We're in the process of doing a big-deal survey at our church. This was my wife's response to it...
"I can't connect with the paradigm behind that survey. It seems to assume so much power on our part to direct our own spiritual lives. That seems weird to me. I feel like we have a power to create frameworks for life that set the stage for us to live with intention. But the idea of a kind of "black/white" spirituality is baffling to me.
I was somewhat surprised at how "sideways" I felt to the questions asked – they were so not in my mental sphere. I was left wondering how the survey’s creators would define Christianity."
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4 comments:
I agree with your wife...
Our journeys with God are defined by Him...
Though we can be purposeful in our response...
Interesting blog!
Thank you for commenting, Esther. Welcome to the tiny circle of soul-friending!
I looked at the survey, and I know what you are saying. It looks sort of like the survey we did prior to calling our current pastor, albeit in a slightly different theological space. We were given a series of questions which said "would you like your pastor to be more 'x' or more 'y'", and I was be like; "We can't have both? Who says these are exclusive?" I get the same sideways feeling from my class, where the teacher is trying to sell us on a spectrum between two paradigms he calls 'A' (sort of like biblical literalism) and 'B' (sort of like 'Jesus=Bhudda' universalism) and then he identifies which elements fall in which category, and it is totally sideways to the way I see things, because I want five from column 'a' and three from coulumn 'b', just like I get at the local Chinese restaurant. :)
(He puts Barth in 'A', but with a caveat or two.)
Sigh... maybe this is what happens when we try and describe the color of things when we are all blind. :)
Peace,
Ben
It also sounds like what happens when we try to describe music in terms of sound waves and transients. You can't possibly convey a Miles Davis ad lib, a Balinese gamelan, or Palestrina's polyhony by talking about the scales and chords used.
Likewise, the music of the Gospel doesn't abide within our theories and metrics. I don't mean to dismiss our mullings and measurings, only to remind us to look toward the stars rather than the tip of the finger pointing toward them.
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