conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

Here is a quote from Bob Webber. Next Tuesday, the pastoral staff from Reconciler will be going to Northern Seminary (American Baptist) to speak about the church plant and our vision...specifically, the worship life. Let me know what you think of his perspective. He is being generous to allow us to speak to his class.

The unique nature of Christian worship and of spirituality is their embodied nature. Worship and spirituality both affirm this world, this history, this life. Worship recalls God's actions in this world to redeem it. Spirituality contemplates God's actions in this world and participates in God's life in this world. In this way, worship and spirituality are grounded in the work of Jesus Christ incarnate in this history, who died on the wood of the cross, left the tomb empty, and ascended to heaven. He gave the church the calling to proclaim, sing, and enact his mighty saving deeds and to live in union with Him and His purposes for this world while we anticipate the new heavens and the new earth.

So how does Christian worship and spirituality compare with the religions of the world? The emphasis in New Age and Eastern worship and spirituality is on escape from this world. The material world is evil, brutal, constricting, imprisoning. So the goal of New Age and Eastern worship and spirituality is to deny matter, rise above it, and enter the realm of the spirit.

In Christianity the Spirit is, as the Nicene Creed says, "The Lord, the giver of Life." There is no dualism between spirit and matter in Scripture and among the early church fathers, and the implications of this for worship and spirituality are enormous. However, in actual Christian practice, the distinction is sometimes made between matter and spirit-and where this distinction is made there is hardly any difference between Christian and non-Christian spirituality. The issue of embodiment goes to the heart of the difference between Christian and non -Christian worship and spirituality. By the way-one question-do you think some evangelicals embrace the dualism of matter and the spirit, and fall into a "kind of" pagan worship and spirituality?

Oh, and give an answer to his questions as well. That should be fun.

Posted by tripp at May 2, 2005 09:07 AM