This, from another Episcopalian blogger, Doghouse, commenting on conflict between those who hold to the Englightenment/Modernism and those who move in Post-Modernism. He writes about the need to come up with an alternative name for “Post-modernism,” but this paragraph caught my attention. I’ve been saying something similiar for a while now, but this guy says it much better than I do.
“It has been important to keep the term up until now to make it clear that the rationalistic assumptions of Modernity have been rejected. Despite impressive technological and medical advances, the utopian goals of the Enlightenment failed. The grand experiment where humanity shook off the fetters of religion and took up the reigns of existence only resulted in advanced bloodshed, world wars, the A bomb and now terrorism. What started with such loud promise at storming of the Bastille, finally died with a whimper two centuries later with the fall of the Berlin Wall.”
Read the whole thing here.
Daily Archives: August 18, 2005
What to do?
Micah 6:8
He has told you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
Transformation vs. Affirmation
I listened to a news report the other day on All Things Considered from NPR concerning the Evangelical Lutheran Church’s national convention and their dealings with the ordination of gay people and the blessing of same-gender unions. One of the people the reporter interviewed said that those who favor the ordination of gays and the blessings of same-gender unions are propagating a different Gospel. I’ve heard the same accusation in the Episcopal Church as we navigate through these controversies.
The homosexual question is only the current flash-point between the groups of people who supposedly advocate competing gospels. There is some truth to the assertion, because there has developed two fundamentally different interpretations of the purpose of Jesus’ message and work – for the lack of better words: Affirmation vs. Transformation. I do not agree, however, that all who favor the inclusion of homosexual people in the life and ministry of the Church must be part of one group and excluded from the other. Of course, these are arbitrary terms and groups.