprogramming your mind] In order to know what to feel/do in a situation, say the thought and end it with "in Jesus' name I pray" then you will know whether it is from God's truth (p.136)
"Faith is no mystical concept. It is simply taking God at His Word and acting in light of that. When you do this, you will begin to see the invisible world of the Spirit controlling your visible world, and not the other way around (2 Cor 4:18; Heb 1:3)". p.137
"Ask the Holy Spirit to reprogram your mind with the facts." p.151

To live out our new identity as those victorious in Christ.
Do not walk by the flesh but walk by the Spirit.
To have faith means to trust God and His Word, putting my confidence in God.

6-7 Feb 2018
Chicago: Moody Press, 2001

39. Fresh Faith: What Happens When Real Faith Ignites God's People - Jim Cymbala

I. Stolen Property
"In the spiritual realm, a kind of stealing is going on in many lives. Satan is in the business of ripping us off." e.g. stealing our very purpose of living/things that have value with God and are of eternal significance p.11 Jn 10:10
Faded calling for long time Christians. p.13
Where did the faith go?
David learned the powerful truth that God recovers stolen property. p.19 1 Sam 30:16-20 'David and his men came to a moment when they chose to get up and go after stolen prpoerty." p.20
We have to also come to the moment to say "In the name of the Lord, I am not going to give up on my calling, my potential in life." p.20
Satan knows the importance of faith "the righteous will live by faith" (Rom 1:17) and that "without faith it is impossible to please God" (Heb 11:6) p.21 Real faith is our lifeline to God's grace and power.
Check instastory notes for Jan 5th, 2018.
We need to depend on God.
God can make you forget 'Manasseh' Gen 41:50-51
Can I trust God to lead me?
The forgotten standard of faith as a measure of the Christian life instead of outer things/denominational norms p.68 Many Christians make big decisions in life without the thought of seeking God.
"A faith-filled believer will pray earnestly until he finds God's will for things such as: changing jobs, moving..." p.71
Trust God completely instead of our own cleverness e.g. the negative exmple of Jeroboam 1 Kings 11, 14
Faith runs on a different clock "Many of our struggles about faith have to do with timing. We believe, at least in theory, that God will keep his promises--but when?" p.98 e.g. Zechariah and Elizabeth Luke 1:13-14; God does the impossible when we think it is past the timing already
God is drawn to prayer: Zechariah prayed. God revealed himself when people began to pray: Acts 10, Acts 4:31, Luke 11:1, Luke 1:13
Don't second-guess God
"The great battle of our spiritual lives is 'Will you believe?' It is not 'Will you try harder?' or 'Can you make yourself worthy?' p.105
"The timing of God is often a mystery to us, and even sometimes a frustration. But we must not give up. We must not try to arrange our own solutions." p.112
Overcoming Discouragement. Joseph's story.
Grace that is greater. Judah's story.

4-5 Jan, 2018
Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999

38. The Prayer of Jesus: Secrets to real Intimacy with God - Hank Hanegraaff

Lord teach us now to pray Matt 7:29 "He taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law."
The Secret: "But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." Matt 6:6
"Prayer does not simply maintain the Christian life, it is the Christian life..." p.10
"The absence of inwardness is the lost freedom we trade for addictions. ... When God fills our inner vacuum with his Holy Spirit, life works. When God does not fill the vacuum, a host of consuming appetites swarm through our better intentions. ...It all adds up to a kind of powerlessness, which always results from living too far from the Grand Enabler.
" -Calvin Miller p.11

Your Father Knows: Matt 6:31 "And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard bc of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him."
F-A-C-T-S
Faith: "Faith is only as good as the object in which it is placed. ...it is the object of faith that renders faith faithful. The secret is in coming to know ever more fully the One to whom we pray." p.22
Jn 15:7, Rom 10:17
Adoration: Ps 95:6-7
Confession: "While unconfessed sin will not break our union with God, it will break our communion with God." 1 John 1:9 p.24
Thanksgiving: Rom 1:21, Col 2:7, 4:2; 1 Thess 5:16-18, Eph 5:20
Supplication: 1 John 5:14-15

