While Rennie D appreciates Frank Wilson's accolade, it is of concern that an occasional blog can have greater impact than regular warming of a physical pew. It is encouraging, though, to see literary critics and reviewers experiencing the need to speak out about faith, especially in a world that is increasingly focused on, and disillusioned by, the polarity of fundamental religious fanaticism that derives from Islamic-backed terrorism and the disquieting response of modern American colonialism and empire-building.
Frank Wilson's Great minds ... is worth a read, as is another link that Frank points to: a kind of self-interview by John Derbyshire God & Me. Also worth reading is and article by Richard Morrison What the sneering legions of atheists need to remember.
Rennie D
5 November 2006
6 comments:
But it doesn't have to be an either or, does it? Neither Frank in Philadephia nor I in London can warm your physical pew, but we can still read your words, which would not have reached us otherwise?
I assure you that I physically warmed a pew just this morning - and hope to resume the daily visits on the way to work that were curtailed while my knees were on the fritz. Still, the bread you have cast upon the blogosphere brings nourishment to these far shores and I for one find it almost miraculous to have partaken.
In reply ... the challenge (from Roman Catholic to Emergent models) is to provide those who inhabit the pew from week-to-week with a perspective on Word and Life that satisfies the soul and expands the mind. Sadly, what is often dished-up does neither.
Well, I can definitely assure you that in the pew I occupy I don't get to hear much in the way of enlightenment. I am there to be present at re-enactment of the sacrifice on Calvary and to partake of the bread of life (I hope I have expressed this in such a way as to minimize any doctrinal differences, which would only get in the way).
I think, as Maxine says, your words reach us and enlighten and move us. Thank you for them.
In reply ... my comments in no way seek to gain-say the value of the Liturgical rite, and the deep spiritual impact of the varied symbols of life and death that draw us in to the heart of God. It is, perhaps, my more protestant hankering that places equal value (unnecessarily?)on the proclamation of the Word.
Believe me, the Roman Catholic pulpit - at least in this country - could use not just more eloquence, but more than that by far, a sense that the preacher had actually pondered the texts in his heart.
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