Disqus - Friends of linda_marie

Re: Michele Bachmann Was Inspired By My Dad and His Christian Reconstructionist Friends -- Here's Why That's Terrifying | | AlterNet

Veronica Zundel — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 07:27:57 -0000

All this demonstrates how urgently American Christianity needs the Anabaptists, who have always stood out against any form of Christendom, who think that Constantine was the worst thing ever to happen to the church, and who can see the dangers not only to politics but to Christianity from the 'new Christendom' which is essentially what Reconstructionists are proposing. I just can't believe people from a country founded, for religious reasons, on separation of church and state, are promoting this rubbish.

Unfortunately most of the Anabaptists, eg Mennonites, Amish, Church of the Brethren etc, have retreated into a separate culture of their own which might occasionally be a beacon to the wider world (eg in the Amish response to the school killing) but which has little influence on politics. It's time for a new Anabaptist movement, free of its cultural history, to demonstrate and proclaim that Christians are meant to be the subversive grass roots group, not the government.

Re: Michele Bachmann Was Inspired By My Dad and His Christian Reconstructionist Friends -- Here's Why That's Terrifying | | AlterNet

Veronica Zundel — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 10:22:16 -0000

Hi Linda, sorry I should have made clear that I'm a UK Mennonite and know all about the various peace and development ministries of Anabaptists! The 'non-cultural' (if there could be such a thing!) or 'post-cultural' expressions of Anabaptism are indeed doing great things, which deserve to be better known. And I'm sure people whose expression of faith is still quite tied to a separatist culture are joining in some of them. The pity is that all the wider world seems to know of Anabaptists is the most conservative end.

Re: Michele Bachmann Was Inspired By My Dad and His Christian Reconstructionist Friends -- Here's Why That's Terrifying | | AlterNet

Veronica Zundel — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 06:15:27 -0000

So you think the Amish people forgiving the man who shot their children, and supporting his bereaved family, is ignorance?

Re: The Church of England Still Won't Allow Female Bishops: Good for Them

Veronica Zundel — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 10:52:32 -0000

Mollie, the order of creation moves from lower to higher organisms. Agreed? Then why are women created last? We are not an afterthought, we are the pinnacle of creation. There is nothing more unpleasant than a woman who wants to keep other women 'in their place'.

Re: Redefining marriage will have 'far-reaching' consequences

Veronica Zundel — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 14:23:24 -0000

This is not redefining marriage, it is opening it to more people. 'Biblical' marriage includes Solomon's 300 wives and 700 concubines (or was it the other way around?) - is this the definition of marriage you are recommending? Even his 'man after God's own heart' father David had half a dozen wives. Marriage is always being redefined as society develops.

Re: Is this seriously the best modern feminism can do? Nipples, banknotes and internet trolls?

Veronica Zundel — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 12:02:20 -0000

Dear Dan

You have the phrase 'a women' three times in one paragraph and once in another. Are you actually unable to think of a woman in the singular, only 'women' in the plural?

Re: 9 Quirky Habits Spirit Filled Christians Should Break

Veronica Zundel — Sun, 22 Dec 2013 13:51:02 -0000

This is so true. I only believe someone is filled with the Spirit of Jesus when they say and do the sort of things that Jesus did. Most of which is stuff like accepting the outcast, bringing good news to the poor, challenging the rich and powerful. If we do not do these things, it is extremely unlikely that we are in any sense 'Spirit-filled'.

Re: The woman who changed how I pray….

Veronica Zundel — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 10:53:47 -0000

I've never read her (I don't think she's well known in the UK) but your post has made me want to!

Re: The Co-op’s uniqueness will be its route to salvation

Veronica Zundel — Sat, 15 Mar 2014 09:53:29 -0000

Great comparison rwendland - the whole economy ought to be run like the John Lewis partnership - a form of socialism that really works.

Re: My Guest Columnist Today is the Prime Minister of the UK– A World Leader (Who Fought to Legalize Gay Marriage) Talks About His Christian Faith

Veronica Zundel — Thu, 17 Apr 2014 11:16:28 -0000

I am disgusted by Cameron trying to enlist Jesus to support his policies, which blatantly make the rich richer and the poor poorer, as well as spending a disproportionately large amount on weapons (who would Jesus nuke?) and presiding over a huge arms trade.

Re: The four major lies of Halloween

Veronica Zundel — Sat, 01 Nov 2014 13:40:38 -0000

I very much doubt that going 'trick-or-treating' encourage children to 'dabble' in the occult (and why is it always 'dabbling'? it's such a cliché. Surely there must be people who plunge headfirst into the occult? (and I bet they weren't led there by Halloween..)

