For the Joy of the Journey

So Much to Think About

George July 7, 2021 Notes Anthology 0 Comments

If we only change because our circumstances change, then who is our God?
Matt Redmond

Rebecca Manley Pippert writes,
“Our problem in evangelism is not that we don’t have enough information—it is that we don’t know how to be ourselves. We forget we are called to be witnesses to what we have seen and know, not to what we don’t know. The key on our part is authenticity and obedience, not a doctorate in theology.”

I need to know another person’s story so well that I can identify all the ways I see God at work in their lives, even without them noticing.
Michael Frost

Good News
The message of “Good News” is this: You are loved. You are unique. You are free. You are on the way. You are going somewhere. Your life has meaning. That is all grounded in the experience and the knowledge and the reality of the unconditional love of God. This is what we mean by being “saved.”
Richard Rohr

Truthiness
in October 2005, Stephen Colbert defined “truthiness.” What matters, he argued in a hilarious imitation of a hard-charging right-wing television pundit, isn’t whether some statement about the world is true; it’s whether it feels true.

Cognitive Dissonance
We don’t like to live in the tension between thought and action, or between contradictory thoughts. There’s even evidence that cognitive dissonance can sometimes be so profound that it creates physical discomfort. So we deal with the tension. We can change the thought to match the behavior. We can change the behavior to match the thought. We can add thoughts or rationalizations to resolve the tension. Or, we can simply trivialize the tension and decide that it’s so insignificant that it doesn’t really matter.

Knowledge
…there is a difference between knowledge “on ice” and knowledge “on fire.” For many Christians, their belief is often just knowledge “on ice,” not experiential, firsthand knowledge, which is knowledge “on fire.” Even though we call them both faith, there is a difference between intellectual belief and real trust. There is a difference between talking about transformation and God’s love and stepping out in confidence to live a loving life. Only the second is biblical faith: when our walk matches our talk.
Richard Rohr

Guilt & Shame
The language of guilt isolates responsibility for a single event; the language of shame assumes that you are now that event waiting to be visited upon all. Guilt suggests punishment or restitution; shame declares that no matter what you might do, you will always be that person.
Fr Stephen Freeman

View from the front porch
The most universal expression of all is a smile, which is rather a nice thought. No society has ever been found that doesn’t respond to smiles in the same way. True smiles are brief—between two-thirds of a second and four seconds. That’s why a held smile begins to look menacing. A true smile is the one expression that we cannot fake.
The Body – Bill Bryson

Still on the Journey

THE CHURCH (8) – Real Church 1.2

George June 30, 2021 THE CHURCH 0 Comments

…real church is not adapting to the present nor is it holding to the past — now all I need to do to find real church whose criterion is the Gospel of Jesus Christ!
In the next post, I intend to wrestle with what a church looks like whose criterion is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Often when I am thinking and writing about a particular thread, a related post, article and/or reference mysteriously appears. Today was one of those occasions. With the ink barely dry on my previous Real Church post , Michael Frost’s post entitled “If Jesus planted a church, what would it look like?” hit my in-box.
He addresses directly the challenge to wrestle with what a church looks like whose criterion is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. His insights provide an excellent starting point for further conversation. I encourage you to read his entire post.

I intend to incorporate his thoughts as I continue to pursue real church. Here’s a sample:

Here’s what the church that Jesus built looks like – a people who acknowledge him as their king, offering all of their lives under his authority, working on living out this constellation of values:

This is not the first time Michael Frost has dropped into my life unexpectedly. Several decades ago, I discovered he and Alan Hirst were conducting a seminar on their book “The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21 Century Church”. Attending their seminar and reading the book was a significant influence in the development of my evolving ecclesiology. It is good to hear from Michael again.

Still on the journey

THE CHURCH (7) – Real Church 1.1

George June 27, 2021 THE CHURCH 0 Comments

This post continues thoughts on Real Church. Read the previous post HERE.

I am resolved that my pursuit of “real church” will be one of discovery and I will resist my compelling need to explain. As Crabb concludes: “The passion to explain leads us along a path that ends badly.”

