Hi Friends,
Here is our final study of Rowan Williams’ Advent and Christmas sermons from Open to Judgment. We noticed in the chat last week that there was an abundance of questions about the place of Mary in our faith. So we will turn to the Mother of God for the Mondays of Advent, discussing the Orthodox theologian Sergius Bulgakov’s slim volume, The Burning Bush: On the Orthodox Veneration of the Mother of God.
David Bentley Hart turned me on to Bulgakov years ago and ever since he has proven not only a lively interlocutor as I prepare to preach each week but a helpful guide into the church fathers and mothers. A visit to Israel a few years ago impressed upon the reality that the divide in the church is not between Catholics and Protestants but between West and East.
I hope Bulgakov can help make your Advent strange.
I will make each week’s pages available. Here is the first chapter and a bit of the second.
It is a privilege to have this community and to make our way to Bethlehem with you.
+JM
