"Having Nothing yet Posessing Everything"

Who says theology has no devotional value? You don't have to know German, or German theology, to understand this:

This passage is about [true] faith as opposed to unbelief or erroneous faith. I've substituted "faith"€ for "it"€ in a couple places.
True faith does NOT arbitrarily choose objects to set up signs, in that way inventing knowledge of God at its own good pleasure. Faith knows God by means of the objects chosen by God Himself. It recognizes and acknowledges God's choice..and uses these special works of God as they ought to be used.

This is by the author of the work that "fell like a bombshell on the playground of the theologians." A scholar steeped in 19th century German liberalism who STILL believed in the simple things of faith. "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so!"€ Karl Barth really summarized his life's work with a child's song, in answer to a perhaps impertinent question from an American audience. Coincidentally, Carl Barth was my great grandfather! Barth”the American farmer, not the Swiss/German theologian ;-)
Barth also has some great thoughts about how Jesus placed Himself and His coming above marriage and possessions. Without condemning either, Jesus shattered our faith in even the most godly of institutions, either of which can easily become an idol. And Barth wasted little time in speculating about the "authenticity" of particular sayings of Jesus. How Rudolf Bultmann wasted his genius on such foolishness will be, perhaps, forever beyond my comprehension. If I, like Bultmann, had stood by in relative safety during the Holocaust, I might have spent the rest of my life atoning for my inaction, instead of undermining the very foundation of Christian theology, the inspired, Holy Scriptures. Oddly, there is still some devotional value in Bultmann, if you skip over the speculative parts of his writings

What’s YOUR favorite body part?

(No, I didn’t say "favorite part of your body")
We just had TWO sermons on Unity and Community. Last week, a new staff member preached from the Psalms, and I loved her description of the shining beauty of the oil that covered the high priest from HEAD TO TOE[note double foreshadowing, you literary types]
This week was the familiar Pauline passage on the unity and necessity of the diverse body: No part is less important than any other.
So, what about the Head? Seems everyone wants to be the Head, but that job is taken by the One Slain from the Foundation of the World. So even though I must take up my own cross, that doesn’t make me "The Brain"
How about Heart—warm, vital, life giving? A nice thought, but no, not really.
Eye? A little closer—I see things many don’t see, and I often see things differently.
How about………….
A Toenail! I’m a little rough around the edges, and sadly, I accumulate a lot of odd-looking stuff that others think is junk. (In fact, some of it is)
WHERE IS THIS GUY’S SELF IMAGE? Please, don’t give up on me yet; I didn’t say I was a hangnail. That doesn’t count as a body part since, technically, I think only a tiny part of a hangnail is even alive. They are mostly dead tissue attached to living tissue with VERY functional nerve endings. And, yes, as necessary as toenails are, I don’t think most of the nail is "alive," either. The best part of me is what’s beneath the surface, and behind the visible part! All you see of me is what’s been pushed out from under the skin! And, far from having a low self image, consider this about me: when The Body is walking at a normal pace, not leaning or swinging the arms, what part crosses the finish line first??
You might even, gasp, call me a Leader! But please don’t.

From a thread discussing Philip Pullman

Since no one reads my blog, I've become addicted to beliefnet.
http://blog.beliefnet.com/godspolitics/2007/12/where-does-the-golden-compass.html
But I really like this response to a defense of Philip Pullman and the Anglican Bishop Spong, spiced with the bald assertion that Aquinas recanted on his deathbed by referring to "Summa Theologica" as "works of straw"

None of us here at Beliefnet can predict one another's fate before the Throne of God. I, for one, have no wish to be such a judge.
. On the other hand, we can and must judge statements of humans against what God has said. When one says vaguer and vaguer things about God, and vehemently(though eloquently and politely, as Ashpenaz and perhaps even Spong have done), it seems to me and many others that they have moved beyond the God of the Bible, revealed uniquely and definitively in Jesus, and are creating one of their own devising. As Pullman clearly has done in his book-promoting deception["The Golden Compass" movie.] Enjoy it if you wish, but beware! Violence exerted on behalf of individualism is indeed the only response available in the world he has created, devoid of God and good.
"Christian" can mean "one who self-identifies with the mass of Christians as a whole" or one who, forsaking all others, is following the Jesus depicted in the Scriptures the Church has recognized through the ages. From postings here, it seems to this weak and fallible soul that Spong and the poster screenamed Ashpenaz are the former but not the latter. If Ashpenaz is the equally polite poster who is defending the Mormon golden tablets under the "Mitt Romney speech" thread,
http://blog.beliefnet.com/godspolitics/2007/12/mitt-romneys-defining-moment-b.html
add that to my dossier of evidence. Which I submit with my own nod to humility, much as Aquinas did in dismissing--but not really--his Summa as "straw."