The "Emerging Church" is something I have usually associated myself with, and most of the time the emerging church as a whole seems to be focused on how we do church where as my blog although I cover that a little bit often seems to be more focused on big theological ideas. Which could seem not particularly post modern and emerging. None the less I think this is really important and here's why.
I have rather belatedly discovered the amazing "Why I'm not a Xn" podcast by Dave Slusher at "the Evil Genius Chronicles" - thanks to Wired Jesus. Dave outlines why he was once a church going Xn and why he's now an atheist. It is a raw and honest podcast and compelling listening. It reminded me a lot of a very good friend of mine who had a very similar experience to Dave and s now not a Xn. I can remember when I move to the same city as him some of our mutual Xn friends where keen for me to "win him back" to God. This I didn't do (I guess I thought God might like to do that) I did report to the surprise of some of our mutual friends that I thought my friend had given up Xy for good reasons. His beliefs where somewhat different to mine and where not able to stand up to the average set of questions non Xn friends posed to him.
To me it seems that common to both stories the thing that pushed them away from God was not the practice of Xy or church or the institutional nature of religion but the theology of God that they had been taught. Which certainly for Dave Slusher seemed to be so heavily soaked in substitutional atonement theology that God ends up painting God as someone
As much as I'm all for experimenting with the way we do church and the way we live as Xns first and foremost I think we need to look at what we believe about God.
I have rather belatedly discovered the amazing "Why I'm not a Xn" podcast by Dave Slusher at "the Evil Genius Chronicles" - thanks to Wired Jesus. Dave outlines why he was once a church going Xn and why he's now an atheist. It is a raw and honest podcast and compelling listening. It reminded me a lot of a very good friend of mine who had a very similar experience to Dave and s now not a Xn. I can remember when I move to the same city as him some of our mutual Xn friends where keen for me to "win him back" to God. This I didn't do (I guess I thought God might like to do that) I did report to the surprise of some of our mutual friends that I thought my friend had given up Xy for good reasons. His beliefs where somewhat different to mine and where not able to stand up to the average set of questions non Xn friends posed to him.
To me it seems that common to both stories the thing that pushed them away from God was not the practice of Xy or church or the institutional nature of religion but the theology of God that they had been taught. Which certainly for Dave Slusher seemed to be so heavily soaked in substitutional atonement theology that God ends up painting God as someone
As much as I'm all for experimenting with the way we do church and the way we live as Xns first and foremost I think we need to look at what we believe about God.
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