Posts Tagged ‘tony jones’

Christlikeness or correct theology?

Tuesday, January 31st, 2012

Again, I find myself I appreciating guest blogger Scott Miller’s open and frank sharing about his faith on Tony Jones blog. He articulates much that I can empathise with in a clear and simple manner.

If I could talk to my 17-year-old self, I would say that I still believe that God is at work in my life, but maybe not in the same way that a 17-year-old understands. I would tell him that I still experience the authority of scripture, but I don’t find that authority in the words of scripture, but in the Event to whom scripture testifies. And I would say that I have not substituted human reason for revelation, but realize that I can only understand the revelation in human, fallible, finite ways, and that it is a mistake to think that anyone’s theology is every entirely adequate to express the revelation of the Infinite.

But above all, I would tell my gnostic-leaning 17-year-old self, it’s more important to be a true follower of Christ and actually act in Christlike ways than it is to have what you think is the correct theology. Ideas matter, but real, living human beings matter more. Don’t forget Paul’s words in 1 Cor. 13:1-3:

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love I gain nothing.

via Theoblogy

Achieving spiritual efficiency through prayer macros

Thursday, December 1st, 2011

Simply arrange with God ahead of time that when you recite the prayer macro, it will be understood as a recitation of the longer prayer in full.”

A great morning coffee splutter from the funny if not quite scriptural Achieving spiritual efficiency through prayer macros.

(Hat tip to Tony Jones.)

Pulling things to pieces

Saturday, November 5th, 2011

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Arriving home last Sunday and keen to make the most of the early summer sun, I whipped up a ‘whatever is left in the fridge’ salad and headed for the deck.   Munching away, I was keen to read Frederick J. Tritton’s The Discipline Of Prayer (Pendle Hill Pamphlet No.42) but couldn’t get past this passage on the first page:

We are critical and analytical, rather than appreciative and creative, and this tendency at its worst leads to a habit of pulling things to pieces, including other people’s reputations. Some persons simply cannot resist it, and we are all to some extent infected by the complaint.

While I am not conscious of pulling anyone’s reputation to pieces, I am indeed infected by the same complaint.  I am keen to pursue a simple faith which I can model to others and yet I am often too vocal about my struggle with much of the stuff that ‘religion’ and ‘church’ tends to involve.   On occasion, I find myself over-analysing and criticising rather than being conciliatory and appreciative and I spend a good deal of time wishing I could be more constructive and creative.

I want to be involved in a faith community and be part of seeking a way to tackle the issues that seem to plague ‘church’ as we commonly see and experience it.   However, I struggle to reconcile my belief in God and my faith with the doctrine and the orthodoxy of mainstream religion and I find myself failing to exhibit the behaviours I hope to see in others.  Unlike Paul in 2 Corinthians, I seem unable to find strength or, indeed, even grace in my weakness.

That said, I pursue and seek answers in scripture for, while it is the source of the limitless interpretation, literalism and biblicism that abound, I believe that it is through understanding it better in my own context that I will progress in my journey.

I also read a good deal of non-fiction works on faith and religion to increase my understanding and Tony Jones has recently blogged about two titles which have caught my interest and which I will add to my reading list.  The first is The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture by Christian Smith and the second The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited by Scot McKnight.  They won’t provide the ultimate answer – of that I’m certain – but they may help with the next step of my walk.