Random Links 212

Embodying the’Great Story’: An interview with James W. McClendon

I think I will get his three vol. systematic theology someday 🙂 and his Biography as Theology.

… It helps to distinguish between primary and secondary theology. Primary theology is the church trying to think out its own convictions, and this gets expressed in sermons, prayers, hymns — the sources of its ongoing common life. Eventually, primary convictions by which it tries to live get written down in creeds and confessions of faith or expressed afresh in new hymns and new sermons or simply lived out in the lives of existing members of the community. Secondary theology, which is the main thing that universities are concerned with, is theology about theology. It tries to take a step back from primary theology and ask questions about justification, truth, legitimation, and the significance of primary theology. Very often it forgets that there is primary theology and simply ends up talking about its own justification, truth, and verification, which is a regrettable lapse, a diminishing.

The Jesus Question

What do we want in Malaysia? Elections coming soon …

During this election cycle in USAmerican politics I hear Jesus asking the church, “What do you want?” And the church seems once again to be enamored with power. “We need a Christian president, we need a conservative Supreme Court, we need more like us to have seats of power.” In American politics we trust. The more the church chases power the more steeped in blindness she becomes.

When we in our blindness call out to our Messianic King Jesus for mercy, perhaps we too will receive our sight. Then maybe we can follow the Jesus Way–the way of the cross, not the way of ruling power. Maybe we will begin to serve as we let go of our need to rule. Maybe we will access “the deep magic” (C S Lewis) that political power can never offer, nor does it understand. Maybe then our society will see a new light, see another way out of the mess we’re in.

Jesus asks even now, “What do you want me to do for you?” Our answer to the Jesus Question reveals our hearts like nothing else.

Catholic but not necessarily Roman

I know Rome has become increasingly attractive to those whom are disillusioned with the Evangelical, Pentecostal and Charismatic variety in the Protestant movement. Perhaps, I’m too emergent to head to Rome and reside there? 🙂 Of course, last sunday I confessed … “I believe in one, holy, catholic church …”

Names are important, as I had to remind a friend who thought discussion of names was insignificant compared to cosmic events like ” Iowa” and “New Hampshire .” Wars start over pejorative and sometimes even innocently used labels.

“Catholic” and “Roman Catholic” are not the only complexities these days. More urgent, most urgent, is the task of dealing in a fair way with the many, many brands of Christians who get lumped together as “Evangelicals,” especially in political discourse, where they get miscast simply as “the Christian right.”

More examples: Luther and Lutherans did not choose their name. None of us liked being label “ecclesial communities” instead of “churches” by Pope Benedict XVI, but we’ll live with it. “Mainline Protestants” didn’t and don’t like their name, which is usually used pejoratively by non-Protestants, most of whom never liked and few ever use the accidentally applied term “Protestant” itself. With friends like these …

With friends like these …

My craze over Facebook has been pretty much over by the end of last year. There’s a lot of truth in this link. Read it especially if you are hooked on Facebook!

Not traditionalist nor liberal – but contemplative and missional

I can relate to this ….