The Timing of Events

Sometimes the timing of events can be more powerful then the events themselves… or, as the case may be, the timing of a blog post can sometimes cause one to remember it more then the content of the post.

This proved to be true this week when I read James K.A. Smith’s post concerning the “State of Contemporary Theology” only to stumble upon a Mark Scandrette quote on LindaFaye’s blog on a similar lines.

These two posts spurred me to look back at my blog for a post I wrote while struggling with the same issue – only to discover that I posted my thoughts on July 23, 2010, six days short of a year ago….

Strange. Odd. Crazy. Timing.

Who knows the reason…perhaps Jesus wanted to remind me to keep on keeping on…perhaps more folks are struggling with the tension of learning/doing – studying/living.

Either way, I think the Mark Scandrette’s quote is worth repeating – so here you go:

“Many of our structures and venues for religious education are set up to be passive and cognitive rather than active and participatory. Most people, for instance, think of a church as a place to sit and listen–not a context in which they will be coached and stretched to practice new skills. How do the schedule and programs of a church reveal what is thought to be most important?| (Too frequently by attendance, buildings, and budgets.) Even home groups are often just smaller venues for knowledge and study. We might ask, Did Jesus give his life on the cross so that we could sit around reading and discussing books about him, or so we could join the revolution?” -Mark Scandrette (quoted from “Soul Graffiti”)

One thought on “The Timing of Events”

  1. I love that quote!

    Ellen Charry laments, “…from the perspective of classical thought, today’s theology is abnormal, shrunken and impoverished, because it is limited to science alone, whereas for Augustine science was preparation for sapience.” “Sapience” beibng the Latin for “wisdom,” one of my favorite topics!

    Equally JI Packer, in his scathing and erudite assessment of contemporary theology as a whole, makes the case that, “…true theology is essentially identical with God’s gift of wisdom.” While calling professional theologians out of the polyglot of personal theologies or mere clusters of disciplines, he invites them back to a more ancient paradigm, harkening to Augustine’s term ‘sapientia’. Packer goes on to say, “…rather, wisdom is formed in us as the Holy Spirit opens the eyes of the mind and heart, working with and through what is seen and said,” and I would add: what is experienced as a whole; since the Holy Spirit uses everything we experience to form us toward Christ, our best and our worst, the felt Presence and Absence of God, our easiest and our most difficult seasons. For me the thing is that anyone who speaks of God practices theology (Theos/God + ology/Logos/Word/speaking), and thus for me I think I see an on-going interplay between theology and praxis that is really necessary (as too much theology is theorhetical and overly systematized) because there is a wisdom-consequence to praxis; i.e., actually doing-the-stuff, in turn, continues to shape and sharpen our theological ethos of the Reign of God.

    thanks man!

Comments are closed.