Dennis & Julie July 21, 2024:
The Center of the Universe
Dennis is in Los Angeles and Julie is still in Europe. Dennis shares a bit about his trip to the Artic circle, and the differences between Greenland and Iceland. Wherever you are is the center of the world. People should not think that life is more meaningful if they live in an important or popular place. People in Nashville know more about New York than New Yorkers know about Nashville. We are made to have a meaningful life no matter where we are. Did you know the word catholic means the whole, or more colloquially, "universal." Christianity is progressive in the truest most noble sense. Pope Francis put it this way in his apostolic exhortation from 2013, Evangelii Gaudium, section 247:
We hold the Jewish people in special regard because their covenant with God has never been revoked, for “the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable” (Rom 11:29). The Church, which shares with Jews an important part of the sacred Scriptures, looks upon the people of the covenant and their faith as one of the sacred roots of her own Christian identity (cf. Rom 11:16-18). As Christians, we cannot consider Judaism as a foreign religion. Other topics include: Judeo-Christianity versus secularism; secularism is a faded copy of the old religious doctrine; the covenant God has with the Jews; your actions on earth determine your destination after death; universalist and particularist is the ideal; proselytizing; Jonah.