tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2343277549128598933.post6197377993429345085..comments2023-08-10T09:38:07.159+01:00Comments on Revising Reform: ...musing loudlyRev R Marszalekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01831340057673771787noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2343277549128598933.post-68168093101181600962011-07-27T21:07:47.148+01:002011-07-27T21:07:47.148+01:00Thanks Adrian - a good reading list. Helpful... no...Thanks Adrian - a good reading list. Helpful... now to create more half hour slots in each day...:-)Rev R Marszalekhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01831340057673771787noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2343277549128598933.post-32565547300783354382011-07-27T02:27:37.285+01:002011-07-27T02:27:37.285+01:00This is quite interesting. You've treated your...This is quite interesting. You've treated your ordination seriously of course but it hasn't had a Tim Goodbody experience on you and you really don't want a sense of spiritual hierarchy.<br /><br />There is nothing wrong with spiritual hierarchy if you have developed skills over time, but it is unlikely to come through a 'magic' ceremony.<br /><br />Now you will say there is a difference between the supernatural and magic, at least an Anglo-Catholic would (ones that believe in the supernatural). I think there is rice paper between the two, and can argue why.<br /><br />What's more interesting is that you both find Charles Raven offputting, an old world left behind, and (as I would) find Rob Bell to be trendy and slight. Big deal, all show.<br /><br />But you are sort of looking around, at other sources of 'light' and some of them that your folks might think of as dangerous. Why do you want to read Jesus Seminar material and even Jack Spong (Rowan Williams said if he agreed with Spong he'd be a Quaker)? Is it that BOTH the evangelical past and the trendy publicity seekers are unsatisfying.<br /><br />What happens if Bell is unsatisfying, Raven is anyway, Spong is unsatisfying and the Jesus Seminar has lost the plot? You're looking around and trying to find something to relate to ministry.<br /><br />So I've a different suggestion along with doing ministry. Look at some sociology of religion and see how and where the theology ties in with that. Robin Gill is a reasonably orthodox person who strides both disciplines (and I'll claim he nicked some of my ideas) and of course there are the Niebuhrs, the more important one being H R Niebuhr. The issues are why people don't come through the door, and also what is implicit religion if such can be identified. A good start might be Habgood's Church and Nation in a Secular Age (published by Dave Lee Travis). I'm hardly recommending way out radicals here, just a different angle. And then, on ministry, is Peter Rudge - Management in the Church strides across theology, sociology and management theory and relates to those reports like the Paul Report and one I forget later and of course goes (Like H R Niebuhr) back to the sociology and theology of Ernst Troeltsch. These people will tell you far more, I'd suggest, if you want to reflect on doing ministry in society.Pluralist (Adrian Worsfold)https://www.blogger.com/profile/01922153724523820866noreply@blogger.com