Tag: Freedom

Human Freedom in Triumph Over Hercules’ ‘Synergistic and Monergistic’ Ways

What does it mean to be genuinely and humanly free? Must we settle for some philosophical abstraction arrived at like libertarian free agency (aka “freewill”), or on the determinist side, some form of what is often referred to as compatibilism? Do you believe that you have freewill; and if you do, how do you define freewill (as a Christian) before God? While this might seem a knotty discussion, nonetheless, it is significant and impinges on everyone’s daily life. According to my reading of the Apostle Paul to be humanly free is to be for God. Since only God, ultimately, has…

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My Freedom Day as a Female, Black and Queer Pastor by The Rev. Dr. Yolanda Denson-Byers

My Freedom Day as a Female, Black and Queer Pastor   To be a female, Black and gay pastor on “Freedom Day” necessitates a certain amount of introspection, for my relationship with the church has long been a queer dance whose steps I don’t often apprehend.   Galatians 3:28 says: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Yet this oneness has been elusive in the ELCA and elsewhere, has it not?   There are still churches in…

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