Meanwhile, whilst the debate is going on about Collaborative Ministry vs ministry that is collaborative on the post below, Chris Blethers seems to be shaking her head in weary sadness, noting the difference between her education bloggers and church bloggers. She characterises the latter as ‘self-aware, sometimes outrageous, often critical, and the comments snippy, defensive, brittle, caustic’.
She has a point. I’ve gone futher in a comment on her blog by alluding to the fact that I enjoyed being active politically because the people I met in politics were generally nicer and certainly more honest than people I meet in the church. Indeed, I rememember saying as much to +Idris only last week when we were on route from Gothenburg back to Glasgow. (If I remember rightly, his response was to open his mouth, close it again and then open it once more to say, “oh”).
It is worth noting in passing Kirstin’s point, that the thing which started this debate off here was the suppression of discussion which should have been had in an open meeting. Debate will out these days.
Some of the things that Chris is referring to go back to the nature of what theology is. Theology is what arises from that old joke about getting two rabbis together and getting three opinions. It is an inherrently disputatious discourse. (Like the Law, perhaps?)
There are those who would disagree, of course, and thus prove the point. The reflective, sit-around-a-candle theology that we were exposed to in our priestly training (back to that again) was supposed to be an alternative to the argumentative style of theology I was taught at university. Of course, the response of an argumentative, disputatious, debating theology to sitting around gazing at God in your navel will always be to pick holes in it.
And so it goes.
[My apologies for that horrible mixed metaphor – picking holes in your navel is a ghastly image to offer to the world – perhaps someone can do better].
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