There's a lot of folks out there with lots to say on their blogs. I can't promise that anything I write won't be drivel, but if a few people seem to be encouraged that'll be enough for me.
A word of explanation about the description:
"Talking with friends about incarnating Jesus. Post-Protestant, pre-Constantine, paleo-orthodox, maximally contextualized, non-dogmatic, holistic."
"Post-protestant"- Christian factions, friction and fractions sadden God and give good reason to unbelievers to dislike the institutional church. If we all believe the Apostles' Creed literally, then lets back-burner our irrelevant surface differences and collaborate to transform the world with love!
"pre-Constantine"- The Roman Emperor Constantine early in the 300's AD legalized Christianity, freeing Christians from persecution (you know, being thrown to the lions, burnt as garden torches etc.) and quickly instituting Christianity as the official religion of the (declining) Roman Empire. Christians were increasingly hired into the civil service and church organizations increasingly were involved in the business of state. As a state religion mixing in to state affairs the Church lost a lot of its spiritual and moral authority and got more and more corrupt, leading to such debacles as the Crusades and the Inquisition. So I think a radical separation of the institutional church and state are crucial for maintaining a clear and pure love that unmistakably speaks of God's supernatural presence and intervention.
"paleo-orthodox" - this is a common term nowadays which by my understanding includes the idea of a more bare-bones Biblical theology that abstains from a lot of speculative systematic theologization that Christendom got bogged down in in later centuries. Specifically I define it as a reference or allusion to the Cappadocian Fathers, who were much taken with the co-indwelling of the three members of the Trinity, and of their drawing humankind (consisting of physical matter and animal life, yet in soul and spirit in the image of God), into this amazing co-indwelling. Jesus the man was absorbed into the Triune Godhead, and we in turn participate in a similar (though ontologically different) co-indwelling.
"maximally contextualized"- by this I mean that as intimacy with God through Christ spreads from culture to culture, the source culture should make sure the receptor culture is free to incarnate the life of Christ in their own culture without pressure to use culturally relative baggage from the source culture. So, in application, a viable society of Christians could base in a home or any other space such as a library, a community centre, cafe, condo lounge, pub, university whatever. And traditional Christianized words, symbols and traditions from the source culture all need to be critiqued for suitability before adopting in the new Christian community in the receptor culture.
"non-dogmatic"- in accord with Scripture (and many other human traditions) I confess that we humans know very little and greatly misplace our confidence in our ability to understand the universe, ourselves and God. Sages of the ages and across the humanities overwhelmingly realize that we culturally-bound humans usually project our culturally relative beliefs unto others when we should not. What I believe we need is a stance of radical humility, curiosity, openness, generosity and celebration in regards to the positions and worldviews of others. We need to tolerate and celebrate our differences if we are going to collaborate in God's loving transformation of the world.
"holistic"- scholars (not me!) of ancient Hebrew language and culture have found that God created humankind an indivisible unity. In recent centuries thinkers have realized that it was pagan Greek thought that introduced to Christian theology the idea of a three distinct pieces: body, soul and spirit. Scriptures teach the inherent and intrinsic eternal value of the physical creation. Scripture teaches that this world will be renovated and last forever as the home of a re-created humanity (Isaiah 65:17; 2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1). Christ cared for the whole person, not just invisible spirits. Our destiny is not wearing white night gowns floating amongst the clouds playing harps. No, we are forever creatures inseparable from the biosphere. Eternal life will be bodily life in a real world. Scripture pounds home again and again that God's true love ministers to people's physical and emotional needs. Linguistics tells us that the majority of our communication is non-verbal. To communicate God's love incarnate through us then we need to attend to our hurting neighbours' physical, mental, emotional and social needs- to manifest a limited fulfillment of God's loving transformation of the created order.
Well I actually would like more of a collaborative creative writing enterprise. I was listening to CBC radio while driving across the prairies and heard about a guy writing 24 books in a year at the biggest bookstore franchise. He said he wished people would come up to him and interrupt him and chat, but they don't. So I imagined myself going up to him to chat and looking at what he was writing, and then I imagined I would want to contribute to what he was writing. And that was when I thought of a wiki for collaborative writing. Well I suppose there's every likelihood of quite a few sites like that already. But anyways we'll try the medium of blogging first but maybe we'll have to migrate to a wiki or discussion forum...?
But anyways I'll be posting random ideas, thoughts, rants, book reviews, experiences and proposals for social action. I really look forward to your comments and I'd be happy to extend author rights as well to any who are interested.
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