Building our relationship. Matt 6:9 God's name be magnified
The city of God. Matt 6:10 your kingdom come, your will be done. "How gracefully has the Divine Wisdom arranged the order of the prayer; so that after things heavenly--that is, after the "Name" of God, the "Will" of God, and the "Kingdom" of God--it should give earthly necessities also room for a petition!" -Tertullian p.52
Bringing our requests Matt 6:11 Jesus was reminding his disciples that he was there to sustain them spiritually as well as physically. Each time we partake of communion we are reminded that he is "the bread of life" (Jn 6:35) p.60
The Compassion Award Matt 6:12 Forgiveness "It means that when you say you are sorry, you're supposed to say 'That's all right' and never think about it again." p.70
The Armor Matt 6:13 "we often underestimate the unmitigated hatred the Devil and his demons have for the things of God." p.76
Embracing the prayer of Jesus "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man..." Matt 7:24

Dec 2017-Jan 4, 2018
Nashville: Word Publishing, 2001.

35. God Can Not Be Trusted and Five Other Lies of Satan - Tony Evans

P: This is such a neat little book that is packed full of truths for the Christian life. I read it in a sitting but it has reminded me of my need to put my trust in God's faithful promises in the Bible--each and every one of them!--because He is a God who never lies. I have often fallen prey of the lies that the Enemy throws at us.
-Take time to take up your Sword: "That means reading, studying, and meditating on the Bible daily. e.g. Jesus in the wilderness, knowing how to respond to the devil with God's Word. Often we feel frustrated about the bad things in life and get tired when we have God's Word there already. "All we need to do is obey the words of Jesus and abide in that Word and we'll have an answer for any lie or temptation Satan throws our way." p.47
-"You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore." Ps 16:11
"By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharoah's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward." Heb 11:24-26
-"The only question each of us has to answer is, Whose words am I going to believe? Those of a spiritual enemy who hates us more than we can imagine, or those of a heavenly Father whose love for us surpasses our ability to comprehend?" p.91

12 Oct 2017
Sisters, OR: Multnomah Publishers, 2005

28. Caminemos Con Jesus: Toward a Hispanic/Latino Theology of Accompaniment-Roberto S. Goizueta

how does U.S. Hispanic popular Catholicism inform/show the theology of the truth/relevance of particularity of embodied people/place/culture/experience/affects-feelings to mediate the universal truth for all. The interrelationship between person to person as human praxis vs. individualism that claims on rationalism and the dominant group's truth/legibility claims even while promoting pluralism and multiculturalism. The privatisation of faith forced by the dominant liberal individualists is a haughty position to take and actually pretends to be generous/tolerant but is still asserting their own position as the right one--that everyone should follow.
What we can learn from Hispanic Christians and their popular Catholicism that involves the physical, the ordinary--clay, candle, flower, kissing of the feet--pilgrimage and processions. They live out their faith in the particular, everyday life things. Family relations is prime vs. individualism; understanding that we are connected with the past (our ancestors who may be poor and had been exiles) and the future makes us humble. There is the universal truth of God that can be seen and only can be seen through the particulars so the particular experience/culture of a marginalised group cannot be seen as a mere number to be quantified to add up to the most number (p.167) of sum.

Introduction of the book:
The author sets the context for discussion:
Who are the Hispanics? Exiles in the US, identified by the language they speak
-"Language is not merely a superficial reflection of our culture and worldview; it helps construct and shape that culture and worldview." p.12
-"For this exile and mestizo/a, however, the everyday struggle to live this 'in between' existence becomes the seedbed of liberation."

