Death On A Friday Afternoon -- Chapter One

Items for discussion:

1. "I invite you to be open to the thought that this time that you are now calling the present is Holy Week, for all time was there, is there, at the cross." How do you interpret that difficult, but important, statment?

2. "Stay a while in the eclipse of the light (the horrors of the terrible day that we call 'Good' Friday), stay a while with the conquered One. There is time enough for Easter." "In this killing that some call senseless we are brought to our senses." "..... we will not know what to do with Easter's light if we shun the friendship of the darkness that is wisdom's way to light." Read together, what is the significance of those statements (all on p. 2)?

3. "....lightly, eagerly did (the prodigal son) leave the love that gave him life. He rushed to the light (which proved to be darkness)." Later he "came to his senses" and asked, "What am I doing, what have I done with my life?" (p. 3). What brought him to his senses? What does his experience teach us? How does "Good Friday bring us to our senses."?

4. What does the word "Recapitulation" mean as used on pp. 4 & 5?

5. Put into your own words the following statement from p. 5: ".....the only life to be trusted is the life on the far side of death."

6. In what way is the "real world" as we use the phrase to be equated to the distant country of the prodigal son?

7. "So then, this is our circmustance. Something has gone dreadfully wrong with the world" (p. 11). Do you agree? What is it that's gone wrong?

8. By what reckoning have we arrived at a point where "enlightened" people can declare "sin's injury a benefit, our weakness a strength, and the fall ....... a fall up rather than down."? (p. 13).

9. "Father, forgive them" (the first words from the cross). Forgiveness costs. There are four simple (and yet profound) truths that must be understood before we can possibly understand the concept of atonement. What are they? (PP. 21-22).

10. What point is Neuhaus making in pointing out the similar meanings of the words "complicity" and "complexity"? (p. 19).

11. State the theodicy question. How has it been used to declard that "God is guilty!"?

12. "To those who are accustomed to living in a world turned upside down, setting it right cannot help but appear to be turning it upside down" (p. 32). How does staying with Good Friday (with its horror) illuminate our understanding of that statement?