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Below, I will employ a Strategic Plan paradigm to characterize and organize the emerging church conversation employing what might, at first, appear to be characteristically Catholic categories. In doing so, I hope to emphasize how this conversation proceeds more from a consideration of questions rather than answers, practices rather than conclusions, methods rather than systems.

While there is certainly an implicit assumption that one will take from these conversations some best practices, which will then be integrated into some otherwise disparate ecclesial systems, we hope to show how such approaches as descriptive science, normative philosophy, evaluative culture and interpretive religion can be methodologically autonomous even while, at the same time, being axiologically integral, which is to say that each method is necessary, none alone sufficient, in every human value-realization.

For example, put more plainly, how can we answer the normative question How does one best acquire or avoid that? without first answering the descriptive question What is that? much less the evaluative question What’s that to us? (I say to “us” rather than “me” in recognition of our radically social nature). And we dare not ignore our interpretive grand narratives, which, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse, contextualize all of these questions with their (often implicit, very often unconscious even) answers to the question How does all of this re-ligate or tie-back together?

Before laying out a Cathlimergent approach, I want to build a conceptual bridge to the approaches taken by many of our Protestant sisters and brothers. Dialogue about prescriptive realities is very much dependent on fair and accurate descriptive representations (avoiding unnecessary strawmen and ad hominems). When it comes to good scholarship and civil discourse, few have gone about it better than the author of Deep Church, Jim Belcher,  so I will employ his categories in our bridge-building effort.

To wit, when Jim —

prescribes Deep Truth in response to a captivity to Enlightenment rationalism he’s breaking open our category of normative philosophy;
prescribes Deep Preaching in response to ineffective preaching he’s breaking open our category of orthodoxy vis a  vis boundary establishment and defense;
prescribes Deep Evangelism in response to an overemphasis on belief before belonging he’s breaking open our category of orthodoxy vis a vis inclusivism and boundary negotiation;
prescribes Deep Worship in response to uncontextualized worship he’s breaking open our category of orthopathy;
prescribes Deep Gospel in response to a narrow view of salvation he’s breaking open our category of orthopraxy in relationship to orthodoxy;
prescribes Deep Ecclesiology in response to weak ecclesiology he’s breaking open our category of orthocommunio vis a vis church as institution and tradition;
prescribes Deep Culture in response to tribalism he’s breaking open our category of orthocommunio vis a vis church as organism, in the world, transcending boundaries to permeate and improve the temporal order by being tribal not tribalistic (cf. Rohr).

The emerging church conversation is lyrical in a sense as a pattern presents that reveals a fugue-like interplay of boundary establishment, boundary defense, boundary negotiation and boundary transcendence.

Does everyone come out singing the same lyrics even if we all seem to be humming the same melody? Of course not! But there’s a not too distant drumbeat that has us all marching, sometimes swiftly with little hindrance, often bumbling and stumbling, to the same beat and beckoning us into a banquet hall where the banner over us all is love.

To some extent, boundary establishment is largely a discursive, descriptive enterprise where orthodoxy enjoys its moment and has its say; it describes such as our essential creeds,  theological anthropology and social ontology (marriage, children, family, institutions, etc). Boundary defense is a normative enterprise where orthopraxy exerts its influence in loving and compassionate action ordered to the end of orthocommunio or authentic unity in community, where we realize our telic aim of boundary transcendence.

None of these boundary dynamics enjoy any efficacy in and of themselves, however, apart from the boundary negotiation that occurs in orthopathy, where our desires, themselves, are first shaped and formed by liturgy, whether of the mall, the marketplace or Eucharist. (I cannot more highly recommend Jamie Smith’s Desiring the Kingdom, in this regard.)

Liturgy, then, nurturing our nondual, contemplative stance, enjoys an epistemic primacy in the fugal movement of orthopathic, orthodoxic, orthopraxic and orthocommunal moments. This is to recognize that sacrament and song and psalmody and story-telling and gathering for bread-breaking came first in our tradition, our ecclesial phylogeny, so to speak, and that it remains first, even now, in each of our lives, our spiritual ontogeny, in other words, as ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny in religion as well as biology and every other emergent reality.