Nosotros: Community as the Birthplace of the Self: community/universal v.s. individualism
-"One cannot love the universal and supernatural if one cannot love the particular and natural..." p.49
-"Community," writes Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz, "is not something added on, but a web of relationships constitutive of who we are." The assertion that personal identity is intrinsically relational, or give by others from "outside," is thus the corollary of a sacramental worldview which asserts that the identity of every concrete, particular entity is relational, or given by an Other from "outside." ...the particular is the place where and the material through which the universal is encountered. p.50
-The U.S. tradition of modern liberal individualism manifests itself in three distinct, though interrelated areas of our lives: 1) the political, 2) the religious, and 3) the economic. p.54 "Whitin the horizon of modern liberal individualism, community is understood to be a "temporary and voluntary association of separate individuals." p.55 "The assumption underlying such responses is that participation in a religious community is in no way intrinsic or essential to religious belief; one relates to God as an individual, not as part of a community." p.56
-Bellah at al. speak of the "socially unsituated self" as the foundation of U.S. liberal individualism and the arbiter of all values, from the political (who is the best candidate) to the religious and moral (which is the right religion and the moral course of action) to the economic (which is the best brand of mouthwash). Thus, not only matters of taste but also matters of truth and morality come to be decided on the basis of quantitative criteria..." p.57
-The ironic result is, not a society of unique individuals, but a society of conformists: "As Tocqueville observed, when one can no longer rely on tradition or authority, one inevitably looks to others for confirmation of one's judgements. Refusal to accept established opinion and anxious conformity tot the opinions of one's peers turn out to be two sides of the same coin." p.58
-"The sentimental notion of community as an unstructured, deinstitutionalised, face-to-face, emotionally warm, and voluntary association implies, a dichotomy between community and tradition...for modern l i, community bonds cannot extend beyond this particular time and place; insofar as, through its structures and traditions, an institution extends communal bonds beyond and between generations, it can only do so illegitimately. If community is limited by space and time, then all institutions, all tradition, and all forms of institutionalisation will necessarily be viewed as intrinsically coercive, that is, a former, dead community's attempt to impose its identity and values (by definition obsolete, since that community no longer exists) on the only real community, that voluntary community which exists here and now. We have no responsibility to the past or to the future, since neither exists nor participates in our voluntary community." p. 64
P: I'm realising again how endemic the embededness of individualism is in today's people. It's so steeped in their psyches that they do not realise their way of individualist thinking is so strong and often opposing the grace-giving, community-needing, reality of who God created us to be. Thankful for Tim Keller's sermons who help me see this in my own thinking (e.g. the work rest sermon where I saw through my deep belief about my value as a person being relied on self accomplishment/actualisation in terms of career). Seriously, I can't believe my peers who say and believe in "your personal happiness is the most important thing, values/beliefs notwithstanding".
-Dichotomy btw the particular and the universal-individualistic anthropology: Where there is no strong, constitutive sense of community, then, the r/s btw the particular (individual) and the universal (family, church, community, tradition, institution) will be viewed as intrinsically dichotomous: i.e., the particular is in no way constituted by the universal; the universal is ipso facto oppressive because it limits individual autonomy. p.64 "As Alasdair MacIntyre contends, 'the essence of individualism is not so much to emphasize the individual rather than the collective...as to frame all questions according to an ostensible antithesis between the individual and the collective.' p.65

-The anthropology implicit in U.S.Hispanic popular Catholicism: "community is understood to be fundamentally preexistent (therefore involuntary) and constitutive. Therefore, the universal is not merely the sum of the particulars; rather, the universal is mediated by the particulars." p.65
-case: an elderly Mexican woman kisses the feet of the crucified Jesus: "If this piece of wood merely 'points to' some external supernatural reality, not itself revealed in and through the wood, then to kiss the wood is to commit an act of idolatry. But, if this piece of wood, shaped into  Jesus' crucified body, is itself the particular and concrete manifestation of a universal, supernatural reality revealed in and through this object, then to kiss the wood is the make the only appropriate Christian response. ...but the disparate interpretations stem from a fundamental, anthropological and epistemological difference. --the universal (e.g., the community, or the Jesus Christ of Christian faith and tradition), and an organic worldview, which would presuppose an essential, intrinsic, or 'organic' r/s btw the particular and the universal. ..Jesus and Mary defined relationally to each other and to us. p.65
-The Latinos' depictions of Jesus implies a concrete, physical historicity and concrete, physical relationship. p.66
-A relational being: Hispanic presupposes the foundational role of relationships in defining what it means to be a human being--and what it means to be a Christian. e.g. I do not experience myself as an individual person until I am confronted by another. infant-mother. ...entails an interaction. p. 72
Community does not extinguish but enhances individuality p.75
-"In an organic anthropology, each person is not a mirror reflection but a unique refraction of the whole." p.76

