I got this link from an e-mail Sivin sent to the emergent mailing list:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week845/cover.html
Reading through, I found Tony Jones' comments very significant, not so much in a thought-provoking sense, but because they reflect what I'm presently going through:
"Is [what emergent doing] more sloppy than what a systematic theology professor does, sitting in his tenured chair typing up a book on the doctrine of the atonement? Yeah, it's messier than that! But that's, I think, theology as it works itself out in the lives of human beings who are kind of scratching and clawing their way to try to follow Jesus on a daily basis. It's a messy endeavor, and I embrace that messiness."
"The emerging church is a place of conversation and dialogue and movement. Where that's going to go, we don't know. We're figuring this out together. We don't have an agenda of what it looks like at the end of the road. We just want to gather up people who are on this road, who want to go together on it."
2 comments:
Quick response:
Not all systematic professors do their theology sitting in their tenured chairs.
I have the privilege of knowing a few who had to struggle to write systematic text books because there is a need for them but they were fully aware that their text books were works in progress.
These same proferssors also tried very hard to live out their beliefs in the real messy world.
Let's banish all stereo types.
Ben, I wish I could have met you last week, when I was on your side of the world. Now I'm back in the States, where it's yesterday...! I'm glad we're on the same team in this, and I hope we get to meet soon.
Tony
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