July 12, 2005

As an Episcopalian, I was not entirely sure what to expect at the annual meeting of the Massachusetts conference of the United Church of Christ. When I mentioned my uncertainty to a colleague, he added his own views: “Massachusetts. UCC. That’s the belly of the beast.” He explained: “New England Congregationalism pretty much defines ‘God’s frozen chosen.’”

Ministry is befuddling, either in the way the people we serve are just so very strange, or in the way the grace of God catches us off guard—or both. Granted, some out there “get” the liturgy and sound theology we’re offering them, and in admittedly wobbly ways try to embody what the scriptures are about. But a stunning host of others latch on to spiritual oddities, untested (and untestable) private experiences and even silliness.

We Know More Than Our Pastors
www.e-church.com/resources.asp
Tim Bednar offers an overview of church-related blogging.

blogs4God
www.blogs4god.com
If you’re looking for links to blogs on particular subjects, this is a good place to start. It sorts blogs into eight categories.

Theologian John Sanders lost his college teaching job recently because of his endorsement of “open theism”—the view that the future is not determined by God. His ouster from Huntington College in Indiana followed three years of nasty debate within the Evangelical Theological Society, a significant faction of which wanted to expel Sanders (along with Clark Pinnock) on the grounds that his position with respect to God’s foreknowledge was inconsistent with ETS’s adherence to biblical inerrancy.

Latino cinema has a long tradition of tweaking the Catholic Church for its supposed hypocrisy, involvement in secular politics and manhandling of sexual issues. Thirty-nine-year-old Argentine filmmaker Lucrecia Martel now joins in with her own rants on the rigidity and absoluteness of Catholic doctrine, especially as it pertains to children.