the.slow.down

so in case you hadn’t noticed, i kinda do this “blog” thingie in spurts. well she was broke for a bit, needed some work, but we’re back and at em. coments now work. single page view now works.
pretty exciting stuff i know. don’t go too crazy. peace out.

so something interesting happened at good ole ball state this week.

student government elections will be coming up, except for the fact that there are no slates running for the positions. literally, no one showed up to the nominations meeting. no one is interested in running, serving, filling the role? what to make of this?

bsu’s paper, the daily news has an editorial about this here. nothing earth shattering here though.

bottom line as i see it is a shining example of ball states under the radar slogan, “apathy redefined”

whatever….

so for this adult class we’re doing on sunday mornings called kingdom chronicles about church history we’re using a great text called Church History in Plain Language by Bruce Shelly.

well we’re in the midst of the 2nd and 3rd centuries and i was re-reading some stuff that i find really pertinent to the dilemma of the church today as it relates to being in the world yet not of the world. how far is too far in our engagement of culture? where do we draw lines? etc.

it’s fascinating that the early “catholic” church was faced with those same questions in regards to their interaction with the intellectuals and philosophers of the day.

there were 2 camps:
Those in the first camp, said don’t have anything to do with these people and thoughts! They produced the heretics, the gnostics. Ever heard of Tertullian? Respected Church Father. Here’s what he had to say, “What do Athens and Jerusalem have in common? Away with all attempts to produce a mottled Christianity of Stoic, Platonic, and dialectic composition! We have no need of curiosity reaching beyond Christ Jesus. When we believe, we need nothing further than to believe. Search that you may believe; then stop!”

Group two was primarily led by the those in the catechetical school in Alexandria, most namely Clement and Origen, again two noteworthy Church Fathers. These guys believed that it was crucial that the gospel be made accessible to those more intellectual and more academic in nature, thus they moved to communicate the gospel in terms these people could both understand and resonate with but that would address the philosophical questions that were ingrained into who they were.

Shelly uses the phrase, “rhythm of detachment and involvement” to describe the way the church is called to engage the world yet not become entrenched in it. I like that phrase and picture of rhythm. It seems to communicate well our challenge as the church, a group of “resident aliens” here in this world.