Continuing off of Tom's 10:35 comment
While the question of whether the sword of truth is offensive is an angels-pin hair I would like to split with you, I think the linguistic deluge we have just entered is very representative of what I would like to avoid.
I don't think reclaiming ecclesial language is a panacea for the churches ills. I am looking for a way to talk about congregational vitality in a theological manner that doesn't resort to the bickerings of semantics, as evidenced by many of the previous comments. I feel like it's so easy to criticize the megachurches/bill hybls/joel olsteen for their weak or absent theology, but I feel like so much theology has turned ecclesiology into an esoteric academic field as opposed to the workings of Lakeside UMC, anywhere
Phil gave me a line from Hütter about the postlibs that was like, they’ve been clearing their throats for about thirty years, it’s about time they start to say something. I feel like so much ecclesial coughing has been coming from the academy against everything from megachurches to contemporary music to ipods to TV to whatever else that it all melts into an ignorable milieu of You Can’t Do That on Television slime.
I don’t want to cough (and I'm not calling myself a postlib) but saying something is difficult, so I have to cough a little bit to get my nerves up. I consider the Socratic Club a little hanky that I can use so as to not spray mucus around the room.
posted by Unknown at 11:05 PM
3 Comments:
I agree that this is almost certainly not the kind of discussion Tony had in mind when he brought the document before the group. I think we all agree that militaristic language appears in both Scripture and the tradition but is not a controlling metaphor and should not be allowed to become such. So I'll stop carping about it. :) (But for the sake of clarifying sources, Phil originally got the bit about postlibs clearing their throat from me, and I got it from the introduction to Ockholm and Philips, eds., The Nature of Confession. Huetter may have said it, too, but I'm not aware of it. [Phil suffers from a self-diagnosed case of "source amnesia."])
I also concur with Wilson that esoteric critiques of megachurch ecclesiology don't really help anybody (unless one counts their authors' feelings of superiority). I'm no champion of megachurches and their techniques, but a productive discussion about them can't get off the ground until we acknowledge that they do, well, work, in a certain way. There really are significant numbers of new, first-generation Christians in those churches. When was the last time a new convert showed up at the kinds of churches we like to attend? I can't speak for everyone else, but it's been a long time for me. If we're going to critique or have a constructive dialogue about megachurches or churches of their ilk, we need to acknowledge some of the good fruit they are bearing--even if they may be bearing that fruit in spite of certain deficiencies.
The Nature of Confession is a great book. I enjoyed reading quite a few of the papers in it. And now that you mention the throat clearing, I remember enjoying that statement too. I also sure miss Tim Philips. Ole T.P.
I'm wondering what we're talking about here. Are we still talking about Tony's post? Are we talking about megachurches? I'm not certain any more.
Tom A. (King)
I shall be forced to avoid phil citations from now on. And come on King Arthur, we're just clearing our throats.
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