Vynette, it’s good to see that despite the lack of support from traditional theology, you are willing to forge ahead. As long as your position produces a viable reading of both scriptural and other evidence, I wouldn’t worry about the lack of conformity too much.
Theology is not some external thing that has to be conformed to. In the final analysis, theology is what you believe about God!
Live to serve : Serve to live
Consensus for the sake of community
The problem with this is that it encourages an individualistic approach to theology. I think that the emerging church has to resist this and find ways to think collectively, corporately, as a community. I would argue that we need to work towards some sort of consensus for the sake of being genuine community - and not merely a hotchpotch of individuals with their private narratives that work for them, their personal belief systems.
The question is how do we go about this. It does not have to be a matter of imposing a theology as an external thing to which we are all supposed to conform. There has to be some way of rediscovering as a community - through conversation, collaboration - the story that shapes the people whose lord is Christ.
private narratives?
I understand what Andrew is saying and now realise that I could never become part of the ‘community’ of which he speaks.
However, I must stress that my comments should not be regarded as simply ‘private narratives’ and ‘personal beliefs’.
That would be to dismiss the existence of a large corpus of evidence, based on the ‘scripture interpreting scripture’ principle, that could be adduced in support of my statements. This evidence was gathered in response to the exhortation that we are to ‘prove all things, hold fast to that which is good.’
Whose community is it anyway?
vynette, whatever this community is, it’s not for me to define it, and it’s clearly not a simple, homogeneous thing. The conversation about what comes after modernism and the collapse of Christendom is wide-ranging, multi-layered, multi-threaded, and extremely messy. Open Source Theology is just one, rather fluid and limited, expression of that conversation.
It seems to me, though, that we need a good biblical theology that will give us a clear sense of identity and purpose. I would like that theology to be the product of an open conversation and to retain the character of an open conversation as it develops. How open that conversation can realistically be is hard to say, but in practice it will be decided by individuals choosing to be in or out - or, I suppose, finding themselves included or excluded.
So I would ask why you believe that you could never become part of the emerging community. I accept your point about private narratives - there are plenty of people who hang around here who would accuse me of doing exactly the same thing. But then we face the practical challenge of thinking as a body, as a people - at least, it seems to me that this is a crucial component of an emerging theology. How do we do that?
exit left
Andrew, your comment is very interesting and perhaps this subject deserves it’s own string?
It does raise a lot of interesting issues. I agree that theology in some sense should be a theology of a community but communities are made up of individuals and individuals do tend to vary quite a lot. “Theology” that is static is not of much use.
In any case, when someone like me submits a comment or posts something we are de facto putting it to this community for consideration. The responses that come in certainly make each string a sort of “live thing” that then gets refined and will result in the comunity at large sharing in the debate whether or not a majority of us end up agreeing or not with the original thesis.
No Reformation would have taken place nor any theological growth ever happened if individuals had not dared to buck their erstwile communities.
Can we perhaps hope that the emerging movement may evolve a better process than violent revolution to promote reformation from within and without having to impose a dictatorship of the majority?
Live to serve : Serve to live
...pursued by a (friendly) bear
Can one differentiate here between a theological method that gives critical and creative freedom to individuals in the conversation and the need for the people of God as community (at least at the local level) to be in broad agreement about the story by which it is defined? We could introduce at this point the need for the theological conversation to recognize that it serves the interests of the church as a whole and of the mission of God. So if an emerging theology engages a broad spectrum of opinions (I don’t really see why vynette should be left out), it does so for the sake of the whole - and it may simply be that we haven’t gone far enough yet down this road into the future to know what the emerging consensus might look like.