My responsibility is to know I reside on a continuum between an idealized church and the real church. My mission is to discover and surrender to the will of God for His gathered people, in that pilgrimage the real church will come forth.

I remain committed to the statements from the previous Real Church post. However, three weeks since writing that post, struggling with the idea of real church, I realize just how much of a challenge, perhaps impossibility, it is to set aside my idealized abstractions about church and discover real church. That understanding is important, otherwise my pursuit will only lead me to confirm my idealized abstractions. I have no illusion that I will discover “the” real church, but I do believe I can move closer to real church.
Although I am not a theologian,Kung was encouraging
“…the theologian learns by his mistakes and that if he is prevented from making any, he is prevented from constructive thinking; that it takes time not only to find the truth but also for the truth to take effect in the Church generally, in the face of innumerable obstacles, of the prejudices and pretexts of an opinion communis which masquerades as genuine doctrine.”
My hope is for —constructive thinking , some truth regarding real church and patience for truth to take effect.

Returning to Hans Kung’s book “THE CHURCH”, I believe he is helpful in creating a starting point to pursue real church. Here are some citations:

Rather than talking about an ideal Church situated in the abstract celestial spheres of theological theory, we shall consider the real Church as it exists in our world, and in human history. The New Testament itself does not begin by laying down a doctrine of the Church which has then to be worked out in practice; it starts with the Church as reality, and reflection upon it comes later. The real Church is first and foremost a happening, a fact, an historical event. The real essence of the of the real Church is expressed in historical form.

The “essential nature” of the Church is not to be found in some unchanging Platonic haven of ideas, but only in the history of the Church. The real Church not only has a history , it exists by having a history. There’s is no “doctrine” of the Church in the sense of an unalterable metaphysical and ontological system, but one which is historically conditioned , within the framework of the history of the Church, its dogmas and its theology.

God’s salvific act in Jesus Christ is the origin of the Church; but it is more than the starting point or the first phase of its history, it is something which at any given time determine the whole history of the Church and defines its essential nature.

For those who believe the Church is headed in the wrong direction. Kung poses an essential question “…by what criterion are we to judge that the Church is headed in the right direction?” I believe the starting point to determine criterion by which to judge is understanding the essence of the Church. Paraphrasing Kung, the essence of real Church is found in its origin, a happening, a fact, a reality — namely, God’s salvific act in Jesus Christ.

“It [the Church] stand or falls by its links with its origins in Jesus and its message ; it remains permanently dependent for the ground of of its existence, on God’s saving act in Jesus Christ, which is valid for all time and so also in the present.”

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,
1 Corinthians 15:3-4 – NIV

The Church must constantly reflect upon its real existence in the present with reference to its origins in the past, in order to assure its existence in the future.
Kung

Pursuing “real church” begins with an assessment of a church’s loyalty to the essential nature (essence) of “real church”, a church that is …committing itself to each new day afresh, accepting the changes and transformations of history and human life, constantly willing to reform, to renew, and rethink.”

Concluding the essence of real church originates in the reality of God’s saving act in Jesus Christ is a game changer for me. When I consider that the Day of Pentecost is when I have believed the church was established, there are profound implications. My idealistic, abstract notions of church as described on the day of Pentecost are inadequate criterion to judge a church’s loyalty to the essential nature of real church.

As Kung states, a concern that the church is headed in the wrong direction must be taken seriously. The vital question is… by what criterion are we to judge that the Church is now headed in the right direction?
Answering first in the negative, he comments, …the Church is not on the right path so long as it adapts itself to the present; nor is it on the right path as long as it holds fast to the past.
How do we know the Church is on the right path? — … the Church is headed in the right direction when, whatever the age in which it lives, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is its criterion..

Well at least that narrows it down —real church is not adapting to the present nor is it holding to the past — now all I need to do to find real church whose criterion is the Gospel of Jesus Christ!
In the next post, I intend to wrestle with what a church looks like whose criterion is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.