Tag: theology

What’s the problem?

It is not that the church’s theological absolutes are no longer trusted, but that the old modes in which those absolutes have been articulated are increasingly suspect and dysfunctional. That is because our old modes are increasingly regarded as patriarchal, hierarchic, authoritarian, and monlogic.

In some sense I like this thought from Brueggemann from his article Preaching as Reimagination. The problems are two. The church has great issues with separating between theological absolutes and the proper practices it has, and secondly I think theological absolutes are under more public scrutiny than often before.

Seminaries face financial woes

Among the 175 “free-standing” institutions in the Association of Theological Schools, 39% were “financially stressed,” with less than a year’s worth of spendable assets, a fall 2008 report says. That’s up from 26% a year earlier, and the data don’t reflect fallout from the stock market crash in the fall.

Seminaries face financial woes – USATODAY.com.

From Definitions and Technical Jargon to Story Telling

The Church is about sharing, living, remembering and repeating The Story. If we understand theology as constantly contextual, we are moving away from the world of definitions (modernism) to a world of stories.

The Aristotelic way of organizing, thinking that the sum of all the parts is equal to the whole, nothing more and nothing less, is not sufficient to understand ourselves or others.

Our task as modern theologians is therefore to move away from our definitions and technical jargon and start telling and listening to stories.

We can actually ask whether Schleiermacher and later WCC in their focus on modern/enlightened theology removed God from the people in the pews, and perhaps alltogether from all of us.

“Who Do You Say that I Am”

“Jesus said unto them—“Who do you say that I am?”

And they replied:– “You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground of our being, the kerygma in which we find the ultimate meaning of an interpersonal relationship.”

AND JESUS SAID UNTO THEM:     “WHAT?”

via “Who Do You Say that I Am”.

—-

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”

And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

He said to them, “But who do you say that I am”

Simon Peter answered, “You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground of our being, the kerygma in which we find the ultimate meaning of an interpersonal relationship.” 

And Jesus answered him, “WHAT???”