Augustine and the City of God i.11

Augustine and the City of God i.11

At times we must go on or else be caught in the maelstrom of entropic forces that will pull all of Polycarp 55 to the pit of space and time. As I do not want to excel into the vast void, will move on now from Augustin and back into the stream of the church narrative.

AUgustyine City of God i.10

AUgustyine City of God i.10

STRIVE in keeping your eyes off shinny temporal BMW's that lose value once driven off the car lot, STRIVE to keep your anxiety away from where you park your BMW, a scratch reveals the reality that all things in time will fall apart, STRIVE to find Christ, creative love that makes something out of nothing.

Augustine and the City of God I.9

Augustine and the City of God I.9

Longmont Colorado, (Parking Lot of a Liquor Store) October 1991 :

We the living, inhabiting teenage wasteland.

"Let's get some Ouzo" Noah said.

"No thanks." I said, the air smelt like snow,cigarettes, and fear; images of dying miserly in a park compelled me to leave the scene.

That night I called Noah's home, because I did not want my friend to be another teenage causality.

CIty of God I.7

A Balanced point of view (POV):

Elation has us walk into walls, because we are blinded by our arrogance. Deflated we are already in the grave. A POV can either burn us up and eat us up like a goat inside our stomachs, or can be the opportune heat we need to build our character.

The choice is ours, where will you put your ideas today?!

City of God I.6

Augustin's City of God I.6

Romans believed that it was noble, "to spare the vanquished and subdue the proud,” and that they preferred “rather to forgive than to revenge an injury;"

City of God I.5

Idaho Mascot Vandals

City of God I.5

Christ sacked us from the present evil age. We did not choose to be sacked but it happened in our daily routines. We became enslaved to our Lord, even if we had previously fought him.

Did he spare the dwellings of our Gods? No!

God will trouble hearts, conquering us with loving twine from within.

Augustine and the City of God I.4

Augustine and the City of God Chapter 4

"You tend to keep on doing what you have done; and the more so, the more you have done it. That is spiritual inertia... They are hypnotized by spiritual desires. "

(Willard, Dallas Renovation of the Heart pg 154)

And now I have come down to help them, pry them loose from the grip of Egypt
(Exodus 3 from the Message)

Habit: We tend to repeat those things we have repeated. It's not especially laziness; it's just the way we are constructed. It's the way our mind works.
David Mamet in his book: True and False.

Habit (Read a Poem on Habit)

Augustine and the City of God I.3

Augustine and the City of God I.3
Are societies built on wish dreams or divine reality? Juno bore Mars the God of War and destruction out of pity and anger. Panthus the Trojan Elder watched the ungodly birth: he was covered by the birth of Mars and the splattering of red crimson onto white sheets, and he shivered out of deep fear.

Be broken you peoples, and be shattered;
give ear all your far countries; strap on your armor and be shattered.
Take counsel together, but it will come to nothing;
speak a word, but it will not stand, for God is with us.
- Isaiah 7:9-10

Augustine and the City of God I.2

Augustine and the City of God Chapter Two

Romans had embalmed themselves, made themselves Frightened Lost Sheep, excommunicated from the source of truth, God:

The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?
10 “I the Lord search the heart
and test the mind, [1]
to give every man according to his ways,
according to the fruit of his deeds.”

Jeremiah 17:9-10

Augustine and the City of God I.1

Augustine and the City of God (II)

Chapter One of Augustine's City of God

"To their very threshold the blood-thirsty enemy raged; there his murderous fury owned a limit." (Augustine I:5) The limit to the murkiness and the deep darkness is the LORD and Savior Jesus Christ. But once we are saved we go back again, "Yet now, in ungrateful pride and most impious madness, and at the risk of being punished in everlasting darkness, they perversely oppose that name under which they fraudulently protected themselves for the sake of enjoying the light of this brief life." (I:13)

Augustine and the City of God Introduction

Augustine and the City of God (Introduciton)
Augustine was 56 years old when Rome was sacked. He asked himself, "Do cities consist of walls or men?" Rome was no more, it had been blown to pieces by the horde of Barbarians. To Augustine there were two cities, Las Vegas or Boulder Colorado. "Heavenly city outshines Rome beyond comparison.. instead of victory is truth."

373 We Don't Need No Compromise

God is in the purity of the cross, the purity of the word.

1 Timothy 4:1 The spirit clearly says that in later times some would abondon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.

373 Roman Empire: God never compromises to the will of man. He is the type of Coach that never punts for a better position on the field. He is a coach of miracles so he will always go for it on 4th down.

Athanasius knew that toleration of doctrine that looks similar but is not taints the purity of the Cross. Athanasius knew that the Arieans based their hope on Toleration. The state of Rome hoped to maintain peace through a compromise. They did not see what the big deal was; "Why can't y'all just get along." Constantius hoped to build a compromise between the Arians and the Athanasiusians.

Constantius compromise was to build a new vocabulary of toleration. He coined the term homoiousion(of similar substance) to replace homoousion (Same substance).

