Am still listening but thought I'd post a thought/two anyhow. Heschel is so very expressive! We don't always get that from reading people's minds through print.

What he said about the God-man partnership with regard to redemption should find resonance among some Christians, because that is what is subtly taught even as they say redemption is God's work and a work that man neither earns nor controls the nature or pace of. I've become fascinated by this doubletalk.

He is absolutely spot-on in speaking of the great gorge between contemporary society and the ancient world of the scriptures, and the impact of that on our understanding and engaging the scriptures and the values that the prophets and others promoted. As you know, I mused about that recently in the context of the sacrificial system.

Lastly, a poetic comment on ancestry and authority from the 16th-C Portuguese scholar Judah Abravanel: "Know that you descend from scholars, men with minds developed to the point of prophecy. Wisdom is your heritage." Who wouldn't feel rooted and grounded coming out of a tradition like that? My sense is that a sense of rootedness gives one 'place,' and thus makes for a more stable ethic.

One of the things he said in video 2: "Some of us are guilty, but all of us are responsible." That's powerful. The challenge in it is to never walk away and leave "them" to do whatever "they" are doing: as "they" do whatever, we share in the responsibility as well as in the consequences, all because we are part of "them." There's a lot I don't accept in the blanket communal responsibility arguments, but this is one of the insights I think is valuable. We are connected and shouldn't so easily abdicate or deny that connectedness.

It has to take a certain kinda mind to be able to argue both that the religious man will address social issues and that plurality is in the will of God. Heschel's resolution -- that social diversity is a classroom to train us out of envy -- well, that was unexpected but welcome. I might wait for the howls of protest from those who normally reject calls for oneness. Oneness, after all, does not preclude diversity; I would argue that oneness comes through receiving an Other, and that's the reason community is such a great teacher...

Thanks again, Alex.

Yeah, in light of the bizarre debate that broke out over Adventists supporting community laws against multi-billion dollar corporations spending millions to hook youngsters with an addictive drug, understanding the principle of responsibility seems key.

Some like to point out the truth that our God offers salvation via free choice, but not as often preached (and commented) is the corollary that God does so out of a sense of responsibility and teaches us that we are our brothers and sisters keepers.

Banding together to set community guidelines against the profit-driven corporate world - especially when they peddle the drugs of nicotine and advertised coolness - actually promotes more FREE choice because we seek to represent science and human behavior responsibly.

Can we be truly concerned about violence while we refuse to see that our theology teaches the very fragmentation of the species that lies at the heart of all violence? Christian theology is premised on the fact that peace will be achieved by the greatest demonstration of violence the universe has ever seen. We teach people to be distrustful of each other then pretend to be shocked when that distrust plays out itself in violence and crime.

A strange paradox: to be against violence and yet preaching that the worst violence this world has known will be reenacted at the final end! This one, however, will not be under man's control, but the God of the Universe! How perverse!

Perhaps then the issue as Jesus broke it down: not the acts of violence but the mental violence and Othering that precede those acts. Murder starts in the mind. Address the mind and forestall the murder.
Must say the expected end is only "perverse" to those who have changed. For most it is the natural order of things and so it becomes "perverse" if not "blasphemous" to suggest that God will not smite folks into oblivion.

Good thought KM,
Many conversations about God turn this direction and the end of the world or the flood is brought up.
God is not fickle. He isnt fluffy one minute and stern the next.
It is folly to think of him as only 1 or the other but I cant count the times I have heard or experienced people who do.

I'd say that too is part of the problem, Michael: viewing grace as "fluffy." No wonder we don't respect it.

Additional thought: The same perception error might be applied to law. Why view it as "stern" when law is emotionless?

No need to dichotomize law or grace, or to view them as less than they are. Just recognize that Jesus put both in context. Law doesn't change people; grace chooses to.