(pictured here: five stories, looking down, the grand staircase at Orlando's Dr. Phillips Performing Arts Center, January 15, 2022, at the Center's Open House featuring the newly opened Steinmetz Hall)
Field Notes From a Religion-Less Christian
November 24, 2021
Assassination and Anfechtung
“Yet as with all of the stories of the hidden God outside the law, the text remains there as a gouty foot that laughs at our doctoring” (Luther’s Outlaw God, Vol. 1: Hiddenness, Evil and Predestination. Steven Paulson, 2018)
The text is Exodus 4:24: “On the way, at a place where they spent the night, the Lord met him and tried to kill him”
What if the whole definition, reality, thing about God is not morality at all. Not even social justice. What if the mission of God is the Promise of God delivered, not just the justice of humanity experienced. Then, “Katy, bar the door!” Look out! God will not be denied! In order to ensure that the Promise be delivered God will even become an Assassin. God will work to kill the Preacher in order to force the Preacher to deliver on the mission. It, God, forces the Preacher to rely on and know only the Promise, and nothing more, not even an easy or difficult path to delivering the Promise. Martin Luther called this full court press “Anfechtung.” Not simply an experience of human reason or feeling that questions whether God exists or delivers, but an action of God that presses the issue, moves us forward to the only thing that can and will save us: God Godself.
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