Daily Archives: May 21, 2010

The temptation of the church

Posted by on May 21, 2010 5 comments

The greatest structural temptation for the Church arises out of its relational character. On the one hand, the Church is entrusted with the tradition of the kingdom and the requirement to make the kingdom a reality; on the other hand it is not itself the kingdom. This combination of factors puts the Church in a situation of “concupiscence,” that is, of wanting to be, by identity, that which in fact it can only point to and serve, namely, the kingdom of God. In consequence, the possibility of conflict is always present; and when a particular situation clearly shows the difference and distance between Church and kingdom, the conflict breaks out—and cannot but break out—spontaneously. The discovery that the kingdom of God is the ultimate reality has brought an elemental truth to light: the Church, even in its entirety, is not absolute and therefore its structure is open to criticism.

~ Jon Sobrino, The True Church of the Poor, 202.

Conversations on “Just War”

Posted by on May 21, 2010 63 comments

For those who haven’t seen it yet, our own R.O. Flyer has a great review up at The Other Journal of Dan Bell’s recent book, Just War as Christian Discipleship. Here’s a quote to whet the ole appetite:

As Christians, our allegiance is first of all to Christ, not to the just war tradition. If the concern of Christian discipleship is ultimately faithfulness to Jesus of Nazareth, then neither the church community nor its many traditions are free from critique. In times of great moral uncertainty like ours, plumbing the depths of the wisdom of the theological tradition in a fresh manner can often open up fruitful paths of inquiry to help guide us in our contemporary context. Such plumbing, however, if it remains open to the voice of the Spirit, may lead us to call into question and even challenge the wisdom and faithfulness of our inherited moral and theological tradition. Although it is imperative that contemporary Christians listen with a spirit of generosity to our mothers and fathers in the faith, there may be times when, precisely because of our boundedness to Christ and with respect for the faith of our predecessors, we will be led to reject rather than retrieve a particular trajectory of thought taken in the past.

Interestingly Dan Bell has responded extensively in the comments, leading to further response from Ry and myself. Check out the conversation.

Donald Miller, Theology, and Relationship

Posted by on May 21, 2010 13 comments

Derrick, recently returned in a sustained manner to the blogosphere, has stirred up the waters with a post (rightly) critiquing Christian hipster and coffeehouse favorite author, Donald Miller on the issue of theology, relationship, and the knowledge of God. Miller, for his part seems to have responded, both via blog and tweet.

Derrick, of course, is right, at least in my judgment. The problem with contrasting  “theological” pursuit with “relational” encounter with God is that it fails to see how utterly theological realtionality is. There is no such thing as some sort of “bare relation” that does involve theological reflection. Indeed, on this point I’ll go out and surprise all of you by saying that Milbank is absolutely right, everything is theological, whether it is acknowledge or not.

Of course Milbank wasn’t the first to come up with that, but still.

P.S. If you want something deeper and more interesting than Donald Miller critique, though I suggest Derrick’s most recent post on deification and ontology in Maximus the Confessor.

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