Finished
The Story We Find Ourselves in, today over lunch. It's the second of three books in Brian McLaren's ANKOC series. Wow. Refreshing. Stimulating. Provocative. Not sure I agree with all of it, but that's partly the point. I don't have to any more than Brian has to agree with me on every detail (as if) of my (still developing) theology, because neither of our respective "windows" on Truth captures all of it. Here's a summary, in Brian's words, for your enjoyment:
"It is a story that intersects with all of our lives. It begins with creation. This beautiful world of mountains and seas and rivers and creatures great and small ... was God's work of art, God's master creation. But we humans, who were endowed with amazing and unique capacities, plunged God's world into crisis through our selfishness and arrogance, our lust and greed, our anger and violence. "So God intervened, calling one family to become a light to all other families. God entered into covenant with this family, inviting them into a conversation with God about God that would span generations. God and humanity spoke and listened to one anther through priests, prophets, poets, and philosophers. ... To this family, and through this family, in the fullness of time, came Jesus Christ, whose death and resurrection demonstrated the love and triumph of God, not through conquest, power, and violence, but through vulnerability, suffering, forgiveness, and resurrection. "Those whose hearts were won to Jesus and his message banded together into a community of faith and mission called the church, which quickly became a global movement of people devoting themselves to living life in a new way, a way that would help the world become the world God always dreamed of. Even during times of violence and evil ... These followers of Jesus were sustained by the hope that God can bring life from death and victory from defeat, and so they forged ahead with the hope that ultimately, a great consummation would come, and God's love and justice and mercy and grace would prevail. ... "God ... launched our story full of adventure, freedom, potential, and promise. Then, in the middle of the story, the heart of God was expressed in a powerful and profound way, beyond words, in flesh and blood, as one of us, walking with us, suffering with us, calling all people to engage their personal and local stories with this glorious and global one. As we look ahead to the end of the story, we see God, waiting with open arms to gather us, to salvage or harvest from our individual histories -- as from all of history -- all that is good, beautiful, and true, to resurrect all that is noble in this creation to fly free in the new creation. ..." (pp. 175-76)
posted by Jeremy Del Rio @ 7/05/2005 06:02:00 PM
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