A Couple of Emergent Thoughts...

Lately I've been having a discussion with people regarding the "emergent" church. It's a funny concept really. Ive been reading Peter Rollins "How (not) to Speak of God" (which I think would be fun to discuss in the hot tub soon), and I've been enjoying it because he makes it clear that the emergent church is not a church or denomination - which some people try to make "emergent" churches into - but instead is a dialogue. Dialogue is the buzzword for the emergent crowd, which I think is overused but we it's hard to find another word, that describes what is going on in the movement rather than what they are all about.

He speaks on faith versus theology and I must admit that my eyes were opened at this thought. Faith is the experience of God, while theology is the reflection on the experience. This opened my eyes, because so many times I find my self reflecting on God rather than experiencing Him. Rollins went on to discuss the thought of our reflections becoming an idol that we have built.

"The arguement is made that naming God is never really naming God but only naming our understanding of God. To take our ideas of the divine and hold them as thy correspond to the reality of God is thus to construct a conceptual idol built from the materials of our mind."

This was on page 2 of the book. This is why we need to bring this book to the Hot Tub. I feel like there will be a lot of discussion forming from this book.

Peace,
ron

PS - New post at the Hot Tub