Emerging schmemerging
I was tempted to give up, but despair is a lazy kind of pride (so says Wendell Berry), so I’m re-reading that creed thing to see if my mutterings might help John to see that I am on the Lord’s side too.
Following Andrew’s points:
- This to me is nicer than believing in God because of say the ontological proof. I think the doctrine of Creation (God saw that it was very good. Woman and Man messed it up early on. Creation looks and waits for God’s true children to treat it right) is one of the key ones that people around today need to hear.
- Seems there’s a missing middle eight to this point about the role of those who do have particular knowledge of God.
- Amen.
- Yep, makes sense to me. Perhaps worth emphasising that’s not the end of the story, except for for Israel. Resurrection should probably be slotted in here.
- Oooo yeah, like a hen sheltering her chicks.
- The devolvment of Israel’s defining symbols onto Jesus is an important theme Reformed theology AFAIKA has missed.
- I like the incompleteness/tentativeness Andrew shows after this point. Humility.
- Wow, that’s a great summary.
- Stimulating and inspiring to work. Evidently has been reading NTW.
- Ah, that’s what I was looking for at point four. 10b feels like the ‘swept from off the land’ of our versification of Psalm 1.
As you were.
8 responses to “Emerging schmemerging”
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What is wrong with corporate belief?
I mean, if one can give only a hesitant, tentative voice to ones own personal beliefs, let alone give any kind of affirmation to a communal belief, then where is the necessity for a corporate body at all?
Its like saying ‘each man is an island, and even then he’s being very careful not to stick too far above water level’.
This is at cross-purposes with the whole idea that is being promoted here – that of a loving covenant between the Father/Creator God and his children as a corporate family.
Its highly probable that noone will read this response, as the post is older, but I thought I’d better pen it anyway, if even for my own sake.
dan, the body is defined by its call into unity by God, and that unity is enacted through the bond of mutual love. The mere fact that the various members don’t all share the same ‘belief’, intellectually constructed, means nothing. Of course, if they share the bond of mutual love, in response to Christ, then they share the same belief, properly understood.
The intellect & its workings are only a tool, neither the foundation nor only expression of the body.
or have i misunderstood?
No, that makes sense.
So i guess that the lack of unity within the greater church (ie: minimal inter-denominational cooperation, etc) is more the result of a lack of willingness to love as Christ did, rather than the inability to adhere to another’s ‘beliefs’.
precisely
but that can’t be right. You are excluding Christians who don’t believe in sharing the bond of mutual love from your united body. That is divisive, and contrary to God’s call for unity. Surely you can’t define the content of unity or you begin to exclude people? Your take on “mutual love” smells suspiciously to me of some sort of intellectually constructed “belief”. What is this “mutual love”? sounds like a tick box to me.
Ha. :) John, there’s no question that the boundaries of the body are defined by the call to be part of it. That call is baptism. Nothing controversial there. There’s also no question that the unity of the body needs to be expressed in mutual love. Nothing controversial there. Now, my point is that the unity of the body is NOT defined *merely* by intellectual formulations. Surely you agree with this? The body may have certain shared formulations, and these are useful, but those are consequential to both the call to unity in baptism, and the outworking of that unity in the mutual love that *is itself* trust in Christ and his way. That’s why Paul speaks of us having to *grow up* into the unity of common understanding and mature knowledge. It is a consequence, not a pre-requisite. And the consequence happens only in the context of mutual love. Check out Ephesians…something or other.
and just to ensure I’ve made the point: I was NOT saying that the intellect has no place; merely putting *mere* intellect IN its place.