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To all those people doin’ lines,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Don’t do it, don’t do it. Salvation, salvation, salvation is free. As I pushed my cart down the cereal aisle today, the Cranberries\u2019 song \u201cSalvation\u201d poured from the intercom speakers.\u00a0 <\/span>Before heading to the grocery store I was reading my doctoral book assignment and had stopped for a break at Chapter 7: Salvation \u2013 Its Scope and Intensity.\u00a0 <\/span>When I returned home to pick up where I left off I remembered this song and especially its repetitive line, \u201cSalvation, salvation, salvation is free.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>Coincidence?\u00a0 <\/span>I think not.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n I have always questioned the concept of salvation and my line of thinking has gone like this\u2026\u00a0 <\/span>So, God who is Creator and Omniscient (all-knowing) created a hell and humans who He knew would end up there.\u00a0 <\/span>Then, he also sent Himself in his Son to save his human creations.\u00a0 <\/span>He then gave these creations the choice to choose himself\/his Son as their personal Lord and Savior.\u00a0 <\/span>If they don\u2019t He sends them to the Hell he created to suffer in torment for eternity.\u00a0 <\/span>And He already knows which ones will go.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t get it.\u00a0 <\/span>I really don\u2019t.\u00a0 <\/span>I must be missing something.\u00a0 <\/span>I hope I am missing something.<\/p>\n David F. Ford, in his fascinating and concise writing Theology: A Very Short Introduction states, \u201cIt is a striking fact about Christianity that, in its mainstream forms, it has never officially defined one doctrine of salvation.\u00a0 <\/span>It has lived with a diversity of approaches.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>Whew!\u00a0 <\/span>Thank goodness there are other approaches than the one I had above.\u00a0 <\/span>Ford explains that, \u201cSalvation is primarily about coping with\u2026multiple overwhelmings \u2013 by God, life, death, sin, evil, goodness, people, responsibilities, and more.\u00a0 <\/span>In this field of force, thought needs intensity and gripping power\u2026a more basic need of images, metaphors, and symbols\u2026\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>He asks, \u201cWhat about today\u2019s journeys of intensification?…Perhaps the two most striking such phenomena in the twentieth century have been the extraordinary growth of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements and the present renewal and expansion of many Orthodox Churches in former communist countries and elsewhere.\u00a0 <\/span>Pentecostalism\u2019s intensification has been through the Holy Spirit and the explosion of Spirit-inspired faith, charismatic gifts, worship, mission, community-building, and martyrdoms that have marked its unparalleled growth to over 300 million people.\u00a0 <\/span>The Orthodox Church\u2019s central, concentrated image of salvation is its liturgy, celebrated through the feasts, fasts, and ordinary days of its Church Year.\u201d (p. 114)<\/p>\n One commonality I see between the Pentecostals and the Orthodox Christians is an opportunity to experience salvation through their senses.\u00a0 <\/span>For the Pentecostals and Charismatics the individual engages in acts of emotional liberation.\u00a0 <\/span>Through practices such as speaking in tongues and \u201cworking\u201d in the spirit the individual\u2019s faith is intensified.\u00a0 <\/span>Within the Orthodox Church individuals encounter the smells of incense, the sprinkle of holy water, and the sound of sacred bells as well as asceticism through fasting and celebration through feasting.\u00a0 <\/span>These sensory acts become part of the salvation process.\u00a0 <\/span>Salvation becomes something that is not only experienced in the mind but with the body as well.\u00a0 <\/span>Salvation is, as its root suggests, \u201chealth.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>It is a journey of transformation from eternal death to eternal life.\u00a0 <\/span>It is an enlightenment of the mind from despair to hope.\u00a0 <\/span>It is a physical and emotional rapture.\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>It is a process which can turn the drug addict in the Cranberries\u2019 song into a healthy whole human.\u00a0 <\/span>And\u2026 \u201csalvation is free.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n Ford, David F., Theology: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. 2000.<\/p>\n #dminlgp #lgp3 #ford #cranberries #salvation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" To all those people doin’ lines,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Don’t do it, don’t do it. Inject your soul with liberty,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It’s free, it’s free. Salvation, salvation, salvation is free. Salvation, salvation, salvation is free.\u201d As I pushed my cart down the cereal aisle today, the Cranberries\u2019 song \u201cSalvation\u201d poured from the intercom speakers.\u00a0 Before heading to the grocery […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[422,2,197,423],"class_list":["post-1096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cranberries","tag-dminlgp","tag-ford","tag-salvation","cohort-lgp3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1096\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Inject your soul with liberty,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>It’s free, it’s free.<\/p>\n
Salvation, salvation, salvation is free.\u201d<\/p>\n