G'day All, I haven't had a go at this thread yet ... and I hope I have got something new to say.
People have spoken about the issue as being fundamentally about how we regard the bible and there is a lot in that. But I wonder if it is also about how we regard the church. We might regard an appropriate niche for the church resides in being a "bastion of orthodoxy." A safe and stable place in a rapidly changing world - a very valid role. (It doesn't much matter if the orthodoxy is 'dated' 32CE, 120CE, 1066CE or 2004.) In that case, we would need to make definitive determinations on this and other issues. This seems to be what EMU, RA, etc are requiring. Or we might regard the church as being on a journey of discovery - of God, of Christ, of self, of peace, of true worship, of service, etc, etc. In that case we can allow members to be at many different points (even directions) in their journey at any time - what would hold us together is not simply common belief (there would still be much that most people would affirm), but more the fact that we are all engaging the journey with its joys and sorrows. An important mark of this community would be that permission is given to experiment, to take outrageous risks. (Not to inflict them on others, mind you.) Some experiments will go nowhere, occasionally there will be a discovery of new insight that enriches many. It seems to me that this latter model is threatening to those looking for the church to have orthodoxy. Maybe this is a big cause of pain on this issue. Kind regards, Lindsay Brash Armidale NSW. ------------------------------------------------------ - You are subscribed to the mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put in the message body 'unsubscribe insights-l' (ell, not one (1)) See: http://nsw.uca.org.au/insights-l-information.htm ------------------------------------------------------