Re: 10 evangelical women you should know

Veronica Zundel — Sat, 01 Nov 2014 14:16:23 -0000

Why are there only two living women here? Are 80% of significant evangelical women dead? I really don't find this very representative.

Re: breastfeeding and the eucharist

Veronica Zundel — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 12:23:45 -0000

This is wonderful. I have always approached communion imagining I was a baby or toddler being fed. If God is our divine parent, this is entirely logical.

Re: Is It Time to Dump the Word “Evangelical”?

Veronica Zundel — Sun, 30 Nov 2014 15:30:17 -0000

Frank, I can see where you're coming from re US evangelicalism today, but I find it hard to spot any love in this. It sounds bitter to me. I'm sure you're bigger than this suggests.

Re: Is It Time to Dump the Word “Evangelical”?

Veronica Zundel — Mon, 01 Dec 2014 05:11:44 -0000

You have a point, Amode...

Re: Why female bishops could be the Church of England's saviour

Veronica Zundel — Sun, 21 Dec 2014 18:00:36 -0000

Good article, Cole, but I wish you'd spelled Viv Faull's name right... (two 'l's)

Re: The narrative of victory and suffering

Veronica Zundel — Mon, 26 Jan 2015 08:48:21 -0000

You are quite right, Katherine. The Bible, especially the Epistles, do not talk about victory coming after the end of suffering, but in the midst of suffering. Paul prayed for his 'thorn in the flesh' to be taken away, and it wasn't. Jesus was raised from the dead, but still had his scars. We need to tell a story of hope in the darkness, which is also a defeat of darkness. As for depression ending, mine is very largely gone (I am still on meds, but hardly more than minimum dose), but it has taken 37 years, about 15 cumulative years of traditional therapy, three years of CBT and a mindfulness course. And, I'm sorry to have to say, the death of my mother, who was lovely but over-protective.

Re: Britain remembers Dunblane 19 years after tragic shooting

Veronica Zundel — Sun, 15 Mar 2015 16:37:20 -0000

Yes, it should have said 'their teachers'. Not so much badly written as badly proofread. But what really concerns me is that Nigel Farage wants to lift the ban on handguns.

Re: How to be a hipster Christian at Greenbelt

Veronica Zundel — Mon, 31 Aug 2015 10:49:36 -0000

Since I am the wrong sex to grow a beard, can you inform me on how to look as a hipster Christian woman?

Re: On ABA and Rethinking Effective Behavioral Interventions

Veronica Zundel — Sat, 24 Oct 2015 11:55:01 -0000

This is so brilliant. And at the bottom of it all is a simple idea: treat the autistic child as if s/he is a human being, not an animal. Which, in fact, is the truth.

Re: A Fictional Pub Map Of London

Veronica Zundel — Sat, 31 Oct 2015 14:51:59 -0000

Chaucer's Tabard is not a fictional pub, it was a real one although it is no longer there. Or are you including all pubs mentioned in fiction?

Re: A Fictional Pub Map Of London

Veronica Zundel — Sat, 31 Oct 2015 14:52:47 -0000

Yes, the Winchester definitely ought to be in there. There is another Winchester (Arms, I think) in Archway Rd, N19.

Re: Why hasn't God healed me?

Veronica Zundel — Sat, 14 Nov 2015 12:31:00 -0000

If you pray for healing of your autistic children, you are working from the prior assumption that their autism is a disease. Many people within the autism community (admittedly the more able) would now want to say that it is not a disease but a difference, that it has its own strengths and gifts, and that the 'disability' is in the neurotypical world being unable to accept and communicate with autistic people. As the mother of a son with Asperger's, I have come to a point where I no longer think of my son's Asperger's so much as a deficit, but as a part, perhaps the greater part, of his unique, creative, clever, funny personality.

Re: 5 comedians you (probably) didn’t know were Christians

Veronica Zundel — Sat, 12 Dec 2015 07:32:32 -0000

Incidentally, Ian Hislop used to be a charismatic evangelical. Like so many others, he has ended up with a less dogmatic faith.

Re: Why Is Jesus So Hierarchical?

Veronica Zundel — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 12:20:37 -0000

I've never thought of Jesus as hierarchical - far from it! He tells us repeatedly (as did his mother in her powerful prophecy that we call the Magnificat) that all hierarchies will be turned upside down in his kingdom. The last shall be first and the master shall be servant. Surely his use of master-servant tropes in his parables is simply reflecting the hierarchical society he lived in - only to subvert it. He does indeed tell us that we are to seek to be the servant of all, rather than the master, but this in itself subverts a society in which the desired position is to be master; rather like our own, in fact...