www.duregger.net » couple of scribbles…

couple of scribbles…

We are like broken glass looking for other shards that will compliment our own scathing surface, and when we find all the pieces we become a stained glass window exhibiting the beautiful reflection’s of the sun/son. This is what community does, and what the church should seek to be!
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As I delve into scripture I am acutely aware of the vast amount of information and mystery found in the book, and am forced to say, “I don’t know.” a helluva lot more than i want to… Everyone wants concrete answers and are confused when the concrete becomes fractured.

But, there is a good thing that sprouts from our ambiguity… namely humbleness. I am humbled as I tackle questions of truth; like a small voice in a cavern of echoes. There is so much danger in planting our flags on doctrinal truth, specifically the danger of being wrong. That is why I love to begin and end debates on doctrine and theology with a focus on Jesus… of which is the Truth we can be assured in. Bad theology begets ugly christianity, but there is a beautiful theology that begets beautiful christianity… namely one of love, based on the words of Jesus, and in these words flow a comfortable mystery… a peace that surpasses all knowledge and understanding. It is in this flow that we can bask in ambiguity and in the answer, “I don’t know.”

The beginning of wisdom is not having all the answers but rather a humble heart and a open mind. So yes, after reading Jesus’ words, I have a lot of unanswered questions, and in the questions I wonder!

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Love is messy. It has the capacity to stain, smear and smudge. In response to this reality we can do two things: we can help clean-up each other’s mess, or we can go home and do our own laundry. In helping each other we find a brand of love that is the best detergent. Together we can identify spots we were previously blind to, and together we can scrub stubborn stains with collaborative resolution.

Comments

Ali on April 16th, 2008

Wow. What a depressing view: God spent all that time writing something that we can’t possibly understand. How does that make you view God? I would think that He’s a not very loving Creator if I held that view.

Actually, even though I haven’t read all the literature on the emerging church (since its doctrines are what you are regurgitating here), I hope that you know it has its roots in postmodernism, which owes its thoughts to the likes of Nietche, Sarte, Heideger, Camus and other raging atheists. The idea that we can’t understand words stems from the pm (postmodern) view that words have no intrensic meaning, only the meaning that culture puts on them. To anyone that believes creation took place through the Word (capitalized for a reason) of God, the idea that words have no meaning is completely prepostrous. The idea that any word God speaks does not make sense is utterly demeaning to our Lord, for if anyone could make sense to us, you’d logically think it would be the One who created our very ability to interpret and understand. Also, why in the WORLD would the Holy Spirit through the apostle John call our Lord and Savior THE WORD if words have no meaning because they can’t be understood - or even worse, that they are up to anyone’s interpretation. Anyone who thinks that the Truth (weird, another WORD Jesus uses to name Himself that also denotes an ABSOLUTE) God REVEALED (look it up in a dictionary) to His creatures in scripture cannot be understood is calling God a liar, a cheat, and a deceiver.

Look up 2 Cor 4:1-6 and tell me what the job of the Holy Spirit is to believers, because I’ll tell you what it does NOT say: “I don’t know.” Vs 6: “For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Am I saying that we don’t continue learning? Am I saying it’s not ok to not know things? Of course not, as the Spirit continues to reveal deeper truths, but we are not called to be idiots claiming ignorance out of fained humility. On the contrary, what you don’t know should be sought out in the scripture, since they hold truth.

I ask you where the emerging church draws the line on what can be known and what can’t be known. If it is arrogant to know something, what’s the point in reading it? What’s the point of witnessing to people if you think their interpretation is as good as yours? What’s the point of even thinking, other than one’s own vain pleasure of thinking he’s smarter than everyone else because he’s finally been ‘enlightened’ to the truth that there is no truth. I hope the contradiction is blatantly obvious here. The thing is, if you claim you can’t know, where does that stop?

Just for reference, here’s Wikipedia’s definition of pm:
postmodernism tends to refer to a cultural, intellectual, or artistic state lacking a clear central hierarchy or organizing principle and embodying extreme complexity, contradiction, ambiguity, diversity, and interconnectedness or interreferentiality

…sounds a lot like what you’re preachin, and as an English major who’s read more of that kind of crap than I can stand, I’m telling you it’s not good.

FYI, I’m writing you all this because I love you and there’s no love greater than the truth, and Chris feels the same.

Sam I Am on April 16th, 2008

Ali,

I am speechless. You say things things are out of love, yet your words do not mirror any such thing. I would really like to have a conversation with you and Chris sometime soon.