A question that begs regarding this exercise is if we are primarily about finding questions, exploring methods and exchanging practices, where might the theoretical rubber hit the road in next proposing concrete ecclesial changes?

Where I hope to take my questions and concerns is here:

American Catholic Council

The outline below is meant to be comprehensive but not exhaustive. In each category are sample strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities and sample resources. It is intended as a catalyst for constructive conversation and a guideline for dialogue, a conceptual bridge-builder or heuristic device. It is expected that you will engage this outline, perhaps even suggesting an entirely different paradigm, certainly adding different strengths, weaknesses, threats, opportunities and resources, raising new questions and concerns, breaking open new categories.

I’m a retired Bank CEO so thought, immediately, that this resembles strategic planning. A spiritual director might look and see a prayer ladder of lectio, meditatio,  operatio, contemplatio. A social media consultant might see a P2P platform or a viral meme. A conflict resolution mediator might see (Greg, what DO you see?) … What, then, do YOU see?

So, Catholics and nonCatholics, alike, please join us at Cathlimergent!

What’s Up? wussup? or WOTS up?: the Emerging Church Conversation as Strategic Planning Exercise (Risk Management)

EXTERNAL OPPORTUNITIES & THREATS

Axiological Visions as amplification of risks (through beliefs) ordered toward augmentation of value thru:

DESCRIPTIVE SCIENCE (a cosmological methodology) asking What’s that?

Threats:
Scientism

Opportunities:
Technological Advance
Dualistic, problem-solving approach

Resources:
The Cosmic Adventure: Science, Religion and the Quest for Purpose by John F. Haught

Institute on Religion in an Age of Science

Metanexus

Zygon Center for Religion and Science

EVALUATIVE CULTURE (an axiological methodology) asking What’s that to us?

Threats:
Practical Nihilism
Consumerism
Narcissism

Opportunities:
Story-telling
Music & Dramatic Arts

Resources:

Inter Mirifica, Decree On the Means of Social Communication, 1963.

Gaudium et Spes, Pastoral Constitution On the Church In the Modern World,1965.

Ad Gentes, Decree On the Mission Activity of the Church, 1965.

NORMATIVE PHILOSOPHY (a cosmological methodology) asking How do we acquire or avoid that?

Threats:
Enlightenment Rationalism – naïve realism
Radically Deconstructive Postmodernism

Opportunities:
Critical Realisms thru weak foundationalism and nonfoundational (fallibilism) & postfoundational epistemologies
Semiotic Realism

Resources:
Donald L. Gelpi, S.J.

Centre of Theology and Philosophy

INTERPRETIVE RELIGION & IDEOLOGY (an axiological methodology) asking How does all of this re-ligate or tie-back together?

Threats:
Religious Fundamentalism
Enlightenment Fundamentalism
Colonialism
Paternalism

Opportunities:
Ecumenism
Inter-religious & Inter-ideological Dialogue

Resources:
Dialogue Institute

Ecumene

David Group International

Francis X. Clooney, S.J.

Innerexplorations

Dignitatis Humanae, Declaration On Religious Freedom, 1965.

Monastic Interreligious Dialogue

INTERNAL STRENGTHS & WEAKNESSES

Religion as a further amplification of risk ordered toward the further augmentation of value thru:

ORTHODOXY & TRUTH ARTICULATED IN CREED (DOGMA) or boundary establishment

Weaknesses:
Dogmatism
Ecclesiocentric Exclusivism

Strengths:
Pneumatocentric Vision
Christocentric Inclusivism
Theocentric Inclusivism
Honest Jesus Scholarship (cf. Rohr)

Resources:
Dei Verbum, Dogmatic Constitution On Divine Revelation, 1965.

Fides et Ratio

Gravissimum Educationis, Declaration On Christian Education, 1965.

