Daily Archives: March 1, 2008

Insights with M

M and I were having a discussion last night about my situation that wandered into the territory of theodicy–how we explain the presence of evil in a world created good by a good God. In particular she was going off on those who believe that if you pray enough, or are good, enough, faithful enough, or a “good enough Christian” that bad things won’t happen to you.

We came to the conclusion that this whole line of thought is fundamentally at odds with traditional Christian theology. We live in a faith that was founded on the blood of the martyrs. To say that God will keep all “real” Christians from physical harm is clearly and thoroughly refuted by the very facts of our beginnings. The promise we’ve received is not that everything’s going to be ok—rather, it’s that in whatever we face, we will never be alone.

A Purposeful Meme

This one’s from the Young Fogey…

Rule 1) List three reasons for your blogging.
Rule 2) List the rules.
Rule 3) Tag three others with the thread.

Why I Blog…
1. The original purpose of this blog—see the first post—was to serve as a kind of public accountability for dissertation progress. That didn’t work! Although, the dissertation is drawing to a close… I suppose it’s good that that didn’t become its central purpose; if it had I suppose I’d have to stop blogging once the dissertation was done.

2. As a forum for discussing religion/spirituality/theology that is liturgical, biblical, traditional, yet meaningful to a postmodern, post-Constantinian world. My firm conviction is that the Gospel—the Good News of what God has done for us in Christ—does not change, but the way we proclaim must be ever renewed and reformed from the distortions and misunderstandings that inevitably occur when we frail humans try to communicate it. (Thanks be to God that the power of the cross speaks even through our failures…) As a result, it’s not enough to repeat the words and principles of the past. However, the past is a key repository of Christian wisdom and for examining how the Spirit has worked amongst us in different times and places and that show us how to proceed—and how not to proceed—today.
3. Shameless Narcissism. I get to make all the stupid comments I want about whatever I want… :-) Especially the Anglican Communion. But there’s been less of that recently. I really do want to get back to talking about medieval things, especially medieval liturgy (see point 1…). Hopefully that’ll be coming soon.

Tag Three People
bls
Christopher
LutherPunk
and, of course, anyone else who’d like to play along…