Redeeming Bitterness

On the subject of bitterness - how do we resolve a wrong done to us?

Well, I have to remember it as a wrong of a person for whom Christ has died, even if that person isn't receiving that redemption personally.

Then I look at myself. Christ died for my sins, too. I can't remember transgression against me as one who is purely innocent. It's not as if I stand in the light and the other person in the darkness, and he or she has to do all the changing, while I bask in my self-righteousness.

(Miroslav Volf in Christianity Today, April 2007, p50)

Embrace This Book

I've finally started reading a book called Exclusion and Embrace by Miroslav Volf. I would love to just publish the whole book on this site, it is so helpful for Christians! Copyright may be a slight issue, however...so some quotes from what I have read so far:

• Postmodernity creates a climate in which evasion of moral responsibilities is a way of life. By rendering relationships 'fragmentary' and 'discontinuous', it fosters 'disengagement' and 'commitment-avoidance'. (p21)

• The self-giving love manifested on the cross and demanded by it lies at the core of the Christian faith...the incarnation of that divine love in a world of sin leads to the cross. (p25)

• Christian communities, which should be the 'salt' of the culture, are too often as insipid as everything around them. (p37)

• At the very core of Christian identity lies an all-encompassing change of loyalty, from a given culture with its gods to the God of all cultures. A response to a call from that God entails rearrangement of a whole network of allegiances. (p40)