Athanasius stood against this idea of "similar substance". He did not see that this replacement helped the Christian Cause. He also did not like being told by the state government what Church should or should not accept. And if the Son is the "Word" and "Wisdom" of God, how was there a time when He was not? It is the same as if they should say that God was once without Word and Without Wisdom?"

If we tolerate what is not written in the bible, what is not the WORD of GOD, than we transgress the kingdom. Witness's do not add anything to the event but truthfully tell what they see.

Latourette, Kenneth Scott Christianity Through the Ages Harper Chapel Books, New York: 1965.

431 Augustine Of Sin and Grace (3/4)

Westminster Confession of Faith:

III. This infallible assurance doth not so belong to the essence of faith but that a true believer may wait long and conflict with many difficulties before he be partaker of it: yet, being enabled by the Spirit to know the things which are freely given him of God, he may, without extraordinary revelation, in the right use of ordinary means, attain thereunto. And therefore it is the duty of everyone to give all diligence to make his calling and election sure; that thereby his heart may be enlarged in peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, in love and thankfulness to God, and in strength and cheerfulness in the duties of obedience, the proper fruits of this assurance: so far is it from inclining men to looseness.

"The more merit-mongers labor and sweat to bring themselves out of sin, the deeper they are plunged into it. There is no means to take sin away but grace alone." - (Luther 32)

Belloq: You and I are very much alike. Archeology is our religion, yet we have both fallen from the pure faith. Our methods have not differed as much as you pretend. I am but a shadowy reflection of you. It would take only a nudge to make you like me. To push you out of the light.
Indiana: Now you're getting nasty.

Indiana Jones is a true gritty American, who carries the red, white and blue at the beginning of the regiment. Belloq appears pure evil, a Nazi, in with the great forces of evil. But both are fallen; their faith is humanistic and they both believe that knowledge will make them victorious in a fallen world.

431 Augustine Of Sin and Grace (1/4)

The Westminster COnfession of Faith sees Of Assurance of Grace and Salvation as the Following:

I. Although hypocrites, and other unregenerate men, may vainly deceive themselves with false hopes and carnal presumptions: of being in the favor of God and estate of salvation; which hope of theirs shall perish: yet such as truly believe in the Lord Jesus, and love him in sincerity, endeavoring to walk in all good conscience before him, may in this life be certainly assured that they are in a state of grace, and may rejoice in the hope of the glory of God: which hope shall never make them ashamed.

Outside of him: the cold wind blows hard against the naked body. There is no Good Creek of knowledge outside of God. All creative currency is his, so submit to worship through creativity. He creates the true conversion. We walk in good conscience before him, and our eyes are set on him early and quick.

"It is with such gunshot and artillery that heathen religions must be destroyed, and all works, merit and superstitious ceremonies as well. Martin Luther.

387 AD: Christian Apologetics and Augustine

Luke 14:23
"And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled."

What made the Christians think towards the inquisition?

Augustine read Luke as Jesus granting the use of force to suppress heresy. Rivals were a threat to the sheep. They mislead them to places where candles could never be relighted. Rivals lead people to eternal damnation. For hark you, Luke warns leaders, that the flock were slain to late, as to never to return.

I am more inclined to the theology of Eugene Peterson when he re-wrote Luke 14:23 as; "Collect all who look like they need a square meal, all the misfits and homeless, and wretched you can lay your hands on, and bring them here."

13 November 354, Augustine is Born

Augustine's nagging mother, constantly asked him to do his laundry, clean his dirty dishes and go to Church. She never relented, even when the perverse winds blew against her advice. Augustine's mom helped her son stop walking the streets of Babylon. And Augustine's heart was regenerated. He did his homework and wrote many Christian Apologies.

The Middle or the Edge?

Do you view history as a line of facts? Do you see time as quicksilver, easy to see hard to get a hold of? Do you want to tell more here or there? I could continue writing about these cool monks for years, but this is a quick sketch of time, not a completed illustration. Enjoy!

340-420 St. Jerome

God will use unfit for Godly purposes.

Jerome was tirelessly taunted by pictures in the middle of glossy magazines. (Yeah I know, they did not have magazines in 358 AD, but if they did these pictures would have taunted his diabolic desires ). He picked up the pen and started translating the bible into a common language.

320 Solitude and Community

"I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes." Job 42:5-6

Could monasticism be more than single men collecting cats, and balls of polycarbonate colored threads? St. Pachomius grew tired of the caterwauling and finally answered the escalating meows! He designed regulated times: monks knew when to eat, labor, and worship. Possessions were divested. Marriage and happiness did not bind. Freedom of choice became freedom less.

320 AD Monks a Crazy Lot

There were crazy monks amongst the religious flock, the craziest was Simeon Stylites. He had a great amount of style and grew tired of all the noisy din, from all his friends who visited him,so being the creative stylist that he was moved his home on top of of a pillar for thirty years.