Unitatis Redintegratio, Decree on Ecumenism, 1964.

Orientalium Ecclesiarum, Decree On the Catholic Churches of the Eastern Rite,1964.

Nostra Aetate, Declaration On the Relation Of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, 1965.

ORTHOPATHY & BEAUTY CELEBRATED & CULTIVATED (CULT / RITUAL) IN LITURGY or boundary negotiation

Weaknesses:
Ritualism
Dualistic Approach
Traditionalism

Strengths:
Retrieval, Renewal, Revival of Tradition
Contemplative Stance
Nonduality

Resources:
Center for Action and Contemplation

Fors Clavigera (Jamie Smith)

Brother David Steindl-Rast

Christian Nonduality

Cynthia Bourgeault

Contemplative Outreach

Worship Blog

The Website of Unknowing

Shalomplace

Sacrosanctum concilium, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, 1963.

ORTHOPRAXY & GOODNESS PRESERVED IN CODE (LAW) or boundary defense

Weaknesses:
Legalism

Strengths:
Social Justice

Resources:
Religion Online – Social Issues

Sojourners

Center for Action and Contemplation

ORTHOCOMMUNIO & UNITY ENJOYED IN FELLOWSHIP or boundary transcendence

Weaknesses:

Institutionalism, Heirarchicalism,Patriarchalism, Sexism

Strengths:

Magisterial Reform
Democratization
Organic Growth
Noninstitutional Vehicles

Resources:
Lumen Gentium, Dogmatic Constitution On the Church, 1964.

Christus Dominus, Decree Concerning the Pastoral Office of Bishops In the Church, 1965.

Perfectae Caritatis, Decree On Renewal of Religious Life, 1965.

Optatam Totius, Decree On Priestly Training, 1965.

Presbyterorum Ordinis, Decree On the Ministry and Life of Priests, 1965.

Apostolicam Actuositatem, Decree On the Apostolate of the Laity, 1965.

GENERAL RESOURCES

Brian D. McLaren

Commonweal

Emergent Village

Emerging Women

Per Caritatem

Phyllis Tickle

Post Christian

Radical Emergence

Transmillenial

Zoecarnate

Anglimergent

Boulder Integral

Catholica

Emerging Church Portal (international)

Phyllis Tickle

Taming the Wolf

Thomas Merton Center

Virtual Chapel

This is in response to a Jesus Creed blog post The Age of the Spirit – Sacrament and Mission:

It seems we have learned from anthropology that we are story-tellers and that our intellectual, affective, moral and social growth comes not only from propositional cognition but also from our participatory imagination, our active participation in various narratives.

One could say we are liturgical animals, Homo liturgicus. And this is true whether one practices an explicit faith, implicit faith or no faith at all. And this is true for better and for worse, as our desires are formed, shaped and reinforced by the liturgies of the mall, sports stadia and the marketplace as well as by our worship and fellowship. So, an approach that best articulates our faith (including propositions), best celebrates our hopes and best reinforces our love will, in my view, help us move more swiftly and with less hindrance along our ongoing journeys of transformation, enjoying a life of superabundance. So, I’m thinking there will be some type of sacramental economy in play for all, again, for better or worse, which helps order our orthodoxy, orthopathy and orthopraxy. What that should be, precisely, is another consideration but there certainly will be norms in play.

Even people of implicit faith and no “formal” sacramental access will be realizing life’s most important values of truth, beauty, goodness and unity, in other words, a life of love and abundance (as various semiotic signs and symbols bring into reality what they bring to mind). I don’t view these value-realizations in terms of all or nothing but more so in terms of degrees of fullness of realization of the God-encounter (as well as frustration of). It is said that the God-encounter is a full body-blow (head & heart, body, soul & spirit) and that seems an apt anthropological description.

As for the nature of the soul, however dual or nondual or in-between (hylomorphic), I think it suffices to recognize that our temporal experience is radically integral, which is to recognize that our experience is wholly embodied & wholly ensouled. What happens transtemporally in an eternal realm is nothing God can’t handle insofar as He’s not constrained by our speculative metaphysical constructions.

