Wow. Can’t believe it’s been so long.
Again, we’re still here. Still pondering. Still thinking. Still content. Still frustrated. Still joyful. Still pissed off. Still understanding. Still doubting.
I know that I’ve been thinking a lot about division. Division in the church, notably. Division between “traditional/mainline” church and the “emerging” church. Thinking about how these labels tend to do more harm than they do good. Thinking about how new ideas and old ideas are causing one body with many parts to become many parts with no body. About how new ideas and old ideas are acting like oil and water rather than peanut butter and jelly.
In turn this is causing me to have this inner dialogue. I take that back—an inner battle. Feeling trapped between two ideologies. Feeling that if I believe THIS, then THEY will think I believe THAT. And that if I don’t believe THAT, than THEY will think I don’t believe THIS. I’m sick of feeling divided inside myself, and I’m sick of being immersed in a divided culture.
More later. Maybe.
2 Comments
spiritual masochism. Let’s unpack that sometime, shall we?
I realize you threw some tentative thoughts out here, but I wondered if you mind if I take one strand and kind of go off on my own tangent here? Just to run things by those who read this blog (thinkers, all, as far as I can tell-truly)
Labels. I think labels get a bad rap, actually. Rightly so at times because we use them to pigeonhole things we shouldn’t. But we can’t help ourselves when we label because that is what is necessary in the vocabulary of the mind. So the labeling is necessary, but not what we do with it in all cases.
“one body with many parts to become many parts with no body.” I like the way that identifies the problem… not hard for Christians to see the many examples of that.
I still like labels for theology, for sorting ideology, for making a type of shorthand for a set of doctrinal convictions… but…
I’m seeing that the “body” is what it always was. “Christ”. Then the sorting makes sense, and it revolves around a body to outline the method by which the parts work. If I have a core relationship with Jesus Christ, if I love Him… then the sorting process is along the lines of what is essential or nonessential to that core.
What others think, how they interpret this process, is another problem. At that point comes the need for patience and humility in explaining and waiting for understanding (which may not come). That is why I think we struggle so much with it- it is hard for *us* to wait in that misunderstood, lonely place.
Ok- maybe this is all just a bunch of jabber- but thought I’d throw it by you.