Perhaps this is trying to be too clever. In the end, rather as you suggest, the collective mind is shaped by the interplay of ideas in ways over which we have very little control.
the question is how
i think what i appreciate is the environment here at OST. i am hopeful that it is also the environment of the emergent community as a whole (i am new to both and at the moment you guys ARE the emergent movement to me). it seems to be an environment (in part) that not only tolerates my questions, but assumes that they are a healthy part of community.
if this is a community - then by its very nature there will some shared ideas and convictions. even a group that is merely passionate about nothing, would be rallied around that belief and therefore have a consensus.
so for me, vynette’s postulations are as needed as andrew’s, but because of the focus of this site, vynette (and me and sam and everyone else) must understand that the ‘community’ created here (by its definition) is going to check her theology against a historical, narrative reading of scripture. in this instance, disagreement is a sign of a healthy community operating as it promised.
of course vynette or i or anyone else can take our toys and go home if we dont like the way our ideas are accepted or rejected based on this community’s parameters, but the concept here is to wrestle with god, or at least about god, not our own ideas. right? theo:god. ology:the study of.
i think the safeguard i’d like to see is one that (1) encourages anyone who wishes, to finally speak within the community the thing they have been thinking, wondering, creating even - let’s not put those struggling with ideas outside the walls and (2) once they have been heard, to respond with respect and careful attention to a historical, narrative reading of scripture no matter how outlandish or ‘right on’ their concept first appears.
“There has to be some way of rediscovering as a community - through conversation, collaboration - the story that shapes the people whose lord is Christ.”
jungle trails
First, let me apologise for having implied that theology is only a purely personal matter. We are all part of the body and it is too easy to ignore the reality.
From what I can see so far (and I am quite new here) Andrew and OST’s chosen approach has worked wonderfully well. The guidelines that you suggest to beginners and the broad freedom and discipline that is displayed has produced wonderful results.
Whatever the emerging church is going to do with this is perhaps a slightly different question. This particular community of believers (and some who are not) are benefitting from the process and interplay that takes place here. So, this community is growing and producing “theology” and the word theology itself seems to have taken on some new meaning here at OST. It is not immediately recognisable as equivalent to the older concept and I think that the dynamic is one of the outstandingly new characteristics.
On the practical side, my observation is that participants at OST generally exercise a ‘discipline of respect’ for your general guidelines, each other, and respect for the bible as the basis of the discussions. Rather than being imposed, the exercise of authority seems to be self regulating to a large extent. We also know that you and other seniors are there to keep an eye on us, point us in new directions, help us to make up whatever is lacking, and “call us back” when we get too far out in left field.
The danger with setting out ‘acceptable’ theological method really is that we are adding an ‘external authority’ to the word of God and by implication to the work of the Holy Spirit and that is something that would make me hesitant. I also wonder whether there ever should be an “emerging consensus”, perhaps the continuing process itself will keep the theology relevant and perhaps that is what theology really should be: we will all (and hopefully many ‘new’ others too) keep participating in ‘doing’ theology. As Stacy points out, we are to be mindful that we are dealing with God, not some obscure bit of fascinating philosophical speculation - and working out our faith - together.
Live to serve : Serve to live
The heart of community
This comment has been moved here.
in theology, is less more?
hi Andrew. you raise an important point here. regarding this, do you think it’s valid to visualise a communal theology as a continuum, with a dogmatic & rigid theology to which everyone within a community conforms at one pole, and an eclectic “hotchpotch” at the other?
i’m currently exploring the teaching of universal restoration and while on a heart level i’m strongly attracted to it, i’m also wading through a lot of writing - polemic & otherwise - on the topic. from my understanding, the primitive church of the first 3 centuries AD was a lot more heteredox than what is tolerated within current evangelical christianity, in the main.
while a theological framework can be a valuable tool & a communal focal point, i sense that many people are only just beginning to question and in some cases escape from, an overarching evangelical theology.
it seems to me that the further away the church moved from it’s source in time - Christ walking the earth - the more it moved away from the simple and refreshing teaching of it’s author. the challenge of uncovering and restoring that primitive theology remains a massive challenge.
i see the process as more of an uncovering - “less is more” - than formulating. having said that, you seem largely in agreement with this.