Paul is pushing the cultural norms that many people accept without thinking about them and the shocker is that we need to continue to push the cultural norms that we continue to accept without thinking about them. Questions are important!

A community is shaped and formed by the practices and customs that it has embraced. Yet a community that does not have any sense of flexibility can become rigid, alienating, and unwelcoming.

Keeping with this new and different format, we are listening to the first part of the conversation Jonathan had with Rod Kennedy. Jonathan knows Rod from the time that he was Rod’s associate pastor at First Baptist, Dayton. That church has never been the same since Jonathan has left. 

In this conversation Stacy and Jonathan talk about the difference between technical change and adaptive change. While there is a place for both, the religious landscape of  American calls for churches to be more adaptive than technical if they want any hope of thriving.

Because it is such a timely issue and because so many wonder about how to respond, we are posting this segment out of order. We hope that this conversation offers a platform for reflection. Racism is still a challenge for America and demands our attention on level of the small as well as the broad. Churches should be a place where people can have an honest conversation about racism,

We are trying something new! Since some people (and you know who you are) feel that an entire episode is just too long to listen to, we have separated the episode into two parts. For this part we hear Jonathan’s conversation with Stacy around the rialage, scripture, and watcha’ into. The next conversation will feature the main topic – change in the church.

Now there are those who would argue that truth is a firm reality that cannot be argued or moved or changed. Yet so much rests on how truth is presented, the point of view, etc. Facts may be firm, but the truth that facts point to can vary and change depending on how you look at it, understand them, and how they are presented.

The Bible is a collection of a multiplicity of passages that speak to a variety of experiences. Perhaps the text is not reflecting the violent nature of God but instead the violent nature of humanity. 

One of the questions is how to honor one’s religious experience, make room for a diversity of experiences, and at the same time keep to a sense of tradition. Some experiences may not make sense in different traditions and that is ok. It is not saying that some are right and others are wrong, but more that some will or will not make sense depending on the context. 

the Holy Spirit will move as it will and make things happen that we cannot explain. People will experience the Spirit differently and because it is quiet and calm does not make it wrong. Nor is it wrong if one’s experience of the Holy Spirit involves noise, dancing, and speaking in tongues. The Holy Spirit can be experienced differently, but one form of experience should not be elevated above another.

One of the contributions that Girard offers is a way of moving beyond our basic human instincts to be better, and to not copy the negative, destructive desires of humanity. The conundrum is that Girard suggests that it is through Christ and the cross that we are freed from the negative aspects of our mimetic desires, but it is done universally. So are we pushed beyond religion, or are we saved through a specific understanding of Christian religion?

...part of the issue is around values or faith. For some communities it is more about the values of that community than the faith statement, and for others it is the faith statements rather than the values.

In their conversation Jonathan wonders about the place of community and the awareness of the transcendence without a faith community. Apparently people still get together and are nice to each other without the idea of God.