For more on Homo liturgicus, see this article, Liturgy Forty Years after the Council, written by Cardinal Godfried Danneels, Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels.

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Some redacted conversations (my contributions only):

If we want people to laugh, we don’t order them to laugh, we tell them a joke. Laughing’s more so a participatory reality & much less so propositional. It’s the same w/teaching religion, where more is caught than taught. Solidarity… is not a reality we need to pursue or establish; it’s one we need to recognize. When we awaken to our solidarity, compassion, like laughter, will ensue. What awakened you?

Even when we draw such distinctions as between the propositional & participatory, the descriptive/normative & the interpretive/evaluative, the cosmological & axiological, the cognitive & affective AND even if we rightly recognize that one aspect enjoys a certain PRIMACY, being more foundational or fundamental, we do NOT want to introduce a false dichotomy, which suggests that any one aspect is AUTONOMOUS from the others b/c, instead, they are integrally-related. There has been some tendency 1) in evangelical & Arminian traditions to overemphasize the evidential (evidence that demands a verdict) 2) in reformed & Calvinist traditions – the presuppositional (belief as philosophically basic) 3) in fideist, Lutheran & neoevangelical traditions – the existential (faith as experience) and 4) in Catholic, both Roman & Anglican, the rational (logical argument). In all of these traditions, a more holistic approach is EMERGING.

All that said, once we recognize the primacy of the social imaginary (hometown know-how) over doctrinal propositions (map-reading), as an anthropological datum, it then behooves us to come to grips w/the fact that the para-liturgical realities & liminoid experiences of mall & marketplace & stadiums, where the wrong values are often caught, will not be re-formed thru propositional-instructional teaching or catechesis, alone, but must also (even primarily) be gifted thru participatory liturgy & liminal experiences. That’s why I intentionally employed the qualifiers “more so” and “less so” in order to convey the “necessary but not sufficient” dynamic; we do not want to claim that any given aspect is “enough.” This is, in large measure, what a nondual approach is all about. There ARE some either/or realities, just not as many as some would imagine.

What you describe sounds like what my tradition calls mystagogia, whereby symbols effect what they signify, bring into reality precisely what they bring to body, soul & spirit via a pedagogy of right desire. The liturgical celebration engages our social imaginary thru which we understand our world as we sing and pray and dance and engage our rituals & practices. From this understanding, via noncognitive dispositions (values & desires) acquired thru participation, there FOLLOWS an attempt at theoretical articulation of cognitive beliefs in propositional doctrine. Doctrine should not be superimposed (added as the dominant feature) such that liturgy expresses it; it is quite the other way around!

In the same way that hymns, psalms, doxologies, letters & worship practices (breaking of the bread) preceded the NT canon, as well as articulated doctrines & a Xtn worldview, ecclesiologically (via a vis the church), worship precedes & births & forms an individual’s beliefs & worldview as practices precede ideas. Transformation is a full body-blow and DOES include theological abstractions or scientia, eventually, but, first and foremost, we are Homo sapiens, so sapienta, or wisdom or practical knowledge, is how we encounter life’s deepest mysteries and engage our most ultimate concerns. Orthopathically, thru Worship, and orthopraxically, thru Walk, we became an orthocommunio, a We, and expressed it all orthodoxically, thru Word.

from Jamie Smith’s Desiring the Kingdom

If human value-pursuits have both cosmological and axiological aspects, and a cosmology includes both descriptive (scientific, positivist) and normative (philosophic) approaches, then what’s involved in our axiological pursuits, which are interpretive and evaluative?

If a cosmology articulates knowledge, an axiological vision of the whole conveys understanding via an interpretation, which articulates what Charles Taylor calls a social imaginary, which he describes as much like hometown know-how, this contrasted with scientific and philosophic knowledge, which are more like map-reading. The social imaginary engages us through stories, narratives, myths and icons. Arguably, the great traditions and many native religions, in one way or another, articulate a pneumatological social imaginary, all invoking some image of spirit. Evaluatively, these pneumatological social imaginaries address profound human aspirations, hopes, desires; the value pursued is love.

