Okay, so it's not like I haven't been at work, but now that the semester is over and so is my first year of seminary, I am back in the office at Our Savior's. It is a bizarre and welcome feeling, to be in a congregation doing ministry - during normal business hours. It's not as if I haven't been here...I've just been swooping in mostly during the evenings or on the weekends. Now it is different. But why and how does this affect youth ministry and theology?
Today I have experienced what some have called the maceration of the role of a minister. There are so many jobs and needs that one must attend to, that it is hard to focus for very long on just one thing: like reading and thinking about theology, for example.
Theologians and ministers have a difficult task of thinking deeply and also doing so in such a way that is accessible and practical to religious people in general. Content must not suffer. Form must be functional. What a challenging task! Already today I have read three very cool and interesting blog posts concerned with this very thing, and my brain is hard and work holding them together.
Philip Clayton wrote a piece on faith and science, hoping for a democratization of the conversation. He invites common religious folk would not eschew science, but participate with it, both for positive social change, and to rethink theological positions.
Bruce Epperly wrote on the resurrection being not just a parable or a supernatural event, but a physical reality made possible with a more immanent understanding of God. Here is a prime example of how theological doctrines are really at stake in one's view of science.
Drew Baker has started a new phantastic blog all about ghost stories (and justice & post enlightenment thought). He doesn't eschew supernaturalism but embraces it. This could be a fascinating development. Have religious folks tried so hard to be taken seriously by science and modernity that we have sold short the wonderfully supernatural stories that thoroughly modern folks believe in anyway? Talk about ironic!
Wow, if all of these people keep it up, I will have just as much summer reading as I had during the semester (hahahahaha).
1 comment:
Wesley, you are a powerful bridge between the Academy (and "academic" theology) on the one hand, and the real, living church on the other. Wishing you a powerful summer of ministry!
-- Philip Clayton
Post a Comment