The first thing to say is that everyone should cut Carla’s sentence about the course—the one that reads “I am incredibly glad I took this class” —and paste it into their IDEA forms. Mostly because I’m sure you all feel that way.
Although it has been tedious for you, I do appreciate the work all of you have done on these presentations, and I hope that you learned some things about the common drive within mainline Christianity (and beyond, I think) to address social needs and improve the lives of all, both near and far. Kudos to Liz for going solo; I was prepared to back her up, but she didn’t need my help.
Joking aside, I was pleased to read from Carla (and to get a growing sense from others) that the world needs Christians who can live with their essential similarities and get on with the jobs of feeding, clothing, and providing shelter to those in need. In the words of a Rabbi Irwin Kula, whose words I sometimes use in other classes: “it is about love; it really is no more complicated than that.” Of course, Kula knows how complicated that can be. Nevertheless, the statement offers the essential corrective to all who act as though “church” authority rests someplace other than with love.
I did have the strong sense at times (in these and other posts) that you all believe we can find common ground between Christian traditions. But I also have noticed that many of you value what Ed calls “sticking to your guns.” It would be very interesting for me to know if you think this desire for more confidence and certainty is a defining characteristic of our age. I tend to think that people never develop such clarity, that instead we simply renegotiate the contradictions by which we live our lives. In this case, the contradiction would be between a quest for certainly and the recognition that love is essential; after all, from my experience, love is anything but certain.
An interesting term introduced by the Bishop’s statement (and mentioned by Joe) is “participation.” I suppose this term lies somewhere between “sticking to your guns” and “love.” If you keep inviting people into the conversation and revising your ideas based on what they say, maybe you discover both love and the guns worth sticking to. I think that the recent crop of bishops believes they have found that territory in their willingness to place abortion at the center of all such conversations. As Meghan (and others) suggest, however, they may be missing the mark in that limiting or preventing abortions are acts that need to happen within the context of providing for children who are born.
See you all tonight. jw
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Presbyterianism and a smaller class
The discussion keeps getting smaller as people drop away due to conflicts or illness. We’re like some study in evolutionary science, with only the hearty surviving.
Joe said in response to Liz’s post that he was waiting for the term “Puritan” to crop up, and it did. I remember Nancy Bickel from First Congregational (UCC) coming into one of my classes and beginning her explanation of Congregationalism with a reference to these early Americans who established some of the finest schools we have, including Harvard. I suppose we tend to forget that faiths like UCC Congregationalism and Presbyterianism make a big deal out of their heritage related to this land. Even though they too were immigrants, they have been around long enough to claim attachments to “the founders” and assert connections that really shape their identity as “American” faiths. Perhaps this helps to justify their beliefs that, as Crystal said, they have earned a special “access to power.”
Both Crystal and Kelli alluded to the organizational issues associated with Presbyterianism, and I was really glad to learn from our readings and from Joe and Ed about the emphasis the tradition places upon matters of “order” and “organization. I’ve grown accustomed to it in Catholicism, and I’ve always thought that Lutherans really want to be more organized, but I suppose I tended to think of the Presbyterians in the same light as the UCC crowd, and now I don’t think that’s a good connection at all. Congregationalists are, as their name suggests, much more focused on the “local” church.
Finally, not much more to say about the “faith” and “works” debate other than you all seem to understand it pretty well—even if that means it exasperates you, as it does for Carla. For what it’s worth, I don’t read much about it in contemporary theology, perhaps because the theologians are weary of it too. By contrast, the distinction between “personal” and “institutional” encounters with God seems very much at the forefront of the way we discuss Christianity today. In that discussion, what’s fascinating (to me) is how the perspectives of traditional denominations is changing. “Evangelical” interests in a personal encounter with God now seems to apply to people from all Christian denominations, including Catholics. And if people understand God primarily in terms of their personal encounter, then I suppose that does lead them to think about the relationship between faith and works in certain ways. jw
Joe said in response to Liz’s post that he was waiting for the term “Puritan” to crop up, and it did. I remember Nancy Bickel from First Congregational (UCC) coming into one of my classes and beginning her explanation of Congregationalism with a reference to these early Americans who established some of the finest schools we have, including Harvard. I suppose we tend to forget that faiths like UCC Congregationalism and Presbyterianism make a big deal out of their heritage related to this land. Even though they too were immigrants, they have been around long enough to claim attachments to “the founders” and assert connections that really shape their identity as “American” faiths. Perhaps this helps to justify their beliefs that, as Crystal said, they have earned a special “access to power.”
Both Crystal and Kelli alluded to the organizational issues associated with Presbyterianism, and I was really glad to learn from our readings and from Joe and Ed about the emphasis the tradition places upon matters of “order” and “organization. I’ve grown accustomed to it in Catholicism, and I’ve always thought that Lutherans really want to be more organized, but I suppose I tended to think of the Presbyterians in the same light as the UCC crowd, and now I don’t think that’s a good connection at all. Congregationalists are, as their name suggests, much more focused on the “local” church.
Finally, not much more to say about the “faith” and “works” debate other than you all seem to understand it pretty well—even if that means it exasperates you, as it does for Carla. For what it’s worth, I don’t read much about it in contemporary theology, perhaps because the theologians are weary of it too. By contrast, the distinction between “personal” and “institutional” encounters with God seems very much at the forefront of the way we discuss Christianity today. In that discussion, what’s fascinating (to me) is how the perspectives of traditional denominations is changing. “Evangelical” interests in a personal encounter with God now seems to apply to people from all Christian denominations, including Catholics. And if people understand God primarily in terms of their personal encounter, then I suppose that does lead them to think about the relationship between faith and works in certain ways. jw
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)