I've been reading: Unfettered Hope - A Call to Faithful Living in an Affluent Society by Marva Dawn.
At first I was a little skeptical about the book - all this talk about 'focal concerns' and 'fettering' or 'unfettering' our hopes, and my disagreements with her views on technology in some aspects. But I have to admit, thought I'm not done with the book yet, Dawn's theories are really growing on me.
Here's an excerpt, which starts with a quote from Madeleine L'Engle's Walking on Water:
"'It is a criterion of love. In moments of decision, we are to try to make what seems to be the most loving, the most creative decision. We are not to play safe, to draw back out of fear. Love may well lead us into danger. It may lead us to die for our friend. In a day when we are taught to look for easy solutions, it is not always easy to hold on to that most difficult one of all, love.'
What are our foremost loves by which everything else is judged? In what do we place our hopes?" (pg. 62) She then continues, "It is my primary thesis in this book that Christianity provides focal concerns worthy of our creation as human beings and efficacious for dealing with the encroachments and fetterings of our technologized, commodified milieu. I believe that the focal concerns of Christianity . . . are these two: the love of God and the love of neighbor." (pg. 76)
She argues that our lives as Christians ought to be centered on our focal concerns: loving God, and loving neighbor. Everything, yes, pretty much everything we do ought to make us ask - is this in line with my focal concerns?
A challenge...
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