Beauty or Justice? The Aesthetic Character of Human Action
-"A relational anthropology, wherein the person is viewed as intrinsically social, is thus rooted in human action, or 'praxis.' p.77
-What is the r/s between theology (our knowledge of God) and praxis (the theological articulation of that knowledge in our everyday lives/action"?
-the significance of Latin American liberation theology for understanding praxis.-the person is defined more by what he or she does than by what he or she thinks.; orthopraxis aka "correct action" as the most basic norm of Christian faith. ...vs. injustice and oppression p.78
-What is praxis?
1) modern Western understanding: praxis as instrumental action=the action of an autonomous subject upon his or her external environment, itself construed as but a passive object of the subject's actions.; technique/practicality-the value of human action or life is predicated upon its usefulness. p.80 e.g. Marx-human action->prodcution; Aristotle-all human activity whose end is internal rather than external to itself aka human intersubjective activity. Human action whose end is external to itself is called poiesis. e.g. production aka the process of doing/making doesn't have intrinsic value, only the product is the goal p.83 For Aristotle, "life is action [praxis] and not production [poiesis]. p.84 What makes human life human is precisely that it is an absolute value in itself--regardless of its productivity, usefulness, or practicality.  ...To reduce human action to social transformation is to reduce it to productive activity, which is to reduce it to technique; and to reduce human action to technique is to reduce the human person to but a passive object, a mere instrument of production. p84
The modern, post-Enlightenment emphasis on technique, or instrumental action, as the highest form of human activity: ...then all human activity will tend to be judged by the criteria of production; whether in capitalism or socialism. p.85
P: Doesn't this view of human action/life affected my view also? I thought I must be useful to God--be able to evangelise a lot--in order to be of worth. But this is antithetical to God's grace and preeminent love. This was why I found it hard to accept the saying that there is nothing more that you can do to make God love you more and nothing that you do that can make Him love you less.
1b) liberation theologians were also influenced by this view of praxis as liberating social action. p.86
Several definitions, but this one: represents "perhaps the most significant contribution of liberation theology to the church, reminding Christians that the lived commitment to social justice is not superfluous to but a precondition for authentic Christian faith. The struggle for justice is not an option for Christians, over and above their Christian belief and worship" p.88
-What is the r/s between historical praxis aka praxis-as-an-end-in-itself & liberating praxis? still ambiguous: "Is liberating theology fundamentally a reflection on human action as an end in itself (historical praxis), or on human action as an instrument of liberation (liberating praxis)? p.88
2) Praxis as aesthetics:
early 20th century Latin American philosophers emphasise the aesthetic experience as the key category for interpreting human action. Jose Vasconcelos (1882-1959): against the Comtean positivism of the day that asserted that "human beings can know only that which is verifiable through empirical scientific analysis/observation." p.89 separation between the subject-observor (external)
-Aesthetic philosophies=grounded not in pure reason/practical reason but in the mystery of aesthetic judgment. ...the special pathos of beauty  as the unifying principle aka the "emphatic fusion" between subject and object that takes place in the aesthetic experience (i.e., the experience of beauty, or a work of art), wherein the person loses himself in the experience. p.91

