Did I say Larry was stoked? Another post in the wee hours of this morning testify to this, and the message resonates with me, becuase I have been so deflated and discouraged with the division IN THE CHURCH in this highly charged time of political/theological fighting that has driven formerly alienated conservatives to beome bullies in their positions of percieved power, and for those calling for a more progressive Biblical approach to be forming new alliances to provide outlets for serious reflection and search for effective means of dissent (as well as , I hope, “faithful” means).
While the term “Progressive” is a borrow from the political realm, I prefer the idea of a “Confessing Church”. Some of the telos of the church as constituted by the sentiments of the Barmen Declaration that the German Churches expressed as their statement of faith that warned against the idolatrous and disastrous Nazi-Church alliance in Germany , and expressed alternately a church of radical contrast.
We really do need a wider, calmer dialogue. When so many feel so angry and isolated we must ask why. And we must seek new ways to create conversation to change the national conversation. Our national political leaders have demonstrated their incapacity to do this. If we can’t do it in the church, where will such a dialogue occur?
It seems that it is only through a distinctly Christian theological focus can we create the proper framework for dialogue that encourages us to look to the role of the church and find the resources to do what we must do. There will be the inevitable struggles with Constantinians, and often these will reject the very premise of looking first to a Confessing Church, since many in that camp feel there is nothing to confess. But these must not stop the exploration of what it means to be a Confessing Church, even though we realize that this will be perceived to be a division or dialogical chasm within the church. But at some point, the work has to proceed, a nd we can only, at best, maintain an invitational posture toward those who would promote a far more pervasive assimilation of materialism, consumerism, and “regrettable violence” as “neccessary in a world of terrorism”.
