THE NECESSITY OF THE CROSS (2 OF 19)
Scripture: Mark 8:27-37
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The Necessity of the Cross (2 of 19)
Series: Cross Examination
Wyman Richardson
Mark 8:27-37
Read Mark 8:27-37
Death is a terrifying prospect to most people. John Stott offers two examples of non-Christians who acknowledge this fact.
[Woody] Allen's angst in relation to death is well known. He sees it as a total annihilation of being and finds it ''absolutely stupefying in its terror.'' ''It's not that I'm afraid to die,'' he quips,'' I just don't want to be there when it happens.''
Another similar example is given by Ronald Dworkin QC, the American legal philosopher, who has held chairs in London, Oxford and New York universities. He has written: ''Death's central horror is oblivion - the terrifying absolute dying of the light...Death has dominion because it is not only the start of nothing, but the end of everything.''
It is even terrifying, it would seem, to many Christians. This is evidenced in the way that Christian ministers have occasionally wielded the threat of death and judgment abusively as a weapon of fear over their congregations. Timothy George provides two historical illustrations.
A Franciscan friar, Richard of Paris, once preached for ten consecutive days, seven hours a day, on the topic of the Last Four Things: death, judgment, heaven, hell. He delivered his sermons, appropriately enough, in the Cemetery of the Holy Innocents, the most popular burial ground in Paris. Hardly less dramatic was his contemporary, John of Capistrano, who carried a skull into the pulpit and warned his congregations: ''Look, and see what remains of all that once pleased you, or that which once led you to sin. The worms have eaten it all.''
Similarly, in Umberto Eco's novel The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, Yambo reflects on the time he experienced this same kind of approach when he spent time as a boy in a monastery.
Spiritual exercises, in a little monastery out in the countryside. A rancid smell from the refectory, strolls through the cloi ...
Series: Cross Examination
Wyman Richardson
Mark 8:27-37
Read Mark 8:27-37
Death is a terrifying prospect to most people. John Stott offers two examples of non-Christians who acknowledge this fact.
[Woody] Allen's angst in relation to death is well known. He sees it as a total annihilation of being and finds it ''absolutely stupefying in its terror.'' ''It's not that I'm afraid to die,'' he quips,'' I just don't want to be there when it happens.''
Another similar example is given by Ronald Dworkin QC, the American legal philosopher, who has held chairs in London, Oxford and New York universities. He has written: ''Death's central horror is oblivion - the terrifying absolute dying of the light...Death has dominion because it is not only the start of nothing, but the end of everything.''
It is even terrifying, it would seem, to many Christians. This is evidenced in the way that Christian ministers have occasionally wielded the threat of death and judgment abusively as a weapon of fear over their congregations. Timothy George provides two historical illustrations.
A Franciscan friar, Richard of Paris, once preached for ten consecutive days, seven hours a day, on the topic of the Last Four Things: death, judgment, heaven, hell. He delivered his sermons, appropriately enough, in the Cemetery of the Holy Innocents, the most popular burial ground in Paris. Hardly less dramatic was his contemporary, John of Capistrano, who carried a skull into the pulpit and warned his congregations: ''Look, and see what remains of all that once pleased you, or that which once led you to sin. The worms have eaten it all.''
Similarly, in Umberto Eco's novel The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, Yambo reflects on the time he experienced this same kind of approach when he spent time as a boy in a monastery.
Spiritual exercises, in a little monastery out in the countryside. A rancid smell from the refectory, strolls through the cloi ...
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