Tag: Religion and Spirituality

Jonah, Jesus, and persuading God

Simplified plan of ancient Nineveh showing cit...
Diagram of saved city

Jonah 3 tells how God changed his mind (!) about Nineveh, thanks to Jonah’s pleading.  Luke 11.29-32 builds on this.  It took a Jonah, but a greater God-mover was among Jesus’ listeners, he told them, meaning himself.

More on this Jonah-Jesus comparison: Jonah was (a) thrown overboard at his request (b) to save his shipmates in the dreadful storm, (c) sacrificing himself for others.

Jesus also sacrificed himself, as we know, but achieved more, ransoming us all from perdition, not just a city.  He is the hero of any day’s re-enactment of that self-sacrifice, namely the mass — a truly cosmic event.

Faint praise — it’s a killer

 

Bowling Alone
American Grace author did this book already.

 

American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us by Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell is a landmark book, says Martin Marty, who praises it suspiciously.

It is fat, full of good stories, and crammed with data: the authors seem never to have found an opinion poll they didn’t like, and readers will be well served by the array of graphs which can be put to work in ways that relate to their interests, prejudice, and hopes.

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