Ethical-political, and aesthetic character of praxis
-"As revealed in popular Catholicism, human action is 1) sacramental; 2) essentially and intrinsically communal/relational; 3) an end in itself; 4) empowering; and, therefore 5) liberating. p.103
-Beauty as revelatory: the aesthetic character of human action: people's action is mediated by physical symbols, by physical gestures/movement and processions, singing songs, and by the very physical effort exerted in preparing the church for the celebrations. Our r/s to God thus involves embodied action in the world; it is not merely a private sentiment or feeling. p.103
-"For it is in the acting, in the performing, in the participation, in the living itself that God is revealed." p.103
-The term sacrament refers not only to the revelation of God in creation, but also to the revelation of God in the person's embodied action in the world, in interaction and participation. p.103
 -Their value to the participant derives from the fact that these are not fundamentally the actions of one individual by him or herself, but actions between him or her and God, ...and the other members of the community, both living and dead. ...even in my most "private" moments, I am responsible to those communities and hence, ultimately, to the entire human and divine community, in which I necessarily participate." p.105
-"If our goal is a just society, where all human persons are valued, affirmed, and loved as ends in themselves, as genuine "others," we cannot arrive at that goal through an instrumentalisation of persons which contradicts the very goal itself. At its most basic level justice, like happiness, is not a product but a concomitant, or byproduct, of human life when that life is lived and valued as an end in itself. ...social justice and personal growth or transformation are not directly-intended 'products' of the 'work' the individual person undertakes respectively 'on' society, or 'on' himself or herself. Rather, these are but byproducts of the persons' interaction with others. In short, the only justice and the only true self-improvement or personal growth is that which is the unintended (directly, at least) consequence of the person's active love of others. This is simply another way of expressing the paradox of the cross." p.107
-"Celebration becomes possible only when we cease making a project of our lives and our world." p.107 "In sum, the achievement of freedom and justice, whether at the personal or social level, will be impossible if freedom and justice are viewed primarily as products of our efforts rather than as, fundamentally, implicit byproducts or concomitants of human lives affirmed and valued as ends in themselves. Only if and when our intersubjective r/s-as lived in our families, communities, and institutions--reflect such an affirmation will we have true freedom and justice." p.108
-"Only when we are freed from the anxiety created by the need to control others, or the need to be controlled by others, are we truly free. Thus, the highest form of aesthetic praxis becomes the act of celebration, wherein the  intrinsic value of human life as an end in itself." <-this reminds me of what Nouwen wrote in "Here and Now" about why we celebrate birthdays.
Conversely, "When human action is instrumentalised, one's 'life' becomes a problem to be solved, a plan to be carried out, or a project to be realised. ...Consequently, I become enslaved to the desired result, anxious to plan all aspects of my life so as to ensure its successful conclusion. Convinved that I am free bc I am 'in control' of my life, I am actually enslaved by my very need to control..." p.110
-Praxis always has an affective dimension. It is through this affective dimension that we can relate most intimately with others." human interaction, not billiard balls. p.110 "The sharing of any feelings, however 'negative,' implies and affirms interaction, connection, and relationship with the other person; the failure to do so implies and affirms estrangement and alienation." p.110-111
-Domestic life as human action. not just the productivity in the public sphere (marketplace/political arena).; A proper understanding of human action must, thus, embrace both public and private spheres of activity, and the intrinsic r/s btw them: Although it is often regarded as autonomous, daily life is in fact at the center of history, invading all aspects of life." p.113
-the depreciation of domestic life as praxis has resulted historically not only in the marginalization of women's experience but also in the marginalization of popular religion as a locus theologicus" p.116
-in the context of the modern Western private-public dichotomy
-The insufficiency of aesthetics : embedded in ethical-political and economic r/s too. "After all, as bodies we act and make (products) as well as feel. Human action always has an ethical-political character since--given our relational or organic anthropology--human action implies a rs between ourselves and our environment, especially other persons. ... "the intrinsic interrelationships among aesthetic action, ethical-political action, and poiesis" P: reminds me of musicology, the lecture about opera in Paris and how things affected each other-sponsorship, audience reception...
-One culture can fuse emphatically with another culture only if and when they are both already acknowledged as equal. p.126
-Culture is an attractive, alternative 'key to history,' ..to human liberation... If justice demands nothing more than an open mind, a room-full of pre-Columbian artifacts, and an 'exposure' to other perspectives, then we can achieve justice without leaving the comfort of the suburban enclosure or the ivory tower. p.127 Culture symbols and practices are always mediated by political and economic structures and r/s.
-Conclusion: Goizueta suggests that "rather than superseding the ethical-political, the aesthetic dimension of human action is mediated by the ethical-political; it is encountered and lived out within ethical-political action, as the deepest meaning and significance of the ethical-political." p.128
-"The only proper locus of aesthetics and worship is, thus, the ethical-political option for the poor. Yet the deepest significance of that option is not social transformation per se, but the celebration of everyday human life. This is why, paradoxically, it is among the poor that one will find the most vibrant and vital communities of celebration and worship." p.131

