this week’s reading comes from dorothy c. bass, craig dykstra, and amy plantiga pauw on religious/christian practice and beliefs.  bass and dykstra focus their chapter in practicing theology on defining practice as a term and its uniqueness to the religious.  plantiga pauw focuses on the gap between beliefs and practices.  bass and dykstra present a helpful understanding of christian practice that underlines the importance of the sustainability of humanity in the practice, the knowledge...
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when talking about ecclesiology, the conversation at some point or another will turn to ordination.  we have now hit that point in one of our texts.  daniel migliore talks about the issues surrounding ordination following the typical arguement about the priesthood of all believers.  in my experience, this has often been the trajectory that the conversation follows.  why should the church elevate certain persons, when the new testament clearly points toward an egalitarian view? ...
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continuing in my reading of ecclesiology with william placher, but especially, veli-matti karkkainen, i have found something to possibly latch onto.  both pannenberg and moltmann propose the ideal of a political ecclesiology (my phrase; not theirs). each do it in their own way, but i found it to be a compelling thought.  both men suggest the church is moving towards an eschatological unity in which all people will participate and benefit from being under...
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I have to keep reminding myself, as do my fellow colleagues, that this is only an introductory course in theology and that everything is really a fly-by. It would take me several courses and a few months of pouring through each of these particular areas of theology that we are covering just to get a decent grasp of what is going on. The other thing about fly-by’s is once you’ve seen it, then there...
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I am blogging again…kind of. There is an option in my Theology II class for doing our reading responses via blog. So, to be my eco-friendly self, I went that route, as did the rest of my reading group. So I decided to put my responses up on my sister blog, which I haven’t yet found a purpose for…until now. So if you want to read any of my thoughts on our reading, you...
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Louis Dupre, in an interview with Ted and Winnie Brock, talks about mysticism, integration, spirituality, and interiority. Not really an easy set of topics to cover in an interview but Dupre seems so connected to what he speaks about that it comes off very smoothly. He talks about our world, namely the West, in fairly negative tones. Ours is a world of considering Christianity little more than an artifact, but also unable to provide...
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