Josh Rodriguez-Hobbs

This tracks.

I’m using the study guide as a stand-alone adult confirmation curriculum, and it’s working incredibly well. I’ve skipped some chapters and combined others. The two chapters on baptism/Eucharist can easily be combined.

One day, someone will finally let me use Godspell as liturgical music. 🤞🏼

As a bass, Caiaphas is an amazing part. So much of the good musical theater oeuvre goes to the tenors!

N is fond of telling people that he is going to get a cat when his daddy dies, so at least J didn’t go there.

And that is why I love Mark.

Per Adela Collins, the key to understanding Mark is that the disciples are very bad disciples.

And an episode where the priest/pastor’s office is infested with bees.

I have a pitch for a groundhog-related building damage arc.

Honestly, I think a lot of GIA stuff would also be accessible to this audience, although not as immediately familiar. I’m running this experiment from the opposite side with former Catholics

Probably “El Shaddai” by Amy Grant (but could be persuaded for another song by her), “In Christ Alone” makes the cut, qualms about lyrics aside (with the caveat that there’s formation to provide theological context)

“How Beautiful” and “Lamb of God” by Twila Paris, “Shine Jesus Shine” by Graham Kendrick, “Come as You Are” by David Crowder (bonus points for his Requiem in C as service music setting)

And the important part is the substitution. Jesus takes our place. Substitutionary views proclaim God’s self-sacrificing love for us.

Agreed. The penal part comes from an exaggeration of Calvin.

I know you do! We’re both on team reclaiming substation without all the harmful baggage.

Only in silence the word,
Only in dark the light,
Only in dying life:
Bright the hawk's flight
On the empty sky.

Ye who do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins, and are in love and charity with your neighbors, and intend to lead a new life, following the commandments of God, and walking from henceforth in his holy ways:

Also, putting “wrath” on the high note feels musically off. If the lyrics were slightly different and “God” was sung on that note, I think we’d be having a very different discussion. But as written, the verse builds to and puts emphasis on wrath

Even as I hold on to a substitutionary theory of the atonement in my personal piety and theology as the theory that makes the most sense -for me- (while also allowing scripture doesn’t speak with once voice here)

I think the problem is that the hymn leans into PSA tropes. Even if it doesn’t have to be read that way, most people understand it as penal substitution. Today’s PSA is such a distortion of Anselm and Calvin’s reading of these texts that I feel comfortable saying it’s problematic

Also, those Greek classes were all two semesters long…

I was really fun at parties.

Never mind jobs you had, tell me five classes you took at university

1. Basics of Biblical Greek
2. Intermediate Biblical Greek
3. Advanced Biblical Greek
4. Post-New Testament Greek
5. History of the English Bible

Look, I never said my degree was interesting.

Ledo’s fills a similar niche in Maryland, just within the buffet.

It’s not the worst pizza. It’s far from the best, but it could be CiCi’s…

Like this is a hill he has chosen to die on in as unpleasant a way as possible.

No, but if there’s evidence they did (bulletin/livestream), then Townsend has been known to sue over copyright infringement. Alteration of lyrics cancels out any license someone may have to republish/stream.

It is, but Townsend refuses to let the alternate be published. This is why the hymn didn’t make the most recent PCUSA hymnal.

I think they make you move to Cambridge if you say that.

just gonna throw out a quick reminder that in America police kill a yearly average of 3 civilians per day, routinely in situations very similar to these ICE killings, and decades of explicit support for police impunity by US politicians is why ICE feels theyre able to get away with this right now

We acknowledge that the sin of the world is upon our heads; that the blood of the martyrs and the agony of the saints is upon our heads. Lord, have mercy upon us. Christ, have mercy upon us. Lord, have mercy upon us. Blessed Thomas, pray for us.-“Murder in the Cathedral,” T S Eliot