The Compassion Renaissance

The Compassion Renaissance and the Return of the Prodigal Church Richard K. Stephens - December 29, 2021   Rembrandt van Rijn, Return of the Prodigal Son, 1636, etching (detail) (Wikipedia commons) This article is a distillation of an illustrated long-form article on the applied neuroscience of compassion, “ The Compassion Renaissance: Science, Mind & Spirit .” 1) Exactly What is Compassion? First off, let’s define our subject. What does it mean to have compassion? The component of action is what separates compassion from empathy, sympathy, pity, concern, condolence, sensitivity, tenderness, commiseration or any other compassion synonym. Compassion gets involved. When others keep their distance from those who are suffering, compassion prompts us to act on their behalf. [ Compassion International , website, n. d.] Compassion is both proximate and practical. 2) The Current Church Crisis In one of his famous BBC radio broadcasts given March 28

  The Hebraic Mindset & the Proper Understanding of the Gospels *** Below are excerpts from: Alan Hirsch, ‎ The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating Apostolic Movements , Brazos Press; 2nd edition, Sep. 20, 2016 These excerpts discuss the crucial matter of the difference in believing something (propositional belief) versus believing in somebody as one’s Lord (trusting and obeying) by showing that attempting to understand the Scriptures using the common Western viewpoint distorts a message that ought to be understood using a Hebraic mindset. *** From Pages 130-131 Essentially, on the one hand, a Hellenistic view of knowledge is concerned with concepts, ideas, the nature of being, types and forms the Hebraic view, on the other hand, is primarily concerned with issues of concrete existence, obedience, life-oriented wisdom, and the interrelationship of all things under God. It is quite clear that, as Jews, Jesus and the early church operated primarily out of a Hebraic understan