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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 165ef44 | God the Son, by being truly human without ceasing to be truly God, is both equal to the Father and less than the Father--equal by nature and less by volition to service. By this paradox, the usual logic of equality is turned upside down. | Thomas C. Oden | ||
| 7a52fa8 | Gregory of Nazianzus was amused by any who would insistently hold "God to be a male" which he regarded as a misplaced analogy." | Thomas C. Oden | ||
| 26c01ef | You cannot conclude that God, because Father, is therefore male. | Thomas C. Oden | ||
| 50fe073 | By this paradox, the usual logic of equality is turned upside down. | Thomas C. Oden | ||
| 5659275 | Nor can you conclude that "Deity is feminine from the gender of the word, and the Spirit neuter," since the designation "has nothing to do with generation." | Thomas C. Oden | ||
| aa35507 | In the Godhead all historical inequalities are finally transcended. | Thomas C. Oden | ||
| 9573f84 | God permits sin to come into human life, but only on behalf of a greater good--namely, freedom--and God overrules sin wherever it appears to threaten God's greater purpose | Thomas C. Oden | ||
| cdd381d | There reigns in the broken human heart a feeling of discord, a lack of congruence between what is and what ought to be (Augustine, Conf. 5). | Thomas C. Oden | ||
| 014c90c | God foreknows the use of free will, yet this foreknowledge does not determine events. Rather, what God foreknows is determined by what happens, part of which is affected by free will. | Thomas C. Oden | ||
| f5a7603 | God's way of being alive is distinguishable from other forms of life. Plants, animals, and humans enjoy life at different scales of consciousness, movement, and self-determination. But in all plants, animals, and humans, bodily life ends in death. From the moment of conception, the processes of decay and death are at work in our bodies. Not so in God's life. God's life is eternally alive. God's life is not only without end but without begin.. | Thomas C. Oden | ||
| fb74cc1 | I was able to confess the Apostles' Creed, but only with deep ambiguity. But I stumbled over "he arose from the dead." I had to demythologize it and could say it only symbolically. I could not inwardly confess the resurrection as a factual historical event. I was assigned the task of teaching theology, but when I came to the resurrection, I honestly had to say at that stage that is was not about an actual event of a bodily resurrection but .. | theological-liberalism | Thomas C. Oden | |
| c004106 | Every experienced pastor knows that what the penitent heart says about itself is much more consequential than well-made truthful sentences that shout from the outside of the inner voice of conscience. No element of confession is more crucial than the discipline of listening. The attentive listener is a chosen agent of divine reconciliation. When the moment for keen listening is offered, take it as an inestimable gift. | ministry pastoral-care listening | Thomas C. Oden | |
| b849f67 | One trains the eye of confession most closely on what is hurting. If sin is present it will be aching. Confession begins where the raw anguish of conscience is rubbing against the primordial awareness of God's holiness. | ministry pastoral-care repentance sin | Thomas C. Oden | |
| 9cfc12b | A delicate balance is required: keep the penitent tautly close to the point of recognizing sin, and then allow the relief of that pressure to flow through forgiveness. Confession increases this tautness, only to clear the path for release. | repentance forgiveness sin | Thomas C. Oden | |
| d033983 | I was a Marxist Utopian dreamer for a decade before I learned the vulnerabilities of Marxist theories. As I looked back it was full of deeply flawed arguments, but they were central to my thoughts in the fifties. I let their words saturate my mind before I went to seminary, and they remained in my mind like a ghost well beyond my years at Yale.The ideas I most loved were expressed by three in particular: the will to power (Nietzsche), the d.. | Thomas C. Oden | ||
| 3841a26 | As it turned out, my church sent their youth to summer camps more to gain a vision of social justice than of personal religious experience. I was elected to represent Oklahoma at a regional church youth camp in Fayetteville, Arkansas. There the national youth leadership outlined their plan for the future and taught us about the labor movement, grasping capitalists and the need for total disarmament. From then on my intellectual trajectory w.. | Thomas C. Oden | ||
