an Anglimergent gospel
I've been thinking about going to church tonight, but, well, I done wear'd myself out and the UW game is on. Coffee, basketball and blogging instead.
Some positive statements that have been bouncing around my noggin' on the Good News according to the Ancient/Future Anglican tradition:
1) The Anglican Good News is an ancient recognition about God being a Trinity. God is an ongoing series of interdependent, interpenetrating (perichoretic) relationships between three persons that love each other. The world that was birthed out of that God's imagination is an imperfect reflection of that God. The Good News is that God is Love and so can we be. The Bible witnesses to that Good News, but it isn't that Good News itself.
2) The Good News in this context isn't best described in terms of conversion, but connection. Taking the Gospel to the world means loving your neighbor as yourself and God with all your heart - completing the perichoretic circle. (I'd also add living harmoniously with your Mother and God's daughter, earth.) Think what you must, but live the Good News, which is relational and experiential. Maybe some will come to think about God in the same way as we do through this. None will otherwise. Thoughts are much less stable than connections.
3) The Church is a means to this end: Community is what the Church brings to the world - w/God and w/our neighbors. It's not good at it - others are probably better. Liturgy is art - a tangible expression of that community - not a hammer to nail in God. Eucharist is the incarnation of it.
Some positive statements that have been bouncing around my noggin' on the Good News according to the Ancient/Future Anglican tradition:
1) The Anglican Good News is an ancient recognition about God being a Trinity. God is an ongoing series of interdependent, interpenetrating (perichoretic) relationships between three persons that love each other. The world that was birthed out of that God's imagination is an imperfect reflection of that God. The Good News is that God is Love and so can we be. The Bible witnesses to that Good News, but it isn't that Good News itself.
2) The Good News in this context isn't best described in terms of conversion, but connection. Taking the Gospel to the world means loving your neighbor as yourself and God with all your heart - completing the perichoretic circle. (I'd also add living harmoniously with your Mother and God's daughter, earth.) Think what you must, but live the Good News, which is relational and experiential. Maybe some will come to think about God in the same way as we do through this. None will otherwise. Thoughts are much less stable than connections.
3) The Church is a means to this end: Community is what the Church brings to the world - w/God and w/our neighbors. It's not good at it - others are probably better. Liturgy is art - a tangible expression of that community - not a hammer to nail in God. Eucharist is the incarnation of it.
Comments
Well, I'm sitting here, and the next game's not on yet, so why not dive in:
I put the Trinity at the heart of the Good News b/c I think, in large part, it's the thing my contextual world needs to hear. However, in short:
Christ: This Trinitarian God taking on human form - humiliating Godself to draw creation into God's orbit and vice versa in the most profound way possible.
Cross: This Trinitarian God taking the suffering and death of creation into the Divine perichoresis, redeeming it, and transforming it.
The Resurrection: The promise of creation's Redemption and the mysterious affecter of that redemption.
All of this isn't so much about Guilt and Justice but interrelationship between God and the rest of us. God moving into the banality of us and us moving into the profound mystery of God.
I started down this track thanks to Jurgen Moltmann (Reformed) and have had my thought sparked recently by Ian Mobsby (Anglican).