Often, our axiological visions of the whole, AVOWs, lose touch with their spirit-filled roots and lose sight of their spirit-animated vision and we then pursue inordinate desires (Ignatius) with disordered appetites (John of the Cross). Often, these AVOWs operate subconsciously, but operate they will – for every human value-pursuit derives from the integral relating of our cosmologies and axiologies as the normative mediates between the descriptive and the interpretive to effect the evaluative, for better or for worse.  This is the basic epistemological architectonic which I’ve employed as a heuristic when evaluating human value-pursuits. It has served as a foil and has provided a critique, integrating all of the best insights I have been able to absorb from my favorite pastor-theologians, Richard Rohr and Amos Yong, and contemplative sojourners, Thomas Merton and Thomas Keating.

Much of what Christian Nonduality has been about is exploring, cross-culturally and interreligiously, the role of contemplation, a nondual stance, 3rd Eye seeing and such on the transformative journey. More needs to be said about  basic religious formation and how it fits into this architectonic, theoretically. Even more needs to be said about the practicalities of religious formation. I’m very pleased to report that all of this has already been said and it has been said so very well by Jamie Smith.

Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Cultural Liturgies) (Paperback) by James K. A. Smith is the most stimulating and enriching book I’ve read this year (and Rohr’s latest is pre-ordered).  It resonates beautifully with my own axiological vision of the whole. It affirms the primacy of our affective, desiring, loving self without asserting its autonomy from our cognitive, propositional, thinking (and even believing) self. It recognizes that an axiological vision of the whole operates, even if subconsciously and implicitly, in the quasi-liturgies of mall and marketplace and urges a conscious-competence on us all in our rituals, practices and liturgies.

Others say this much better:

From Amazon: Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Cultural Liturgies) (Paperback)

Malls, stadiums, and universities are actually liturgical structures that influence and shape our thoughts and affections. Humans–as Augustine noted–are “desiring agents,” full of longings and passions; in brief, we are what we love. James K. A. Smith focuses on the themes of liturgy and desire in Desiring the Kingdom, the first book in what will be a three-volume set on the theology of culture. He redirects our yearnings to focus on the greatest good: God. Ultimately, Smith seeks to re-vision education through the process and practice of worship. Students of philosophy, theology, worldview, and culture will welcome Desiring the Kingdom, as will those involved in ministry and other interested readers.

From the Back Cover
A Philosophical Theology of Culture

Philosopher James K. A. Smith reshapes the very project of Christian education in Desiring the Kingdom. The first of three volumes that will ultimately provide a comprehensive theology of culture, Desiring the Kingdom focuses education around the themes of liturgy, formation, and desire. Smith’s ultimate purpose is to re-vision Christian education as a formative process that redirects our desire toward God’s kingdom and its vision of flourishing. In the same way, he re-visions Christian worship as a pedagogical practice that trains our love.

“James Smith shows in clear, simple, and passionate prose what worship has to do with formation and what both have to do with education. He argues that the God-directed, embodied love that worship gives us is central to all three areas and that those concerned as Christians with teaching and learning need to pay attention, first and last, to the ordering of love. This is an important book and one whose audience should be much broader than the merely scholarly.”–Paul J. Griffiths, Duke Divinity School

“In lucid and lively prose, Jamie Smith reaches back past Calvin to Augustine, crafting a new and insightful Reformed vision for higher education that focuses on the fundamental desires of the human heart rather than on worldviews. Smith deftly describes the ‘liturgies’ of contemporary life that are played out in churches–but also in shopping malls, sports arenas, and the ad industry–and then re-imagines the Christian university as a place where students learn to properly love the world and not just think about it.”–Douglas Jacobsen and Rhonda Hustedt Jacobsen, Messiah College; authors of Scholarship and Christian Faith: Enlarging the Conversation

“This is a wise, provocative, and inspiring book. It prophetically blurs the boundaries between theory and practice, between theology and other disciplines, between descriptive analysis and constructive imagination. Anyone involved in Christian education should read this book to glimpse a holistic vision of learning and formation. Anyone involved in the worship life of Christian communities should read this book to discover again all that is at stake in the choices we make about our practices.”–John D. Witvliet, Calvin Institute of Christian Worship; Calvin College and Calvin Theological Seminary

Oliver Sacks’ book and movie, “Awakenings”, describes how brain-damaged individuals can be roused out of stupor by music and art when nothing else can reach them.

