... responsibilities for the music in temple worship. Priest and Levite supposedly represented the best Israel had to offer in religion and culture, but that, said Jesus, was not enough, because there was no true love for the fellow man in need. A few years ago Peter Berger, a sociologist and Lutheran lay theologian, wrote a book called The Noise of Solemn Assemblies. He took his title from the ancient prophet of Amos where he says of the religious people of 750 B.C.: I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take ...
... a trust relationship that makes it possible for us to endure even the most horrible worst-case scenario. Christian sociologist Peter Berger in his book, A Rumor of Angels, uses an example of a child waking up in the night. She has been frightened by ... all, in a world with cancer and concentration camps, it all looks very far from “all right” in any straight forward sense. Yet Berger claims that the reassurance the parent utters is not a deception, but a true insight that is vital for the child to receive ...
... to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.” (Mark 11:33) Our age has witnessed a crisis of authority. So many things in which we put our trust seem to have let us down. Back in 1971, sociologist Peter Berger said, “Today, especially in America, we are surrounded by hysteria—the hysteria of those who have lost their old certitudes and the hysteria of those who, often with blind fanaticism, have committed themselves to new ones.” (“A Call for Authority in the Christian ...
... to God. Jesus portrayed God as the waiting Father (Luke 15) who waited, at home, for the prodigal son to return home. You remember that story, even if you have forgotten all others, because you know, in your heart of hearts, it's your story. It's about home. See Peter Berger, et al., The Homeless Mind: Modernization and Consciousness, New York, Random House; also Walter Brueggemann, "The Practice of Homefulness, Journal Of Preachers, Pentecost, 1992, pp. 1-22.
