Random thoughts about "getting it right" from a couple of months ago...


Thoughts I've been experimenting with--

The importance of "orthodoxy" is not centered on the importance of getting it "right."

One might say the importance of orthodoxy isn't so much that others get it, but that it's true about reality -- and that reality has an impact and 'works' for the good of God, and therefore humanity and the world, whether or not people have the right beliefs about it (i.e., no one has to believe in the notion of 'justification by faith' to be justified by their faith).

That may very well sound like something fantastic (or something awful... depending on where you are coming from). I would like to take it a step further:

The importance of "orthodoxy" isn't so much that I get it right, but that the reality (i.e., the "orthodoxy-of-God-in-the-world") works and is effective in the world apart from me. In this God is not static, but moves in beautiful and creative ways. What that does is free me and you to be creative artistically and theologically, to be free to take risks in thought and action for the good of the world and the evolution of our perspective and participation in life.

This artistic backdrop helps to highlight why we have ended up with a book that is often difficult to get a straight answer from when it comes to many of the things that are squabbled over. It seems that the god that this book describes is something of an artist who moves in big pictures and questions... who constantly invites a fresh think about things... the god who envisions the church as the community-of-people-sometimes-divided-permanently-in-the-world-but-united-by-Jesus/love.

This is not accommodation of the divine.
The is culmination of the divine.


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