Scripts

I noticed this morning that Walter Brueggemann's presentation to the Episcopal Church's House of Bishops last month is now available online, check that out here.

Here's a bit from the end of the document:

It is my judgment that the church, in all quarters, must repent of its lust for the absolute. But surely the Rabbis, and the Church Fathers after them, understood that there are no final interpretations. And surely we have learned in the twentieth century that final interpretations are a dangerous step along the way to the Final Solution. In my Church, the United Church of Christ, we have now adopted the slogan, “God is still speaking,” which means in that liberal context, God has something new to say about sexuality. The logo for that slogan is a comma, suggesting that after the received truth of scripture there is not a period, but a comma.

But my church is tempted to disregard everything in front of the comma. The task for Red and Blue in the church, conservatives and liberals, is to recognize that because the spirit is on the move, we must pay attention to both sides of the comma, not just what is old and not just what is new.

For those who appreciate Brueggemann, check out his 19 theses, which he presented to the Emergent Theological Conversation in September of 2004. Our friend Paul Soupiset transcribed and posted the audio here.