| b14ae80 | Between 1946-1956, every turn was a left turn. I had to fend off temptations toward anarchism. I was more deeply drawn into the vision of an egalitarian society shaped by radical social engineering, Marxist historical and sociological interpretation, and resource redistribution. Everything imaginable seemed possible for my young mind, and I was well rewarded for my utopian thoughts by those older leaders of my church. Resistance to all thos.. | Thomas C. Oden | ||
| 5b6c0e1 | I went into the ministry to use the church to elicit political change according to a soft Marxist vision of wealth distribution and proletarian empowerment. Edrita [his wife] could sense that I was on a long and uncertain path. She was always more conservative than I, but she did share my basic social values and was willing at least to let me test my political follies...Whenever I read the New Testament after 1950, I was trying to read it e.. | marxism-and-theology new-testament-interpretation resurrection modernity | Thomas C. Oden | |
| e4c35a3 | My views on wealth redistribution were shaped largely by knowledge elites who earned their living by words and ideas--professors, writers, and movement leaders. Like most of the broadminded clergy I knew, I reasoned out of modern naturalistic premises, employing biblical narratives narrowly and selectively as I found them useful politically. The saving Grace of God on the cross was not in my mix of life changing ideas. | modernism political-theology | Thomas C. Oden | |
| 4e3b317 | In college I lost the capacity for heartfelt, extemporized prayer. I would have considered it gauche to pray spontaneously aloud with other college sophomores. I had also left behind my love the church's Scriptures, prayers, and especially its hymns, but I always knew they would be there if I went back to find them. | spiritual-experience | Thomas C. Oden | |
| 25c2cde | I now understand that I would never have been able to become a plausible critic of the absurdities of modern consciousness until I myself had experienced them. I did not become an orthodox believer or theologian until after I tried out most of the errors long rejected by Christianity. If my first forty years were spent hungering for meaning in life, the last forty have been spent in being fed. If the first forty were prodigal, the last fort.. | orthodox-belief theologians modernity | Thomas C. Oden | |
| 509496b | Until the end of the 1960's I do not recall ever seriously exchanging ideas with an articulate conservative. They were there, but not on my scope. I systematically avoided any contact with those who would have challenged my ideology. | Thomas C. Oden | ||
| 4462d1c | Niebuhr [Oden's Doctoral adviser at Yale and leading 20th century Christian theological ethicist] wanted all of his graduate students to have some serious interdisciplinary competence beyond theology, so I chose to be responsible for the area of psychology of religion. I hoped to correlate aspects of contemporary psychotherapies with a philosophy of universal history. The psychology that prevailed in my college years was predominately Freud.. | empirical-social-psychology niebuhr psychology-of-religion freudian | Thomas C. Oden | |
| 9f28c8f | His [brother in law Jim Hampson] appointment to the Episcopal parish in Wenham, near Gordon College brought them in close touch with leading evangelical faculty members in their pews and church leadership, including Elizabeth Elliot and Addison Leitch. They were instrumental in drawing Jim and and Sarah into the cutting edge of evangelical intellectual leadership, with friendships with Tom Howard and J.I. Packer. My ongoing relationship wit.. | bible-interpretation demythologizing elizabeth-elliott evangelicalism conversion | Thomas C. Oden | |
| 8bd22c6 | After some pondering, I made a decision that would affect all of my future work and writing in more ways than I could ever have anticipated. It was a decision between seminary and college teaching. More so it was a decision between two very different cultures of New England and the Southwest. I chose seminary teaching in Texas, which was a decision some of my colleague on the East Coast thought was foolish. From then on, as long as I was in.. | teaching-the-faith vocation | Thomas C. Oden | |
| 62d62f2 | I sent the first half of the dissertation to Rudolf Bultmann [major figures of early 20th century biblical studies and a prominent voice in liberal Christianity] as a courtesy with an invitation to respond to any points in my analysis and critique if he wished. I was speechless when I received a long letter from Bultmann, who had diligently examined the details of my arguments. His letter became a featured part of the publication in 1964 by.. | situation-ethics | Thomas C. Oden | |
| c98d82b | Questions about God's existence, self disclosure, saving action and almighty power reminded me of my inadequacies. For me the theo in theology had become little more than a question mark. I could confidently discuss philosophy, psychology and social change, but God made me uneasy. | theological-liberalism | Thomas C. Oden | |