Rationality or irrationality? Modernity, Postmodernity, and the U.S. Hispanic Theologian
-"If lived human experience is inherently relational, embodied, and affective, then we cannot understand that lived experience through concepts alone. Interpersonal reality cannot be understood or known primarily through theoretical analysis, but through an aesthetic, affective, and active participation in ('fusion' with) the sacramental r/s, symbols, and rituals. p.141
-Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz: "Praxis is both intellectual enterprise as well as action; the dichotomy between intellectual activity and physical work is a fictitious one..." p.142
-The liberation of the poor implies the emergence of historically marginalised persons as full-fledged rational historical subjects. p.148
-dichotomy of theory and praxis->dichotomy of truth and meaning
-If objective, scientific methods cannot lead us to truth, then truth per se must not exist. All that we can hope for is "meaningful" experiences which, as "meaningful," are inaccessible to rational analysis and judgment; the statement, "this particular experience or theory is meaningful for me," is ipso facto incontrovertible and must be accepted at face value, since to judge it according to rational criteria would be to impose on it external, alien, and artificial categories. Truth, then, is reduced to meaning...Rational certainty is replaced by sheer indeterminancy and ambitguity, since the story which is true to my experience is not necessarily true to yours, and the work of art which is meaningful for me is not necessarily meaningful to you. p.150
-The postmodern absolutization of particularity places U.S. Hispanics, and other historically marginalised groups, in an ambiguous situation. ...Justo Gonzalez: ...in which the dominant is confused with the universal. p.151
-For Christians, the understanding of the rs btw the universal and the particular is rooted in the incarnation itself, in the "scandal of particularity" p.152
-The possibility of mutual understanding--not simply mutual empathy--is thus itself intrinsic to an organic, relational anthropology. ...implies the possibility of shared norms--mediated, always, by the particular perspectives through which they are revealed. ...mediated by praxis aka the active relationship btw particular others. Truth is not fundamentally a thing but an event. p.153
-Symbols are both the end and the source of rational understanding; in the words of Paul Ricoeur, "the symbol gives rise to thought, but thought always returns to and is informed by the symbol." Aesthetic experience not only transcends theory; it also gives birth to theoretical reflection. p.155
-Particular meaning mediates universal truth.
-Only if I affirm your own concrete particularity and uniqueness will I be able to understand how your own life and history reveal a universal truth that is also true for me. p.157
*-"When the meaning of particular experiences is not recognized as mediating universal truth--art, literature, and religion lose their ability to subvert the dominant culture because, by becoming privatized, they lose their ability to engage that culture at all." ...We experience art and religion as not only meaningful, but as also true, as having a relatively autonomous and objective reality beyond our own particular social location. p.160
-competition among particular theologies, especially Third World and feminist theologies. ...surest sign that an authentic pluralism or multiculturalism does not exist: the access to those material resources necessary for making one's voice heard remains controlled by the same dominant groups. p.166
-Whatever else a pluralist is telling you, he is also telling you that his heart is in the right place...the right place is every place and therefore nowhere at all." p.170
-A pluralistic, multicultural society is one that multiplies the number of available options (whether political, economic, religious, or cultural) without according explicit preference to any--
"I'm OK, you're OK." Implicit preference continues to be accorded, however, to the dominant culture's interpretative horizon. ...Whatever its multicultural intent, such a pluralism ironically perpetuates the violence inflicted on marginalised groups and, indeed, compounds that violence by forcing these groups to turn against each other, thereby deflecting criticism and opposition. p.171

