where I stand now...

I have just spent a fair while writing an email to a friend and without giving any more specific detail I just thought I'd post the following... it's not specific to the situation but more of a stream of consciousness kind of splurge of where I find myself at this moment...

Walking with God is uncomfortable and messy, it puts us in places we would rather not be with people we struggle with, it shines a light on parts of our lives we would rather keep hidden, it challenges who we think we are and sometimes rips us apart so that we can be reformed... Not one of us is prefect, not one of us has “it sorted” all of us stuff it up and all of us see dimly... For me community is a place where I can be open and honest about all the above – though some bits take longer than other bits, some things are harder to deal with – but I believe we are designed to be in community as God is community but God never said it would be easy, nor that everyone would make it easy for us. 

Christian life is not about establishing ones personal theological framework and/or finding others who agree/reinforce it – that’s too often what Church has become – a club for people who make us feel normal in our personal theological comfort zones (though I believe that it’s less about control from the “top” more about the control of personal fear, fear of being wrong or being shaken)  And I’m not sure there is such thing as a “spectrum” – there are people who have histories, stories, hang-ups, fears and experiences of God... sometimes these factors lead to monumental cock-ups, to abuse, to hurt, to confusion, to misunderstanding... Sometimes they lead us to make a complete and total mess of it or to cling to things which are unhelpful – but if we are not honest about this or are too scared of admitting we may just have bits of it completely wrong then we end up being “fundamentalists” - people who draw hard lines about who is right and wrong (there are fundamentalist evangelicals, fundamentalist liberals even fundamentalist emergents!)  rather than being people who know that they see dimly and know that others do too...& perhaps if we combine what we both see we might actually understand a little bit more!  I’m absolutely sure that Evangelicals can teach me something about the nature of God that I have missed and so can the Quakers... If I’m willing to let them!  Sure there some who use the Bible (and Christianity) to promote their personal hatred (e.g. Westboro Baptist) and there are some who use it to reconcile their personal greed (e.g. Creflo Dollar) but they are the vocal minority and my “yardstick” has always been Micah 6 (love mercy, act justly and walk humbly) - as we read in 1 Corinthians real faith can only be truly expressed in love (not hatred or greed) but I don’t really care if that love leads one to be an evangelist who believes not all will “go to heaven” and so they spend their life desperately seeking to make Christ known so that as many can “enter” as possible or it leads another to work hard for justice here and now because they don’t even believe in heaven (in the traditional sense)... there are many rooms! 

My beliefs are very different to what they where 20 years ago, and in 20 years time they will no doubt have changed as much again – that doesn’t mean I go from one camp to another just that I know what I believe now is where I stand now but also that God does not stand still and neither does life – where I end up in 20 years only God knows - and I have no idea who else will be there with me!  What I do know is that I will be no closer to knowing 'all' about God, just different, with new stories, new experiences, new revelations etc.  I just can’t see this thing in linear terms anymore, it’s so much more complex, deeper and richer than that...  We can’t work it all out, we just have to live in where we are and who we are with God.

Technorati Tags: Christianity: Emerging Church: Missional: Pilgrimage: safespace: theology

Comments

[Chris]

Well said Mark.

Cheers

Chris

[Existential Punk]

Mark,

What a brilliant, honest, and beautiful post. THANK YOU for your thoughts. i resonate with what you say.

i especially love when you said, "My beliefs are very different to what they where 20 years ago, and in 20 years time they will no doubt have changed as much again – that doesn’t mean I go from one camp to another just that I know what I believe now is where I stand now but also that God does not stand still and neither does life – where I end up in 20 years only God knows - and I have no idea who else will be there with me! What I do know is that I will be no closer to knowing 'all' about God, just different, with new stories, new experiences, new revelations etc. I just can’t see this thing in linear terms anymore, it’s so much more complex, deeper and richer than that... We can’t work it all out, we just have to live in where we are and who we are with God."

AMEN!

Warm Regards,

EP

[rodney neill]

Hello Mark

In my wonderings around the web I recently discovered and began to explore process theology which has really inspired me- our theology of God is not a fixed substance or essence but is always becoming,in flux, on a journey and dynamic- it sounds very close to your thoughts about change in your post. Process theology is a diverse and multidemsional school which I am convinced would encourage and inspire many Christians in the UK if it was a lot more accessible. I apprecite it might look like intellectual theory for the sake of it but to me it has genuine practical impact.

Rodney (GGMU)

Ps I enjoy reading Prodigal Kiwi as well

PPS good win for Derby last weekend!

[Mark Berry]

Thanks Rodney... interesting - just looking cursorily at some web info... there's def. some helpful and interesting thinking - I can see the links with some post-modern thinking and with liberation theology - the Dipolar theism aspect seems at first glance to make a lot of sense, but I'd have some questions about Christology (and therefore the extent of Trinitarianism within the field), which seems to focus on the sense of Jesus as an exceptional man -- a particularly enlightened one... though I did find this...

"Cobb emphasizes a Logos Christology. The Logos as the primordial nature of God is present (incarnate) in all things in the form of initial aims for creatures. But Jesus is the fullest incarnation of the Logos because in him there was no tension between the divine initial aim and his own self-purposes of the past. Jesus so prehended God that God's immanence was "coconstitutive" of Jesus' selfhood. Cobb thus suggests (as opposed to other process thinkers) that Jesus was different from others in his "structure of existence" not merely by degree but in kind."

Which I think is closer to my thinking... thanks for this I will certainly dig deeper.