conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

harvey cox and holy whining

Blessed are you, O God.
for all the saints
who have gone before us,
who have spoken to our hearts,
and have touched us with your fire.
Blessed are you, O God,
for all the saints
who live beside us,
whose weakness and strengths
are woven with our own.
Blessed are you, O God,
who live beyond us,
who challenge us
to change the world with them.
For these and all your mercies, we praise you:
Blessed be God for ever!
www.oremus.org

Last night I met with Jonathan Stegall. He and I became acquainted on Twitter and since he was passing through town he contacted me. A little Kopi. A little "tell me about yourself." Generally speaking, a really good guy. I am glad to have met him.

Whenever I meet people these days, especially people who are in the Church business on some level, I worry about my whining. Now, recently the whining has been minimal in general. I've been very much at peace with Church and my role in it. When I first started this full time call, I needed people to talk to, to process with. Whining was a common theme to some of my conversations with my closest confidants. I always worry (I do always worry. It's a problem. I worry about that, too.) that my whining is just shallow and not the constructive holy bitchiness that is sometimes needed in any vocation. Read Jeremiah or Ezekiel and you'll understand what I mean.

Bitching has been at a lull. So too has whining. Curious. I wonder what the change has been.

In other news, I have been reading through Harvey Cox's book. I know I owe Tripp Fuller and the gang some more material, but to be honest I am finding the book hard to finish. I've been up to my eyeballs in this conversation about what the church is doing, where it's changing etc since the SBC split in the mid-1980's. I think Harvey has written a very good book that some recovering Christians will find edifying and encouraging. He's tremendously smart and worth your time even if you think he'll cause you to whine...or bitch in some holy fashion. His book, The Future of Faith, is a road marker in American Christianity. There's no question.

Bob Cornwall has a great review here. Or you can read this review on Beliefnet. It's all good. I've posted a couple of times already and will work up a post soon to lay out what I think of the middle chapters. Cox necessarily must take a broad brush approach to history. It's maddening, but it's necessary. More later.

Have a great day, people!

Posted by tripp at November 10, 2009 07:52 AM | TrackBack