The preferential option for the poor & the proper place of theology:
-Authentic justice ->authentic pluralism=presupposes a praxis that is genuinely intersubjective, between particular, unique others. If mutual respect and understanding presuppose a r/s of others, oppression, injustice, marginalization, and exclusion are the names we give to the denial of the particularity and otherness of certain persons, namely, the poor. Thus, as long as there are poor persons there can be no pluralism. p.173
-emerged within the Latin American culture because or their organic worldview; it could not have emerged within a worldview that pits the universal (the good of the whole) against the particular (the good of a part, e.g., the poor). Within an individualistic worldview, the scriptural command to do justice--as a necessary implication of our very humanity and creatureliness--is literally inconceivable; instead, that command will be interpreted as a mere suggestion that one autonomous individual help other autonomous individuals. Where there is no necessary connection between persons there can be no necessary ethical-political imperative to love others. p.173
-Gustavo Gutierrez argued for a scriptural basis of this historical option: God's predilection for the weak and abused of human history in the Bible, starting with Cain and Abel...This preference brings out the gratuitous or unmerited character of God's love. p.175
-Gutierrez: "God has a preferential love for the poor not because they are necessarily better than others, morally or religiously, but simply bc they are poor and living in an inhuman situation that is contrary to God's will. The ultimate basis for the privileged position of the poor is not in the poor themselves but in God, in the gratuitousness and universality of God's agapeic love." p.176
-if God is present preferentially among the poor, we can only know God if we place ourselves there also. The option for the poor is, then the most important epistemological precondition for Christian faith: to know God we must first opt for the poor. p.177 To turn a deaf ear to the cries of the poor is implicitly to identify God's voice with that of the status quo and, hence, its established power structures. To hide their suffering and struggles is thus to make faith in a transcendent God impossible." [a precondition for authentic Christian faith] p.178
-illustration: a father would help the 3 year old brother who is involved in a fight with the big sister because he is weaker and to help the older sister would be to side with the privileged and unfair. To help the younger brother is the loving/fair thing to do.
-other reflection: when the rich people keep building tall walls and install alarms for fear that the poor outside would invade and steal their abundance of money. p.178This is not recognising that we all are humans created by God and we are connected because God is love. Our ignorance of their needs is what compelled the poor to have to steal--they taking the initiative to get what they need from whoever has a lot. Why can't we go out and give them in the first place? When I think about this in this way, I suddenly am not so scared of having my valuable things stolen (except for those associated with memories that are not replaceable). Who am I to think that the things I enjoy are mine? Aren't they all gifts from God and He can will these material things to whoever He chooses to give?
-To love the poor preferentially is to make an intentional choice to be that which we already are through no choice of our own: individual persons defined by our a priori rs to others, to humanity, to the universes, and, ultimately, to the Triune (i.e., intrinsically relational) God. p.179 If to be a human person is to be intrinsically related to others, what is irrational, then, is the failure to acknowledge that reality.
-"If God can love even clay, then God can love gold and silver. ...If--and only if--God can love even the crucified criminal, then God can love the ruler." p.179
-"It is from their (the poor) perspective that the intrinsically relational character of the person is revealed. It is, paradoxically, in the faces of those persons most alienated, most abandoned, most excluded that the intrinsic bonds that unite us all show forth--as that which is denied by such injustice. That is precisely why our society continues to alienate, abandon, and exclude the poor--bc, face-to-face w/ the poor, one is forced to confront our intrinsically relational reality. ...is so threatening that those bodies must be isolated, hidden from view in barrios, ghettoes, reservations, hospitals, etc." p.182
-When we recognise the injustice of those consequences, we get our first glimpse of what true justice is. If I, as an exile, have experienced the separation from my family, ...it is bc that experience threatens, and thus evokes a truth deeper and more fundamental than that of separation, namely, the truth of community." p.182
-"Suffering shared is suffering already in retreat." p.183
-"the concreteness and particularity of human praxis"
-"the particularity of the poor is the most accurate perspective from which to view the community as a whole--and from which to "opt for" all persons." p.185
-The act of accompaniment (being with, feeling with, doing with-as equals) p.191~
-"Where the option for the poor is simply reduced to an option for social justice, the poor will inevitably be reduced to an abstract concept or a manipulable object. ...universal love is mediated by particular love, and the most particular love is familial love. p.195
-Familial relationship->gives dignity->life affirming/common personhood affirmed
-to walk with the poor--literally, physically, and spiritually (self-reflection/soul changing) as Jesus walks with them (including geographical location-the hetereogenous urban vs. the white suburbs, crossing boundaries/in between/in exile people). Together with is important-affective, aesthetic union with the poor.

30 Aug-14 Sep 2017
New York: Orbis Books, 1995

21. The Overcoming Life - D. L. Moody

"If you are not overcoming temptations, the world is overcoming you.
How can the world be overcome? Not by education, not by experience; only by faith."

Fight worldly habits, temptations, pleasures.
Have humility, the yoke of Christ is light.
Hold up the candle.
There is no rest in sin.

"Let us go on turning as many as we can to righteousness. Let us be dead to the world, to its lies, its pleasures, and its ambitions, Let us live for God, continually going forth to win souls for Him. ...'Will you thus live and dies, O man immortal? Live for something. Do good, and leave behind you a monument of virtue that the storms of time can never destroy. Write your name in kindness, love, and mercy on the hearts of the thousands you come in contact with year by year" p.84

So many applicable, real life stories that is just as relevant today as when Moody wrote the book. Definitely worth a re-read to boost the spiritual life.

