Interlude

Thanks to those who’ve dared to read my posts so far. I am loving the process of writing and already find my thoughts shifting from my first post. Does anyone else find that life is always more complex than any statement we make about it?

The practise of writing is very much the practice of my thinking... this sentence for example. As I write I am forced to focus, really listen to myself and clarify. I have to think - how is writing like thinking?

One way writing for me is very much like thought is in the importance of tone. My dislike towards certain systematic theologies is not always about their conclusions so much as the style by which they reach them – the absence of humour and the emphasis on logic for example. I consider the style of my writing as no less than the orthopraxy (right action) of orthodoxy (right belief). Feel free to take me to task over my style as much as any argument I’ve made. Am I too wordy? Too glib? Unkind?

The hope I have is that in six months time everything you’re reading now will seem like crap. That would mean my thinking has improved as well and there are some deeply important questions I hope to improve my thinking on.  Maybe that’s not an encouragement to read what I have to write now but I’m grateful if you do.

Coming up soon will be a short piece on John Wesley. I’ve almost finished John Pollock’s biography John Wesley 1703-1791 but it’s left me uninspired. I found it well-written but lacking in contextual information so if anyone can recommend another book on the early history of the Evangelical movement I’d appreciate it.

I’m also halfway done writing a review and response to Timothy Kellers’ The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith. I’ve very much enjoyed diving into chapter 15 of Luke’s Gospel. There are some ideas I discuss in this I really want to get right so I won’t be rushing it. It will take a flash of inspiration to see it finished in the next few days.

I can’t stop thinking about the phrase a “failure of imagination” lately. It might capture what happens when a theist can’t see how an atheist can be hopeful and moral for example. A “failure  of imagination” is also perhaps what I commit in my first post in regard to the prescence of Christ in the sacrament of the eucharist. Expect a piece on this sometime soon.

Lastly I’ve been browsing emerging church websites like http://sarcasticlutheran.com We have something a bit similar here in Bendigo (auspiced by Anglicans I think) and they really excite me. I may get round to a piece on them.

Of course seeing as I’m not actually a Christian there are a lot of non-Christian topics I’ll cover too. Wittgenstein and philosophical “seriousness” maybe? Something about Taoism? Or the philosophy of Alcoholics Anonymous? Whatever it will be I’ll love writing it.

Thankyou my enablers.