Word: martinisms
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
That scheme had come to seem impossibly harsh. Says the Rev. James Martin, an editor at the Jesuit publication America who has performed many baptisms: "My idea of God is not a God who would condemn a baby to an imperfect life for eternity." Many priests have downplayed limbo out of similar concerns, and Martin lauds the Vatican panel for "bringing theological development in line with pastoral application...
...compassion, said that without baptismal grace, they must go to hell. That proved too much for the theologians of the Middle Ages, who counterproposed limbo. The Protestant reformers eliminated it from their theology along with several other postdeath constructs, but it remained a looming staple of Catholic understanding. Says Martin: "I've rarely baptized a baby where [limbo] has not come up, at least as a joke...
...triumphs of the Montgomery bus boycott and the March on Washington with its stirring "I Have a Dream" speech, the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts and the winning of the Nobel Peace Prize were all behind Martin Luther King Jr. when he began the last and perhaps loneliest year of his life in January 1968. Now black-power militants and even some of his closest advisers were rejecting King's philosophy of nonviolence. Many white supporters of the civil rights movement had redirected their enthusiasm--and their dollars--to opposing the war in Vietnam. Other whites...
...life," marveling at burdens King must carry beyond the superhuman pressures and expectations of the movement. King's formidable armor wore down in midlife, draining assurance from his glib mantra as a young scholar that many great men of religion had been obsessed with sex--St. Augustine, St. Paul, Martin Luther, Kierkegaard, Tillich--and his self-reproach spilled over when Coretta underwent surgery for an abdominal tumor on Jan. 24. He disclosed to her the one mistress who meant most to him since 1963--with intensity almost like a second family even though she lived in Los Angeles--a married...
...brooding reverie on external and internal burdens from the drum major instinct. "And every now and then I think about my own death," he told his congregation. He gave fitful instructions for his own funeral service--"tell them not to talk too long"--hoping someone would mention "that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to give his life serving others." The eulogist should omit all his honors and attainments simply to testify perhaps that King tried to love enemies, comfort prisoners, "be right on the war question," and feed the hungry. "Yes, if you want to say that...