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Dave Henning

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Spiritually speaking – no self

By Dave Henning / March 4, 2024

“What is called the secular mentality consists simply of such men, who, so to speak, mortgage themselves to the world.  They use their capacities, amass money, carry on enterprises . . . perhaps [to] make a name in history; but themselves they are not.  Spiritually speaking, they have no self, no self for whose sake […]

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Go get your own identity?

By Dave Henning / March 3, 2024

“At one time people got their self-image from connecting to something more important than their individual interests — to God, or family, or nation, or some cultural configuration of all three.  Now we have to go get our own identity.”- Timothy Keller Timothy Keller concludes Chapter 6 of Making Sense of God as he notes […]

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Get to the bottom of ourselves

By Dave Henning / March 2, 2024

“We never get to the bottom of ourselves on our own.  We discover who we are face to face and side by side with others in work, love, and learning.”- Robert Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart As Timothy Keller moves on in Chapter 6 of Making Sense of God, he notes that our […]

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Forging an identity – traditional

By Dave Henning / March 1, 2024

“The traditional way of forging an identity through connection with something outside the individual made sense.  But if your identity is in your desires, they are going to be changing all the time.  If in every situation you seek your own self-interest, responding in ways that get the approval and control you want at the […]

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Our perfect liberation – Jesus

By Dave Henning / February 29, 2024

“When a Christian grasps how Jesus saved us at infinite cost to himself, how he emptied himself of his glory, and took on a humble form to serve our best interests, it creates a grateful joy that inwardly moves us to want to please, know, and resemble him.  Our happiness gets put into his happiness […]

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Freedom for or freedom from

By Dave Henning / February 28, 2024

“Negative liberty is freedom from — refusing any barriers or constraints on our choices.  Positive liberty is freedom for — using your freedom to live in a particular way.  Our modern culture’s idea of freedom is wholly negative.  We are free as long as no one is constraining our choices.  However, this concept is too […]

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The harm principle – disingenuous

By Dave Henning / February 27, 2024

“The ‘harm principle’ appears to make freedom of choice into a self-correcting absolute that gives us guidance for life together without the need for value judgments of any kind. . . .  The harm principle is useless and even disingenuous as a guide. . . .  How can you know what hurts people unless you […]

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Numerous freedoms conflict

By Dave Henning / February 26, 2024

“The modern definition of freedom is the ability to do whatever we want.  However, how does that definition work when your wants are in conflict? . . .  There is, then, not just one thing called ‘freedom’ that we either have or do not have.  At the level of lived life there are numerous freedoms, […]

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Freely choose life’s limitations?

By Dave Henning / February 25, 2024

“You don’t really freely choose most of these necessary limitations in life.  You are just recognizing the limitations that are actually there in the world, that are independent of you desires and choices. . . .  Then [you are] not free to do whatever you choose.  That is an impossible idea and not the way […]

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Grasp and be gripped by Jesus

By Dave Henning / February 24, 2024

“How do we actually know [God’s] love?  You can’t just tell yourself ‘God loves me’ and expect your heart to change.  Nor can you just say, ‘From now on I will love God.’  Love cannot be generated simply by an act of the will. . . .  We must grasp and be gripped by the […]

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The ultimate disordered love

By Dave Henning / February 23, 2024

“Augustine . . . observed that the heart’s loves have an order to them, and that we often love less important things more and the more important things less. . . .  The ultimate disordered love, however — and the ultimate source of our discontent — is failure to love the first thing first, the […]

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A long series of choices

By Dave Henning / February 22, 2024

“But the day comes when you’re lying in the bath and you notice . . . that the way you’re living bares scarcely any resemblance to what you thought you always wanted, and yet, you realize you got there by a long series of choices.”- Francis Spufford, Unapologetic: Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make […]

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