or why tom wright, rem, john dominic crossan, and the international bible society are all in agreement:
all these folks agree, either in song or scholarly writing or on the covers of bibles that it is the end of the world as we know it. but do we feel fine?
visiting several congregations of the church in bellingham recently, i've been struck by the insistance we seem to have to continue the arguments that divided us either from each other or from the world, back when the arguments meant something. so the "orthodox" christians are still insisting on their orthodoxy as trinitarians, but in words which were meaningful to arians but which are mostly merely quaint to people struggling to understand and to experience the trinity today. the "reformed" christians are still arguing against a midaeval understanding of "the mass" as sacrifice which is certainly no longer held by the catholic church, and which is, i am convinced, again merely distracting to those who are sincerely seeking the real presence of christ in their lives but who aren't privy to courses in church history.
so, again and again, let us pray, "lord, have mercy." send us into the world in peace, and give us strength and courage to love and serve you in gladness and singleness of heart. and give us courage to behold the world for which you suffered and died, and speak to it with co-suffering love.
11 hours ago
2 comments:
is jeff right, or not? is the world today so different from the world historic? fr. joe likes to say, "in orthodoxy it's not 'either or,' it's 'both and.'" perhaps the arguments then were not so important as we make them out to be. and yet maybe we still need to go through the motions ourselves to discover this?
oh, i think you're entirely right about the nature of the world. it's the language which has changed. some of the arguments may or may not have been so important as we make them out to be, but they are not so important today. i think the most important argument from then is, as i have suggested often, the reality and meaningfullness of the holy one revealed in the trinity. but so much of our language about it is pretty arcane, without much invitation for people to go through the motions.
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