Phyllis is posing 3 questions --
- How, in a religiously pluralistic society, do we maintain our particular faith witness without causing civil unrest or compromising/watering down our particular faith to nothingness?
- What does it mean to be human? (This, she maintains, is one of the eternal questions and is especially pressing today, especially as the current generation seems especially self-aware or at least self-absorbed)?
- What is the nature of the atonement?
Phyllis says that these are the questions that must be answered and how they are answered will determine the future of the Great Emergence.
Well, my battery is running low (and so is the one on my laptop), so more later...
-- Brent
2 comments:
I would love to hear your thoughts on the first item, which I hope I'm understanding correctly as connected to concerns about being true to your beliefs but sensitive to others. I worked for a nonprofit in DC where we were on vigilance for politically correct language. But sometimes, once we took everything out that could possibly offend anyone, or to which anyone could object, we seemed like we had said...nothing much. I've run across this in Quaker meetings as well. If we are afraid to say God or Jesus, then we're not really a Religious Society anymore, are we?
Yes, Peggy, that is a crucial question. And I fear most of us don't do it well -- me, included. I am coming to think that it means that I need to speak unapologetically, yet humbly about my beliefs. In other words, more from my heart and less from my head -- speak from the soul and not the intellect; speak to explain my beliefs, not persuade others to believe as I do -- allow the Spirit to do that work (if it needs done).
That's why I try to write (in my books) as a pilgrim on the spiritual trail -- not an expert.
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