Saturday, April 9, 2011

Koskela on the importance of proclamation to apostolicity

"Only by proclaiming the gospel it has faithfully maintained can the church be truly apostolic."

Douglas M. Koskela, "'But who laid hands on him?'  Apostolicity and Methodist ecclesiology," Pro ecclesia 20, no. 1 (Winter 2011):  41 (28-42), italics mine.  This sentence stresses two of the "three primary ideas" the concept of apostolicity "has been employed to convey":  "continuity with the historical and visible church, the integrity of the church's life and witness, and the calling of the church to proclaim the gospel in word and deed" (29, italics original).

Monday, April 4, 2011

"Declaring the Southern Baptists (or at least the Revd R. Albert Mohler) off-side"

"The union of physical and spiritual praxis was possible for ancient Indians and remains a real goal for many contemporary yogis.  This sort of combination is affirmed by an old joke about a Jesuit priest who, when his bishop forbade priests to smoke while meditating, dutifully agreed but argued that surely there would be no objection if he occasionally meditated while he was smoking.  That one can, however, choose merely to smoke or merely to meditate is denied both by Christians of the Reverend R. Albert Mohler ilk and by Hindus of the Hindu American Foundation ilk, both of whom insist that yoga is only and always a religious system."

     Wendy Doniger, "Assume the position" (a largely enthusiastic review of Yoga body:  the origins of modern posture practice, by Mark Singleton, and a fine summary of the extremely complex history of "yoga"), Times literary supplement no. 5631 (March 4, 2011), 11 (10-11).