greetings Darren, Jonathan etal. I have tried to avoid sticking my 2 bob's worth in here but I can't help myself.
Darren wrote: > i wonder what the rest of the un-churched world makes of a Church which has to exist in different forms to please others, whether it > be Roman Catholic, Anglican, UCA, Church of Christ, AOG.... > > if i were an un-churched person im sure that all i'd see is a whole pile of people that apparently believe in the same god that just > can't get along, so much so they have to have different names, liturgy, process... > > wouldn't really fill me with a great lot of confidence in the Church (big C) that is for sure. > > i'm happy to live with people like my father and others who dont agree with me, but that is not the issue... are we ALL able to live > with one another? if not, im pretty sure all we'll see is a split followed by another split followed by another...all because other > issues come up that people dont agree with. > > sounds like a community that i really am starting to doubt that i want to belong to. > > we MUST live together. > we MUST survive together. > we MUST continue to be UNITING. > > or this is just a mask that we wear... we have to find the space to sit and be together or it's all a facade. > I have to say that I think the problem is far bigger than we are acknowledging here. The real problem started with Capernicus, Newton, Darwin etc. With the accumulation of scientific knowledge people started to think outside the square that the church had placed around them. The reaction of the church was to retreat and develop a fortress mentality. The Christian fundamentalist movement, whether it be Catholic or Protestant is the remnant of the fortress mentality. The problem is that each bit of new scientific knowledge tends to send another salvo towards the fortress. Some one wiser than me once said, "faith is rarely provable but it must be reasonable." That is, it has to make sense. The problem we have today is that our doctrines that were mostly formulated about 1700 years ago no longer make sense. The defence of the Bible as "the literal word of God" not only no longer makes sense, but is demonstrably wrong by any standard of scholastic research. Yet this is what one group of people in the UCA (and most other churches) are trying to defend. The EMU's or RA or whoever they are at the moment are still trying to defend the fortress while many others amongst us are trying to let God out and say that God is bigger than doctrines, creeds or the Bible. This doesn't mean that we throw any of these away, but we must understand them within the limitations of the culture and the cosmology that prevailed within that culture when they were written or formulated. Why are people like Spong proving popular? Because what they say makes sense. This is the message that is repeated time and time again when I talk with people outside the church who have seen Spong on TV. "Now that guy makes sense" is the phrase that is repeated time and time again. It is time we stopped being nervous Nellies and started to teach our faith in language that makes sense. Even growing up in the 50's and 60's, by the time I was 12 or 13 there was a tension going on within me as to what I was being taught in Sunday School or RE at school and what my brain was telling me made sense. So what am I saying. Well frankly, I can't be bothered getting into arguments with people who take the literal approach to scripture and use it to defend their own prejudices which frankly is what is going on in the current debate. The God I know and teach is as much a part of the reality of GLBT people as this God is part of the reality of straights or whatever. If one part of the church wants to sit in their fortress and try and defend what quite frankly I believe is nonsense, then let them do it. In the mean time, lets get on with developing a theology (or spirituality) that makes sense in today's world and just as importantly, lets have the courage to confidently sell that spirituality in the marketplace. In other words, lets talk with confidence about the God we have found in Jesus. This man in whom I believe we have seen the fullness of God in our humanity in the way he lived and loved and whose spirit continues to live in all who live in love. This for me makes sense. This is a message I can share with confidence. End of sermon. Grace & Peace Allan ------------------------------------------------------ - You are subscribed to the mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put in the message body 'unsubscribe insights-l' (ell, not one (1)) See: http://nsw.uca.org.au/insights-l-information.htm ------------------------------------------------------