1-25 May, 2017
Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2010.

18. Prelude to Practical Theology: Variations on Theory and Practice - Jeanne Stevenson-Moessner

Schleiermacher's tree model, an image of organic unity: roots-philosophical theology, trunk-historical theology, crown (branches, leaves, fruits)-practical theology.
-Emphasis: interconnectedness, healthy interdependency; "there is something that beckons persons into connectedness...underlying our endeavors of self-differentiation in denominations, disciplines, and guilds, we are created to be organically related to others in ministry and theology."  (p.4) "The vital exchange of nurture within the parts of the tree" p.68
-"practical theology bears fruit, offers shade for sojourners, provides a nesting place for wayfarers, and connects its branches to other trees" (p.6); is "a discipline-in-relationship" (p.8)

Image of musicians-in-relationship, playing their individual instruments but in a way that benefits the whole artistic enterprise (performers entering the center stage at different timings and from different directions with different tempos.

-Dynamic symbolism "points to the infinite and incomprehensible; the use of multiple symbols can prevent an overbearing focus on or concretization of any one of them." H. Flanders Dunbar
 (p.9)

Love of God and neighbour.
-"Future questions for the field of practical theology cluster around the multicultural nature, the international audience, and the organic unity of the field. (1) How shall a multicultural or intercultural context influence "exegesis" and practical theology?..." p.20
-Hospitality recognizes the particularity of others as part of the broader interdependence of being and the interconnectedness of learning that characterizes the depths of our reality." John B. Bennett p.20-21

Practical theology concerns itself with movement or direction. p.30
-"An inversion of power has to take place for the world to see how Christ loved the church. The postcolonial mind-set disuses the imagery of slaves and servants and instead prefers the imagery of friends." John 15:12-15 p.32
-The Somalian refugee case: "This space between two lands or countries is likened to an interstice, or crack, between cultures. ...third culture or hybrid culture. Phan depicts this intercultural space as a matrix with a womb-like, generative possibility." p.34 "How might a theologian best enter the land of 'betwixt and between?' First, it would be with humility and with an eagerness to learn. The vision of our call to service would be dialectically related to the discernment of this particular context, that is, the worldview of the transnational migrants or refugees." p. 34
-Theologian Judith Berling: "What makes theological learning distinctive is its development of Christian character, habitus, or wisdom, the deepening of Christian understanding and of Christian lives. As the theological learner learns more about the context of her Christian life--including the impact of religious diversity in it--that learning is folded back into her reappropriation of what it means to be Christian, her sense of the Christian tradition and its language of self-understanding." p. 34
-"Instead of the top-down power movement of colonial powers to to the conquered, we have a circular movement in place." p.35
-"Boundary crossing gives the church more opportunities to be in relationship. This connectedness can yield increase in the love of God and neighbor, sometimes with risk but always with movement. In the end, the purpose of the music of ministry is to hear the overture of God." p.36

P: The purpose of practical theology is connecting theology (biblical teachings, historical theology, doctrine, theology) to how the church can live this out, and when the church encounters discordant notes (unexpected situations) then the church responds as best as they could being faithful to the Word, then also reflect on the situation back into theology.
-"Practical theology is a collaborative exercise between theory and practice." p.44;
-David Tracy: "practical theology is the mutually critical correlation of the interpreted theory and praxis of the Christian fact and the interpreted theory and praxis of the contemporary situation." p.45
-"In practical theology, this ever-deepening reflection is either preceded or followed by action and practice." p.59

-Countermovement in accord with the currents in contemporary practical theology: "There is a shift away from traditional sources of power and authority" ....to redefine power as God-given, innate authority. ...Those on the margins of society are offering up lots of "cold water" if those of us who are nonmarginalized would receive." p.49

-Living human instruments:
"action-reflection" or "theory-praxis";
Praxis=when practice is involved with political powers and injustice or justice issues. p.59
Practical theology="an academic discipline in relation to other theological disciplines. In practical theology, critical reflection is combined with "doing theology": acts of ministering to the poor, the wick, the imprisoned, the subjugated, the despairing, the homeless, and the unjustly treated." p.67

22-28 Mar, 2017
Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2008.