Yesterday’s post about “framing” which Larry was talking about here has me thinking , once again, about the way that blogs can provide a “place” and an “encouragement” for laying the cards on the table and getting down to some real personal theology.

Ironically, there is little if no opportunity to actually do this at most Churches. When political issues are avoided like the plague, and so members are not “confronted” at all with the kinds of questions with which citizens of this country who are alo Christians ought to be concerned, this is becoming an epidemic of “privacy” and “individualism”.

The avoidance of difficult dialogue is a heresy for the Church. DIALOGUE MUST HAPPEN. It is the incubator for the Holy Spirit (ie. “where two or more are gathered, there I am in the midst of them”). If dialogue is a requirement (an dI belive that it is), then any avenue which encourages and enhances this is required work for the Church.

With most American households having access to the Web, and increasing numbers on broadband, this “always connected” reality is making it clear that here is an area of vast untapped potential.

When I remember my high school youth group days, and Mel, my youth minister immersing us in “Serendipity” events (a relationally centered theology which highlighted the need for us to tell our stories; to get us to tell things about ourselves.

When we are able to tell our stories, and given outlets to express our concerns, then we have a corrective/instructive social/spiritual device to help keep the “framers” from predetermining the boundaries of reality. Social and political issues can no longer be restricted to conservative/liberal , and “bound and gagged” by the narrow bi-polar oversimplifications fed to us by the media.

There remains the problem of what can happen in an open dialogue; will “flame wars” break out whose tone and volume overshadow the eqwually important values of perwsonal respect and seeking-of-understanding?

I think of how Jesus said that ” I did not come to bring peace but a sword” (not an endorsement of anything military, for he goes on to elaborate, talking about how family members will find themselves in conflict because of the gospel.)

34 Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth.
I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
35 For I have come to turn `a man against his father, a daughter
against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law –
36 a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ —Matthew 10:34-36

So this poses the question in my mind of how far we ought to take this notion that avoiding any and all “controversial” issues is the “Christian” thing to do. This also is not to suggest that we not concern ourselves with the effectiveness and respect for other with whom we are engaged in confrontation on some Biblical notion.