After agonizing for over a year, I think that I have finally settled on a sub-title for this project. The conversation part of it has always been fixed in my mind. This is just the beginning of (hopefully) many discussions about God in a culturally sensitive manner. Yet, I have struggled to find the exact words that capture where I’m going with all of this. My goal is to provide a lay-level theological method that takes into account our cultural context. I think that this title and sub-title finally convey that message.

I have begun working through my new chapter divisions and am ready to give the project a fresh look. If you look through the posts over the past year, you will notice that Beginning Conversations reads more like a text book than anything else. Now it is time to add some more personal elements and to repackage some of the weighty theological terms. I hope to present a method within my own story and the stories of others. As always I encourage comments on what I’m writing. Whenever possible I will integrate your comments into the project and give you credit for your ideas. Here is the current introduction that I am playing with: 

Beginning Conversations: Christian Theology for Everyone in a Postmodern World
Revision May 2006

Introduction
"Theology is not supposed to make you into a moron." This snide remark in my Theology One class at Biblical Theological Seminary was the beginning of my making amends with theology. Dr. John Franke had just finished telling the story of a disastrous evangelistic encounter that ended with a friend of his telling a woman, "Only God knows if you can be saved, I can’t help you." Yes, we all agreed, theology should not push any of us to the brink of such idiocy.

The sad truth is that theology often does more to divide and disrupt the church than to unite and bring clarity. My own memories abound with theological discussions that took a nasty turn and became full-blown feuds. In other cases I have read vindictive comments, articles, and blog posts online from supposed Christians that may work if channeled in the context of a hockey game, but surely have no place in the body of Christ. And so at this point in my seminary career, I was despairing that I would never find acivil way to hash out theology in a safe way that would not result in arguments and division.

To my relief, there is a way to cut through the fog that engulfs many theological conversations. John Franke’s theology class showed myself and hundreds of others that theology is a discipline that not only serves the church, it is also done by the church. Contributions of prominent theologians not withstanding, the church itself bears a large part of the responsibility to shape doctrines. Nevertheless, in carrying out this mandate, the church often loses its way in two areas. First, the church neglectsits context. Secondly, the church mismanages its priorities and puts all finished theological constructs into the same category as essential dogmas, scripture, and God Himself. I cannot stress this second point enough. If we agree on the divinity and saving work of Christ, the love of the Father who sent Him, and the Spirit who makes him known in order to restore creation, then we have something that should never be broken by disagreements over lesser doctrines such as the end times, predestination, or the final destiny of Israel.

It’s a new regime around here these days. We cleaned up our house quite a bit, I cleaned up our computers, and now I’m cleaning up my blogging/writing life. I wanted the focus of this blog to be its content. I wanted to get away from all colors and fancy designs. I could mess with all of that, but I have other sites for that.

So in my attempt to start afresh and renew my commitment to my readers, I wanted to make a clean break with the "minimalist" design. My goal is to begin rewriting sections of the Beginning Conversations manuscript. My goal in the end is for this project to be collaborative and to contain the thoughts and opinions of a wide variety of Christians . . . and these views would not be limited to church leaders. So as often as I can, I will post the rewritten sections of this book on the blog and leave the comments open for thoughts.

I also continue to read and gather sources. I will post them here as a way of cataloguing them for myself and sharing them with others.

In the future I plan on updating some of the links on my side bar, but one thing at a time. For now, I hope to occupy myself with writing a version of Beginning Conversations that is a bit more user-friendly and appropriate for lay audiences.

As an added bonus, I have also begun using the open source program Open Office. Check it out, it’s worth a look.

Here is a snippet of the intro that deals with my use of scripture throughout the project. How does this sound? How will more traditional evangelicals react to this?

At the outset I
want to be very clear regarding my use of scripture. Though much of my thinking
will reflect meditation on scripture, I want to be very wary of proof-texting.
In reading popular Christian books and scholarly works, I have noticed that
many authors have a tendency to load up their arguments with scriptures that
support a particular point of view. While in some cases I feel that the listed
scriptures did apply, there were many cases where I felt uneasy. The essence of
their arguments was that since they have all of these verses listed after an
opinion, it must be valid. Unfortunately I can read works by other authors who
are just as committed to the Lord who can list scriptures to support the
opposing view. We need to be very sensitive to the context in which we read the
Bible, the Christian tradition that we come from, the context of the passage,
and the leading of the Holy Spirit. When I quote scripture, I ask that the
reader keep these factors in mind. In my quoted passages I am advocating for an
interpretation of scripture from as far as my own meditations can take me. I
offer selected passages for each reader to read in full context, meditate on
with the help of the Spirit, bounce it off a few friends from your church, etc.
You may find that my use of a passage is very helpful to you in your context,
but please do not take me just at my word. I do not seek to close the case by
quoting scripture; I am inviting the reader to dive into the passage with me.

With some time to simply sit on this project and think about some of the concepts I find that I now have a sharper picture of where I want to go and how I want to get there. It’s always been there in my head, but now I have a very structured, comprehensive list in mind. To top it all off, I have even made it into a diagram. Now we’re getting somewhere!

As I revise the introduction to Beginning Conversations, I hope to include some sort of diagram that presents my conversational approach to practical Christian reflection (which I use instead of theology because it sounds less academic and can have the dual meaning of reflecting on God or reflecting God, which should happen simultaneously). Though I begin with a discussion of culture and context as a matter of necessity, let’s start here with revelation:

Revelation: There are two sources of revelation for all Christian reflection: God and the Bible. I discuss the absolute importance of relationship with God as a first point in Christian reflection. As primary as the Bible is, and it’s crucial, scripture has no power or relevance to us without the ministry of God’s Spirit.

Participants: I think I need a better word for this, but the idea here is that Christian tradition and the global Church are the participants who give shape to Christian reflection. While having the input of a local congregation while having coffee or gathering on Sundays is good, we also need to be aware of and informed by the historic and global Church. For example, one church I know of will recognize anyone who has been baptized in accordance with a historically recognized tradition of the church. It’s no an "anything goes" situation, but room is left for the diversity of the church.

Context: We often need to deal with context first in order to sniff out bias and cultural limitations in our thinking. The context of Christian theology is always that of a particular time, place, and culture. We need to be aware of other cultures and the limits of our own, lest we be guilty of Christian/American syncretism. But at the same time, there will always be a form of Christianity that is particularly American, and that is where we need to constantly engage with our context and examine how it shapes our understanding of Christianity. The other context that we need to be aware of is that of mission.  Sharing the Gospel and ministering to one another is the context for all Christian reflection. If our reflection does not make us better salt, we need to reevaluate what exactly we are doing and why.

If I can I’ll try to convert these thoughts into some kind of pie chart. Let me know if I’m missing anything.