We regularly come together each week on Wednesday evening. After unwinding from the day, we worship using a liturgy that includes the weekly lectionary reading and the Eucharist. We cherish this time as it centers us on God and one another.

On Sunday mornings we take time to eat a common meal and focus on spiritual instruction for our children. These sabbath mornings are relaxed and simple.

There is no way, on God’s green earth, that the TEC House of Bishops can implement the Primates Communique. If they did, their liberal patrons in the clergy and laity would have them defrocked, fired, or whatever. [...] All we can do at this point is to watch realignment happen.

Moltmannian Eschatology

I put this one in because although he is little-known outside academic circles, Moltmann has done a more thorough systematic examination of eschatology than perhaps any other theologian. If you're eschatological interest is concerned with figuring out the hidden meaning of Daniel's 'seventy weeks' or what theologians think the Mark of the Beast might be then you'll be sorely disappointed. Moltmann begins with the cross and resurrection and uses them to interpret history. Just as Christ shared in the sin, suffering and darkness of creation on the cross, so by taking it on himself and being raised to new life he becomes the prototype of what God intends not only for humanity, but the whole of creation itself. God has made the resurrection a promise of what he one day intends to do for all creation - to make it new and free it from the power of sin, injustice and death.

Christians then are to radically affect the present in the light of what God has promised about the age to come. The key to this is the Holy Spirit, who is the 'power of the age to come'. Our discipleship is a discipleship of the cross and so we too must identify with and fellowship with the outcasts, the victims, the poor and the downtrodden as we take up our cross, because the way to the resurrection is via the cross. God has already announced and guaranteed that in the Future Kingdom of God there will be no suffering, pain, injustice, or death and so our mission in the present is to transform the lives and circumstances of people so that God's kingdom comes upon them. Eschatology is not like the appendix in the book of history, it is the story of history itself.

Moltmann is highly controversial in places and despite his Lutheran background, much of what he says will seem unfamiliar to most evangelicals but it's quality stuff. He has written a 400 page systematic doctrine of eschatology called 'The Coming of God', but if heavy theology isn't your thing then his book 'Jesus Christ For Today's World' is a good start and is highly readable.

A number of scholars have recently admitted doubts about a solely literal interpretation of the Song, recognising the force of the allegorical interpretations without endorsing their methodology.39 What seems to be required is something akin to the typological interpretation that allows the text to function at the literal level with all its poetic artistry and yet to maintain its spiritual application by means of a proper concern for its biblical context. Such an interpretation cannot, however, be arbitrarily imposed on the text but must be shown to be required by the text itself. (Page 12)

[...]

It follows, then, that since the proper view of the metaphor in the Song is as a depiction of the relationships between the Lord, the land and the people using the vehicle of human marriage, the primary use of the Song in the church must be to teach about the Lord-land-people relationships. This liberates the Song from its restricted use in instructing married couples and allows it to profit the whole people of God, without denying its value in teaching about marriage. Indeed, this value will be increased if it is recognised that the marriage in the Song is not only an ideal marriage but also a metaphorical counterpart to the Lord's relationship with his people. (PDF page 56)