Monday, October 20, 2008

Protestants for the Common Good

"Truth is above harmony. Those who fear disorder more than injustice invariably produce more of both."- William Sloane Coffin, Jr.

The central focus of PCG is to assist people to examine their responsibilities as citizens in the light of their religious faith. It does not attempt to dictate the religious or political beliefs of its members. Likewise, PCG believes that congregations as corporate entities should not be asked to take official positions on controversial, often partisan, public issues. To do so would imply that complex social policies constitute articles of faith. Particular political policies and programs must be given our attention but not be confused with the principle tenets of our faith tradition. For this reason, PCG urges individual Protestants who are active church members to join others in becoming PCG members but does not recruit churches as members. Congregations that utilize PCG educational resources and provide annual support for the organization can become "Educational Affiliates."

Welcome

In this my personal Christian blog, I hope to be discursive and now and then critical. What I write here is tentative and tensive. I post thoughts, feelings, and observations somewhat randomly and often in immediate response to current events and posts on other blogs.


"Serendipitous Creativity" from Gordon Kaufman

"I suggested that what we today should regard as God is the ongoing creativity in the universe - the bringing (or coming) into being of what is genuinely new, something transformative; …

"In some respects and some degrees this creativity is apparently happening continuously, in and through the processes or activities or events around us and within us(…) is a profound mystery to us humans(…) But on the whole, as we look back on the long and often painful developments that slowly brought human life and our complex human worlds into being, we cannot but regard this creativity as serendipitous …

"I want to stress that this serendipitous creativity - God! - to which we should be responsive is not the private possession of any of the many particular religious faiths or systems …

"This profound mystery of creativity is manifest in and through the overall human bio-historical evolution and development everywhere on the planet; and it continues to show itself throughout the entire human project, no matter what may be the particular religious and or cultural beliefs."

Gordon Kaufman, Mennonite Life, December 2005 vol. 60 no. 4

Melville is a rational man who

"Melville is a rational man who wants God to exist. He wants Him to exist for the same reasons we all do: to be our rescuer and appreciator, to act as a confidant in our moments of crisis and to give us reassurance that, over the horizon of our deaths, we will survive." (John Updike)

And that is a problem for me.

Fragmented Notions

Fragmented Notions
Copyright © 2007 Jean and Alexander Heard Library, Vanderbilt University

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