When I looked over my year's compositions, I realized that most of them fell into a limited set of themes. More than I would have thought reflect an overlap of Jewish background and Unitarian themes. In this group, I especially like "Linguist Friend Muses about Steinmetz and his Minister" about a great and isolated research engineer, but my favorite is "In My Father's Synagogue" on my family’s venture into church-founding in the South of a half-century ago. They reflect the functioning of very different Unitarian churches. The discussion of Albert Schweitzer’s Unitarian connections in "A Unitarian More or Less", on the other hand, brings in a more explicitly Christian background.
I try to bring something distinctive in my short studies that aim to clarify or substantiate a Greek NT text; this is material that otherwise would not usually be available to UU audiences, or to most Christian ones. Fausto and I had a vigorous and stimulating discussion about Luke 2.14 (“Season’s Greetings from Linguist Friend: "Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men"”, and “A note from Linguist Friend on Luke 2.14" with related comments at The Socinian) in December. However, I think that the short sketch “Linguist Friend Puzzles over the Lord’s Prayer” in May provides a useful clarification of the significance of a prayer that is deeply meaningful to most people for whom Christianity is important. Since the sources of that prayer are mostly Jewish, of course, it could have gone into the first group.
2 comments:
"In My Father's Synagogue" is one of my favorite blog reads of 2006, no doubt. I hope others read it, too!
Thank you, LRC. I hesitated to put out something that autobiographical, but that was what happened.
LinguistFriend
Post a Comment