It’s going to be slow, but I’m going to repurpose the website. This is coordinated with a physical change at home. I no longer share an office, but I have a room of my own. The next stage will be to have a camera of my own because so many things are better explained by pictures.
What I currently have is a simple writing tablet for my thoughts (hence the name) and a unique search engine keyword that generates many, many entries on google, cuil, and other search engines. I have an interest in games of all kinds, but little experience connecting to others with similar interests. I write about those on a different site. I am a part-time developer for Absolute Linux. I am a member of Hands of Voices of Nebraska where my wife serves as co-Vice President. I would like to setup something like my friend Scott or like Michelle Murrain whom I have read about in a linux.com article.
What I don’t have is any kind of focus. I’m not really that interested in ICoC (Community or CoOperative) affairs anymore though I attend an ICoC(CoOperative) congregation. I have chosen to do nothing about the three Douglas’, the two Marty’s or the patridge in a pear tree (Kip) that were a part of the now defunct heirarchy. I’m not entirely interested in spiritual writing anymore as I am still looking for a distinctly Un-American expression of my Christianity. Writing about it online does not edify me. Some may find my journey interesting, but I’m not always able to write it all down. Sometimes, I don’t really want to write it down.(I’ll explain more about it later in the post.)
Despite being an election year, I am deliberately avoiding politics. I am disappointed with the two major candidates, Hillary Clinton, and most involved in the political process at all. Locally, the Senate race and Mayoral race is devolving into the same kind of partisan wars.
I originally setup separate websites for each interest when I had more time to write, but with limited time, I want to unify efforts. I also want to post things after I have edited them, instead of ad hoc publishing. This, of course, means some sort of schedule, which I hope to finish, soon.
So, what is this Un-American spirituality I mentioned?
I want to move away from a consumer-oriented religion. This would be something like Purpose-Driven where many of the underlying concepts derive from marketing principles and the American belief that all effort must have some kind of business purpose. PDL Christianity, to me, morphs faith from a life based on experience and thought to a life based on bottom-line execution of five essential principles. I cannot live that way.
I want to move away from an encompassing systems model of theology and worship. These systems depend on logic, a bundling of selected verses, and a set of hermeneutical assumptions. From these, a person can then determine orthodoxy (right beliefs), orthopraxy (right practices), and orthognosis (right knowledge). This process then gives us *the TRUTH* and it shall not be moved, especially not by other bundlings of verses or sets of hermeneutical assumptions.
There’s more to this section that really cannot be explained well in a short amount of time. I’ll try to hit the main points and just leave it at that.
I don’t believe logic is the ultimate tool to divine truth. Somethings in Christianity are illogical, but are quite reasonable. Apologetics can provide useful research, especially to folks like me, but the analysis stops at the text. Pointing out that the “Golden Mean” paradigm of Proverbs is a logical fallacy tends to change the discussion to either wrath or an argument over “why the Bible can be trusted”. The point is that living by the Golden Mean is perfectly reasonable and living this way does lead to many of the promises in Proverbs. The power of Proverbs is not in its inherent logic (it’s not there) but in its application.
The Bible appears modular. It can be parsed into all kinds of modules by book, author, theme, chapter, or any other imaginable category. In this age of mashups, it’s easy to bundle some verses to make a point because it seems like a natural extension to the modular text. I don’t really buy into it. Moreover, I don’t want to buy into it.
I haven’t explained it very well, I know, but I’m getting into more detail without finishing the post. Bottom line for me is that the Bible was meant by God to be understood by any person willing to make a great effort. The tools available to Jesus’ audience was memory and other people. Some were not literate, but may have had access to people that were. The Ethiopian was literate and had only the Old Testament and a brief visit by Philipp. In other words, the tools were organic and simple. Anyone should be able to work out Jesus’ message with a Bible and honest and frank discussions. This is the Christianity that I want and I have not found it yet. I have found people willing to discuss Chrisitanity online, but I want to do this in person. Even Home Church groups I have looked into seem to have a demagogue endlessly writing about pet topics with absolute authority.
Back to the Point
So, I am repuposing the site to write about other things. My friend Scott has taken an extended journey into focusing his site on podcasting with links to his other efforts. I hope to begin a similar journey myself. I wanted to give the five people that read here a warning before the major changes occurred.
Now, the real trip starts…
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4 Responses to “Rework is coming”
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This will probably be the theme for another six months to a year.
Suh-weet!!!!
Love the new look, not sure about the new direction. :-/ I guess that’s because our friendship was begun and originally framed by the ICoC discussions. We’ve both moved on from there (without actually moving on), although we still get drug into it.
At any rate, I’m with you and I’ll tag along to see where you go. I hope that faith discussions still play a part as I learn a bunch from your ideas. I like what you’ve said here about faith being simple enough to understand with just an earnest heart and a Bible.
I also love that I can now use my Google toolbar spell check on your comment form.
Faith is a journey isn’t it? If you think you have it all figured out you can be sure of one thing: You don’t!
Well here’s a recommendation for your journey. I’ve been reading it and have found it to be quite excellent. Taking a good objective look at the Christian experience in North American from the time of the earlier colonies up till the present is a very useful thing IMHO.