Archive for June, 2011

Freedom and Fellowship, Chapter 1: A Case for Theology (part 1)

Posted on June 29th, 2011

In several posts over the next weeks and months, I will be offering drafts of my current manuscript, Freedom and Fellowship: An Open Source Theology, for your response, reflection, critique, and (hopefully) edification. As was true with my first book, Open Source Church: Making Room for the Wisdom of All (also on Nook), I hope that our interaction based on this material will help to make my writing better. Please, do remember that this is a first (and, in my opinion, very rough) draft. I certainly do not mind critique and argument, but your gentleness and tact would be appreciated in order for me to have the best chance of improving the thoughts and communication contained in the text. * * * * * * * * * * When I was…

Categories: Announcements, Theology

Evangelism is…

Posted on June 28th, 2011

Evangelism is action on God’s part, through the Church by the power of the Holy Spirit, to solve the problem of God’s “unrequited love” with creation.

Categories: Church, Theology

God is not a person

Posted on June 27th, 2011

Substantively speaking, God is not a person. And yet, God can only be interacted with as if God were a person. Paul Tillich was right: if God is the one in which we live and move and have our being–if God is the very ground, structure, and goal of being–then God is not a being. God cannot be subject to the particulars of being for God is the one that determines those particulars. And yet, in a poetic way, we claim that God has revealed God’s very self to us–the nature of God. We see evidence of God in nature, which shows us much about God, but it is Jesus Christ whom we claim shows us what it is that God intends. Jesus Christ–a…

Categories: Theology

Knowing determines Understanding determines Meaning

Posted on June 24th, 2011

How we know what we know determines to a large degree how we understand reality to be constructed. How we understand reality to be constructed determines how we conceive and speak of God’s interaction with creation. For example: If my epistemology (how I know what I know) tells me that authority rests in a singular figure head at the top of a strict and rigid hierarchy, then I will most likely have a cosmology (how understand reality to be constructed) based on strict hierarchies. This will, in turn, dramatically affect my theology (what I think and communicate about God).

Categories: Theology

Theology: art, not science

Posted on June 21st, 2011

Theology is a very particular (if far reaching) project. When we think, write, and speak theologically, we are attempting to give suggestive shape to our world using the very particular symbols of the faith we inhabit. Theology is, therefore, more of an art–literary and poetic–than a science.

Categories: Theology