- Apr 30, 2013
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@Paidiske
I think when we start thinking about our vocation as Christians as about collegiality with other Christians above serving the least, the lost, and the last... something has gone off the rails.
I'm also afraid you are in danger of tossing out some of the central insights of the Reformation as you approach issues about what it means to be a Christian in the 21st century. You might find reading David Waschall's blog, Under the Sun, helpful to find a different perspective.
Here is one of his essays on his critique of the notion that Christianity is primarily about the acquisition of holiness, cooperation with God, or "incarnation", for instance:
The Problem with Deification (Essay)
Dr. David Wagschall is a professor at the Toronto School of Theology. He was raised Lutheran but spent some time in the Orthodox Church in America, before returning to his childhood faith. I find his perspective helpful and it's one of the primary ways I've come to understand being a Christian in the modern world. It's a bit iconoclastic but it's good to be disabused of illusions once in a while. He's not assuming complete unfamiliarity with what he calls the "permeative tradition" (the paradigm you seem to be focused on), but he is assuming that as a basis for critique and working from there.
Infallibility? No, I don't believe in infallibility. I do believe that it's in the process of working through things together that we can discern what God is up to in our midst.
Which is no statement about what God might be doing outside the institution, but more a question of how we seek to cooperate with God within it.
I think when we start thinking about our vocation as Christians as about collegiality with other Christians above serving the least, the lost, and the last... something has gone off the rails.
I'm also afraid you are in danger of tossing out some of the central insights of the Reformation as you approach issues about what it means to be a Christian in the 21st century. You might find reading David Waschall's blog, Under the Sun, helpful to find a different perspective.
Here is one of his essays on his critique of the notion that Christianity is primarily about the acquisition of holiness, cooperation with God, or "incarnation", for instance:
The Problem with Deification (Essay)
Dr. David Wagschall is a professor at the Toronto School of Theology. He was raised Lutheran but spent some time in the Orthodox Church in America, before returning to his childhood faith. I find his perspective helpful and it's one of the primary ways I've come to understand being a Christian in the modern world. It's a bit iconoclastic but it's good to be disabused of illusions once in a while. He's not assuming complete unfamiliarity with what he calls the "permeative tradition" (the paradigm you seem to be focused on), but he is assuming that as a basis for critique and working from there.