| 9f26b01 | Back at my teaching and editing jobs I imagined the new world we were trying to create would be enduring and absolutely better than any world we had inherited. For me, if an idea was purported to be new, it looked a lot better than any idea that seemed to be old. Most theologians I knew were trying to discover some new way of looking at the old ideas of God, humanity, sin and salvation. I was there to teach theology, but theology itself was.. | theological-liberalism | Thomas C. Oden | |
| 9964335 | I functioned as a movement theologian, continuously shifting from movement to movement toward whatever new idea i thought might seem to be an acceptable modernization of Christianity. This required me to be constantly on the move, networking, editing, writing, strategizing and serving as an information adviser for student movement leaders. This was admittedly a massive departure from classic Christianity, which I recognize but ignored. If t.. | theological-liberalism | Thomas C. Oden | |
| 388ce9a | You know who they wanted to play Rick?" Aaron asked. I shook my head. Why was I so tense? Didn't Aaron's question prove that we were just a couple of old-movie fans swapping Hollywood trivia gossip? "Ronald Reagan," said Aaron. "The worst president ever," I said. "You weren't born yet," he said. "What difference does that make?" I said." | Francine Prose | ||
| b5ec914 | Every song may be someone's personal implement of torture. | song noise | Francine Prose | |
| 93a6622 | Margot used to like describing men as 'my unhappy love affair.' But hadn't that presumed the existence of a happy love affair that made the others unimportant? What is unhappy is the only kind Margo ever has? | Francine Prose | ||
| e19d051 | Stories aren't about things. Stories are things. Stories aren't about actions. Stories are, unto themselves, actions. | Francine Prose | ||
| 93e3561 | With so much reading ahead of you, the temptation might be to speed up. But in fact it's essential to slow down and read every word. Because one important thing that can be learned by reading slowly is the seemingly obvious but oddly under-appreciated fact that language is the medium we use in the same way a composer uses notes, the way a painter uses paint. I realize it may seem obvious, but it's surprising how easily we lose sight of the .. | Francine Prose | ||
| 3212764 | Who would you rather live with, a bunch of bonobos feeling good? Or chimpanzees eating each other's babies? Or humans waterboarding each other and destroying the planet? | Francine Prose | ||
| eac38c6 | Perhaps Aquinas's notably soft line on gluttony may have had something to do with the fact that the saint was said to have had what today we might call a weight problem. | Francine Prose | ||
| b302cb6 | Minutes after the shootings, everybody's cell phone rang. | Francine Prose | ||
| ff1a56e | decision. I was tired of his jealousy, sick of his belief that the only permissible topic of conversation was his unrecognized genius. | Francine Prose | ||
| 2d1a437 | The very same government that, by raising taxes, permitting uncontrolled immigration, weakening the military, failing to control the national debt, and fostering skyrocketing unemployment, was making it impossible for them to feed their families and provide better lives for their children. She'd come to tell them that their problems could be solved if they were willing to sacrifice, to transcend their personal interests and become part of s.. | Francine Prose | ||
| c84d673 | Along with preadolescence came a more pressing desire for escape. I read more widely, more indiscriminately, and mostly with an interest in how far a book could take me from my life and how long it could keep me there: | Francine Prose | ||
| 5860a2a | The most important things, I told them, were observation and consciousness. Keep your eyes open, see clearly, think about what you see, ask yourself what it means. | Francine Prose | ||
| 19cc0c8 | there were many occasions on which I had to skim as rapidly as I could to get through those survey courses that gave us two weeks to finish Don Quixote, ten days for War and Peace, courses designed to produce college graduates who could say they'd read the classics. By then I knew enough to regret reading those books that way. And I promised myself that I would revisit them as soon as I could give them the time and attention they deserved. | Francine Prose | ||
| 7c3f2d6 | end of this painful story: a man possessed and maddened enough to write such letters, and a bereaved father receiving them, until at last he reached the point at which he refused to read any more. | Francine Prose | ||
| e55fd9d | fans | Francine Prose |