Giles Fraser has a superb column in today's Guardian exploring the implications of the incarnation. He begins with the American theologian Thomas JJ Altizer's work on Christian atheism:
'Altizer’s account of the Christian God being in a gradual process of divesting himself of His God-ness is a pretty good way of recapturing some of the puzzlement and shock value of the original Christmas story. “He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant,” is how St Paul described the incarnation in a letter to new Christians at Philippi ...
the astonishing assertion of the Christmas story is that the God who comes as a pathetic child is all the more God-like for the total evacuation of power. It’s a birth story at one with what would become the central message of His teaching: the first will be last and the last first. It sounds like a phrase from the French revolution, with the mighty being pulled off their thrones and the weak being held up high. But it’s the buried message of Christianity, extravagantly heralded in the festival we know as Christmas. At Christmas, God becomes a child. Power is divested. Might and right no longer nestle comfortably together.'
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Bruce Cockburn - Cry Of A Tiny Baby.
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