by skinhead
April 16, 2011
revised March 26, 2012
Relevancy22 is an Emergent Christian blog and webjournal that is now ready for exploration and review. It is hoped that it can continue to develop as an Emergent Christian resource that may help in re-framing the many newer, theological trends that are being uncovered in post-modernday 21st Century Christianity. A journey that I started while being presently occupied with writing poetry and verse describing mine own personal narrative of apprehending the mysteries of God through story and insight.
But here, I must stop what I am doing and take the time to open up my heart and mind to a younger generation of Christians seeking direction, knowledge, inspiration and reconciliation to the many confusing voices presently being found in Christianity. For mine own Christian pilgrimage has been one that has been hard fought and hard won... and, it seems, much too often, and at too many significant times of my life. It has cost me time and money. It has created loss in my life. It has been inconvenient. It has been demanding. But it is something that I must now share of mine own experiences and journey - as both a mentor and fellow disciple of Christ.
For we are together found in this veil of life too often become a vast wilderness fraught with sin and dissension. Deceits and lies. False teachings and wasteful endeavors. A wilderness that at all times needs the guidance of God to lead us beyond its fastness to the highlands of God's own heart and mind that can show us the mis-directions and confusions of man-made arguments, futile religious endeavors, and misleading sincerity. I have been led by God to many good teachers of the Word and I have sat under some preachers that were undergoing the same significant change and growth that I was going through. Theirs was public. Mine, thankfully, was private. So that I understand, I think, what drove them to speak out expediently and prematurely. With a lack of clarity but from a heart filled with conviction.
Similarly, my Christian journey has been a pilgrimage where both practice and theology has been an exciting adventure - but not a place to settle in or defend, per se. My mind ever changes - if not easily nor with every cultural wind that blows - as a result of personal reflections and enlightened discoveries as I seek to become unbounded by my past and uncluttered from my past cultural entrenchment. And with these journeys have come some years of frustrations and personal quandaries. While at other times deep satisfaction and growth. Lately I have found myself in the mesmerizing and perplexing world of Emergent Christianity which for years has left me unable to explain until lately with the publication of Love Wins and the severe backlash of public opinion that I witness from Evangelical Christianity.
As a result, my most recent theological explorations and considerations are giving rise to newer, more significant revelations to this present day's cultural movements and events. For it is at this time that I am come to a significant road that is both broad and narrow. One that must be explored carefully, diligently, prayerfully, with discernment, in fellowship and in hope. It is my wish to explore a type of Christianity that is less limiting and more free to discover God at work in this ever evolving world of ours. To remove the limitations of systematic theology and to go back to the roots of biblical theology. To remove the church's bounded philosophical mindsets and to propose a more unbounded way of thinking. To show the uselessness of debates when centered in hearts of fear and uncertainty, and not in trust and faith upon the Living God of Creation. To learn to re-learn. To reject ourselves as the only basis of truth. To become comfortable with not knowing. And overall, to live in the sublime wonder, thanksgiving and humility of the Christian faith as it was meant to be. Not as a carefully constructed series of formulaic creeds and religious statements devoid of life and blood, breath and soul. In all these areas Emergent Christianity promises the hope and freedom rightly expressed in the Christian faith.
Similarly, my Christian journey has been a pilgrimage where both practice and theology has been an exciting adventure - but not a place to settle in or defend, per se. My mind ever changes - if not easily nor with every cultural wind that blows - as a result of personal reflections and enlightened discoveries as I seek to become unbounded by my past and uncluttered from my past cultural entrenchment. And with these journeys have come some years of frustrations and personal quandaries. While at other times deep satisfaction and growth. Lately I have found myself in the mesmerizing and perplexing world of Emergent Christianity which for years has left me unable to explain until lately with the publication of Love Wins and the severe backlash of public opinion that I witness from Evangelical Christianity.
As a result, my most recent theological explorations and considerations are giving rise to newer, more significant revelations to this present day's cultural movements and events. For it is at this time that I am come to a significant road that is both broad and narrow. One that must be explored carefully, diligently, prayerfully, with discernment, in fellowship and in hope. It is my wish to explore a type of Christianity that is less limiting and more free to discover God at work in this ever evolving world of ours. To remove the limitations of systematic theology and to go back to the roots of biblical theology. To remove the church's bounded philosophical mindsets and to propose a more unbounded way of thinking. To show the uselessness of debates when centered in hearts of fear and uncertainty, and not in trust and faith upon the Living God of Creation. To learn to re-learn. To reject ourselves as the only basis of truth. To become comfortable with not knowing. And overall, to live in the sublime wonder, thanksgiving and humility of the Christian faith as it was meant to be. Not as a carefully constructed series of formulaic creeds and religious statements devoid of life and blood, breath and soul. In all these areas Emergent Christianity promises the hope and freedom rightly expressed in the Christian faith.
So then, let us join this conversation together for it is my wish that this blog may serve as both resource and guide. And it is my desire to keep it updated enough to stimulate fresh thoughts and ideas that are provocative as well as inspirational. It is an emergent blog, but one of mine own flavor as it must be, as one who is in the process of leaving a conservative evangelical Christianity heritage. A heritage I deeply respect and am thankful for, but one that must be decisively move away from towards a more postmodernistic expression of Christianity known as Emergent Christianity.
May God's Peace be yours...
The Objectives of Relevancy22
- Relevancy22 is a neo-conservative (but non-liberal) Emergent Christian website
- Written to give insight into the general state of affairs of Christianity today
- Written to encourage reflection upon God's reality in the world today
- Written to encourage fellowship, devotion, missional witness, and community participation
- Is less sympathetic to systematic (or creedal) theology, esp. Calvinism (Arminianism has
been used to counter its arguments)
- Is more focused on biblical theology (from which systematic and creedal theology derive)
- Is very focused on contemporary theology that takes both biblical and systematic theology
and integrates it into modern day discussions for Christians and non-Christians alike
- Actively investigates cultural, philosophical and scientific trends
- Utilizes a variety of Emergent Christian voices to create a kind of Christian news journal
- Actively supports historical Christianity (unlike some Emergent sites) that finds value
with remembering the past and appreciating the journey of traditional orthodoxy starting
from the first century unto the present; while wishing to avoid repeating past sectarian,
Gnostic, and cultic errors
- Differs in culture and orientation from Evangelicalism. Though voicing the same concerns,
Emergent Christianity approaches those areas from a different perspective that is less
limiting and more open to cultural opinion
- Is actively engaged in showing the relevancy of God, and the centrality of Jesus, to the
world's endeavors
- Is actively engaged in determining what Emergent Christianity is, and isn't
- Is actively engaged in voicing Emergent concerns, issues, topics and news
- Was written to journal my experience and current understanding of Emergent Christianity
- Was written to clear up the confusion that was found in Emergent Christianity's earlier
versions of itself (late 1990s to 2011)
- Was developed to help this blogger write a deeper style of poetry sometimes called
theo-poetry
- Is to be used more as an Emergent Christian reference site than as a personal journal
or "blog"
- Should be read topically (however, a sequential reading will show this blogger's own
personal development in each area listed on this blog)
- And generally, can be viewed as a personal commentary, written in prose, on various
Christian subjects and topics
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