Margaret’s Song

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  There was a king in Thule,  True even to the grave;  To whom his dying mistress  A golden beaker gave.  At every feast he drained it,  Naught was to him so dear,  And often as he drained it,  Gush’d from his eyes the tear.  When death came, unrepining  His cities o’er he told;  All to his heir resigning,  Except his cup of gold.  With many a knightly vassal  At a royal feast sat he,  In yon proud hall ancestral,  In his castle o’er the sea.  Up stood the jovial monarch,  And quaff’d his last life’s glow,  Then hurled the hallow’d goblet  Into the flood below.  He saw it splashing, drinking,  And plunging in the sea;  His eyes meanwhile were sinking,  And never again drank he. “Margaret’s Song” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) in “Faust. Part I.”

Rob Bell, Yoga Masters and Jesus?

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Slipping In The Youth Door

I have been studying Rob Bell, author of Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith (VE), for quite some time now. Unless you have been on another planet you’ve probably heard of this fast rising cultural icon and leader within the Emergent Church by the name of Rob Bell. In fact, Bell is virtually becoming the Elvis of Emergent.

Literally I have spent months reading much of his work, in VE as well as studying other sources, listening to Bell’s sermons and also watching his Nooma videos. So I can tell you that Phil Johnson of Pyromaniacs was quite correct when he said recently that “Bell’s message is completely and radically different from anything you would hear in a seeker-sensitive context.”

Read the rest here.

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