When the fog rolls in it’s harder to recognize the
contours of the landscape around us.
Monday, December 31, 2018
Reflection for the Week - December 31
Friday, December 21, 2018
Thursday, December 20, 2018
Thursday Thoughts - December 20
A poetics – being, doing, and making true stories
plays a significant role in understanding life. Taking disparate and
unconnected events and dynamically shaping them into a mysterious whole is tied
to a plot that we are already submersed in, yet not enslaved to. Stories break
the status quo and help articulate who we are, what we are to do, and why we
are here. They embody possible worlds and scenarios that function more as
breathing pictures, than mirrors or windows.
Wednesday, December 19, 2018
Living Spiritual Rhythms - December 19
I’d wager there’s plenty of room for co-creativity in life. God invites the natural world, and humanity as part of it, to be involved in a creative process that is a massive enterprise, which far surpasses what we can fathom or imagine. It appears that God releases nature to be distinct from God, while God nevertheless remains sovereign over its ultimate destiny. This picture of God and nature can be partially filled in from both sides; the biblical and natural world informers paint in a startling diversity of colors more luminescent, mysterious, and creative than any eye has seen.
Monday, December 17, 2018
Reflection for the Week - December 17
In the attempt to protect their early Genesis turf, many anti-evolution theologians claim that science is fallible and can get it wrong. While this is true to an extent (indeed science is sometimes self-correcting), the assertion is unhelpful because we already know some scientific findings are not wrong. So, there really is a two dimensional perspective here: one where science is not wrong, and another where science may get something else wrong. The issue becomes just how far science can go in informing us about humanity and the natural world. I’d wager far enough for us to let go of a notion of a young earth, literal interpretations of Eve & Adam, the fall, and that pesky serpent.
Thursday, December 13, 2018
Thursday Thoughts - December 13
In the attempt to maintain an authoritative position over others who may not agree, some today try to draw a line between theological doctrine and theological theory. Doctrine, they assume, is fixed and unchangeable, while theory is speculative and open to modification. I’d wager this is a false division, since it requires that what someone believed at a point in time is set in stone, versus something else that wasn’t, and thus we’re obliged to accept it. But, or at least so it seems to me, there is no separation because doctrine was, is, and will continue to be theory all the way down, though it is possible that there are better and worse theories.
Wednesday, December 12, 2018
Living Spiritual Rhythms - December 12
The bio-cultural neuro “event” of the other prepares the way for encounter. This preliminary experience, recounted prior to an express “act” of contact, opens up a rich, fabulous, and fragile invitation that unveils the suspense of possibilities for trust and suspicion in the recognition of oneself as another.
Monday, December 10, 2018
Reflection for the Week - December 10
Statistics maniacs are attempting to run the world. They’re high on the opium of administrative power and the acid of technocratic rage. Bah! Rebel, whenever and wherever, you can.
Friday, December 7, 2018
Thursday, December 6, 2018
Thursday Thoughts - December 6
Many Christians who hold to the interpretation that God created in six literal 24 hour days fret about the strong scientific evidence for human evolution and I’d wager they have good reason to do so. This reading is becoming less plausible all the time and will continue to do so. But the fear for them is that if things didn’t happen exactly as they think, then the biblical text can no longer be trusted – it is not history. Yet, this is a false fear, since the biblical text is comprised of several different directions and genres – sometimes conflicting, sometimes harmonious. Surely, for example, the gospels have a much more historiographical impulse than early Genesis. So, my suggestion is to go ahead and let go of your views of the literal history of the creation accounts, since there are far better alternatives. You have much to gain, and nothing worthwhile to lose.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
