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Tuesday, October 01, 2013

Pope Francis: The Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man, Redux

Machen, Christianity and Liberalism
J. Gresham Machen
Christianity and Liberalism
J. Gresham Machen, 1923:

Modern men have been so much impressed with this element in Jesus’ teaching [God as Father] that they have sometimes been inclined to regard it as the very sum and substance of our religion. We are not interested, they say, in many things for which men formerly gave their lives; we are not interested in the theology of the creeds; we are not interested in atonement through the blood of Christ: enough for us is the simple truth of the fatherhood of God and its corollary, the brotherhood of man. We may not be very orthodox in the theological sense, they continue, but of course you will recognize us as Christians because we accept Jesus’ teaching as to the Father of God (“Christianity and Liberalism”, 51).

Pope Francis, 2013:

The Son of God became incarnate in the souls of men to instill the feeling of brotherhood. All are brothers and all children of God. Abba, as he called the Father. I will show you the way, he said. Follow me and you will find the Father and you will all be his children and he will take delight in you. Agape, the love of each one of us for the other, from the closest to the furthest, is in fact the only way that Jesus has given us to find the way of salvation and of the Beatitudes."

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