Jimmy Carter has passed away yesterday, 29th December, aged 100 years old. Not perhaps your ‘normal’ president but a humble man who was involved in humanitarian work and expressed clear faith in the Living God. His grandson in May this year said:
He really is, I think, coming to the end that, as I’ve said before, there’s a part of this faith journey that is so important to him. And there’s a part of that faith journey that you only can live at the very end. And I think he has been there in that space.
And he himself said when addressing the Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia:
I assumed, naturally, that I was going to die very quickly,” Carter told the congregation at . “I obviously prayed about it. I didn’t ask God to let me live, but I asked God to give me a proper attitude toward death. And I found that I was absolutely and completely at ease with death.
Profound words from the mouth of someone no longer present in the land of the dying.
A few days earlier (26th December) John Cobb passed away, a few weeks shy of hi 100th birthday. Who is John Cobb, I hear you ask… He belonged to the school of Process Theology, very articulate and a prolific author. Process Theology is not viewed as being too orthodox, but theology per se does not bring us to a knowledge of God. One of the last (perhaps the last) essay he wrote is on Thomas Jay Oord’s page:
Orthodox (and what is that?) or not it is well worth a read, and for it to be a challenge; he writs beyond the personal but here is one quote:
[T]here is a strong tendency for those who feel secure in their relations with other people to love them. If we know that God loves us, it is much more likely that our feelings toward God will be loving. But also, we are more likely to love God’s other beloved creatures.