A New Focus

I started this blog a few months ago as the Presidential election was winding down. I wanted an outlet for my writing and wanted to be part of the blogosphere wave. Recently, personal events, technical problems and a bit of exhaustion have kept me from regular posts.

But I have also had to re-evaluate and narrow my focus. Though I have an interest in current events, and politics can get me rather agitated, I want to focus on my main obsessions and leave much of the political blogging to others more qualified, more informed and those who have more time. My main focus needs to be one of my own obsessions -- faith.

One of the first "grown-up" books I ever read in my early teens was C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. Over the course of my lifetime, the idea has stayed with me that there are certain truths basic to all branches of Christianity. But a lifetime of witnessing division within Evangelical circles and contentious polemics between Catholics and Protestants has been disheartening.

Recently, Thomas Oden's Rebirth of Orthodoxy has rekindled some old flames. There are numerous movements across the globe that are gaining momentum toward seeking understanding and some level of unity among Christians. As Oden has documented and insisted on, this is not a wishy-washy ecumenism that waters down biblical truth for the sake of organizational unity, but is a genuine attempt to wrestle charitably with the theological, cultural and historical matters that have divided Christians. It is a new kind of ecumenism that is respectful of scripture and also respectful of the history of biblical exegesis across all of twenty centuries and not just the last four.



Several things are required, however. Humility. A willingness to listen. A willingness to diffuse the emotion of the passionate battles of the 16th century and see Christianity through a longer lens. Compassion. Objectivity. Charity.

My basic premise is that there has never been a period in the 2000 year history of the church where the church has not existed as a living breathing "body of Christ". Hence, it is improper and foolish to look at Christianity only through the grid of our own era. As more and more evangelicals, Catholics, mainline Protestants and Eastern Christians take off the boxing gloves and look at the whole of church history in honest, friendly coffee table discussions, and debates, Christian unity becomes a little less hard to envision.

So, though many earlier posts have been about current events, politics and media, future posts will tend to be a bit more about that mere Christianity.