Hey, That Was Nice

Just waded through a pedantic heavy weight (Beyond Foundationalism: Shaping Theology In A Postmodern Context, Louisville: WJK, 2001) by Stanley Grenz and John R. Franke. Franke had written a forward to Brian’s book and Grenz was alluded to several times in the same book (A Generous Orthodoxy. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004). So I thought that I would see what they had to say. Both are apparently self-proclaimed Emergents. The title of their book was enticing. I thought that it would be beneficial to see what two scholars thought about “getting beyond foundationalism”. Just to remind us all, one of the staples of the emergent belief-system is that the Christian community has relied too heavily upon, and caused much harm by distorting, absolutes and orthodoxies that are supposedly mandated by the Scriptures. How far were these guys going to go to demonstrate to our community that the modernist view of absolutes is not all that demonstrable and should be open to some vigorous conversation? I finished the book by asking myself just how emergent are these guys? In their eeeeevil emergent and dark mind-set were they hiding their true feelings by the use of subtle and academic niceties? They were emergent, but they wanted to inoculate us before they revealed their true feelings? They seem to hold to some form of absolutes. The Spirit working through scriptures should help form our theological base, they say. At the same time Church tradition should also help form that base. All of this should be exercised (in, through and/or by?) our current cultural surroundings. I suppose that this is one of the reasons that many people say that the emergent community is diverse. OK, I believe it. All of this is simply to say that at this point my brain is fried. Sooooo, in that condition, I go to a softball game.

Tuesday my wife and I went to a playoff game between Point Loma Nazarene University (San Diego area) and Biola University (La Mirada, CA). We watched a gal play whose mother grew up with our eldest daughter. Their family is our family. Randi is a senior. These are playoff games to finish out her senior year and it’s a little sad. PLNU will go back to Alabama to compete for the nationals and then it will be over for her. She will play no more at the college level. Anyway, when the game was over all of the girls walked past each other and gave a high-five to their individual opponents. Then I noticed that they slowly formed a large circle around the mound, held hands around that mound of dirt, and prayed. Different colored uniforms along with both coaching staffs holding hands in unity and praying! My fried brain needed that. In the midst of this increasingly dark and mean-spirited world a bunch of talented young girls gathered around each other in innocence and in a Fellowship that transcends that dark world and simply stated to the universe that we’re in competition with each other but we belong to each other in a Fellowship that you cannot understand. We’re really talented athletically at the college level, but we can still giggle and squeak and be vulnerable - and - we belong to the King. Thanks Ran for growing up to be such a fine young lady.

By the way, to those of you who have read the book (and to the authors I would add), to what degree will the Christian community help to bring about the telos, and to what degree will the telos (the eschaton) interrupt history and be forced upon us? It’s important that we know.