Another thing that keeps coming back to me from the Merm convention and which I find liberating is a role that the Bible plays.
The Evangelical 'lives out of the Bible'. We read the Bible and are inspired, motivated, taught, challenged, but also corrected (ok, that sounds just like 2 Timothy 3:16, but I wasn't meaning to quote). Often the Bible is rather used as a judge or a 'place to check if something is ok'. If that is the primary way that the Bible is used it can become something that breathes death, rather than the life-breathing that is given when we read the Bible and live out of it.
So our lifestyle comes out of what we read in the Bible.
Putting that into theological language we can say that our praxis is determined by our theology which is obtained by our reflection on Scripture. A problem may come if we do not in turn reflect on our praxis - is it in fact achieving what we desired after reflecting on Scripture?
So this does part company with Liberation Theology type theologies which say that our theology comes as a reflection on praxis. I'm not sure how the Bible fits into that theme.
As always, I need to think more about this, but I like the idea of living out of the Bible.
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2 comments:
What your post suggests to me is that there's a Jolly Good God behind the Bible, but some people don't look past the page.
Yes. But also there are people who never look at the page unless they are going to use it to prove themselves right and others wrong. Or read it cynically. I don't know how common that is - but I do see it.
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