Tony deMello spent his life teaching the importance of awareness versus analysis, of insight versus information, perhaps patterned after the founder of his order, St. Ignatius, who emphasized the need to “taste” the truth versus merely “knowing” the truth.

From Amos Wilder: “Imagination is a necessary component of all profound knowing and celebration … It is at the level of imagination that any full engagement with life takes place.”

From Morton Kelsey: “God knew that human beings learn more by story and music, by art, symbols, and images than by logical reasoning, theorems, and equations, so God’s deepest revelations have always been expressed in images and stories.”

I included the above quotes in an essay I wrote many years ago entitled John of the Cross, Liturgical Mystic.

Jamie Smith recently published Desiring the Kingdom, which a publisher’s review describes as a focus on the themes of liturgy and desire:  ”Malls, stadiums, and universities are actually liturgical structures that influence and shape our thoughts and affections. Humans–as Augustine noted–are “desiring agents,” full of longings and passions; in brief, we are what we love.” The lesson we take away, here, is that not only is our relationship with God shaped and influenced through story-telling, the manner in which we live, move and have our being in the world is also.

Charles A. Coulombe writes of one of Catholicism’s greatest story-tellers, J.R.R. Tolkien: “It’s been said that the dominant note of the traditional Catholic liturgy was intense longing. This is also true of her art, her literature, her whole life. It is a longing for things that cannot be in this world: unearthly truth, unearthly purity, unearthly justice, unearthly beauty. By all these earmarks, Lord of the Rings is indeed a Catholic work, as its author believed: But it is more. It is this age’s great Catholic epic, fit to stand beside the Grail legends, Le Morte d’Arthur and The Canterbury Tales. It is at once a great comfort to the individual Catholic, and a tribute to the enduring power and greatness of the Catholic tradition, that JRRT created this work. In an age which has seen an almost total rejection of the faith on the part of the Civilization she created . . . Lord of the Rings assures us, both by its existence and its message, that the darkness cannot triumph forever.”

Story-telling thus engages our concrete, imaginative & practical mind through our social imaginary, which can be thought of as the equivalent of hometown knowledge. Hometown knowledge is our experience of understanding how to get from home to school to the grocer’s and back home. This nondiscursive participatory understanding is quite different from our propositional knowledge, which engages our abstract, conceptual & theoretical mind through our discursive map-making approach to reality.

The difference between these complementary approaches to reality might best be appreciated as we think back on occasions in our lives when newcomers or strangers to our hometown stopped and asked us for directions. Have you ever had the uncomfortable experience of being asked for directions only to bumble and fumble and stumble and mumble your way to a helpful response? That’s your story-telling ability trying to translate its understanding of into knowledge about using your map-making ability. It’s not that we are never asked for directions by someone who otherwise shares our hometown knowledge, who shares our understanding of our local community. When they do, however, we experience the ease and facility of remaining in our story-telling mode without having to rely on our map-making skills (The new grocer’s is behind the school).

While most of us rely most heavily on our story-telling mode as we navigate reality together with others, whether in the classroom, living room or boardroom, all of us, at some time or another, must fall-back on our map-making and map-using mode of processing reality.

Furthermore, it is a great curiosity to many that there are a few of us who, like me, by temperament, are natural born map-makers. In fact, that is our default approach to reality. In other words, we primarily engage reality through our abstract, conceptual, theoretical mind employing mostly our propositional knowledge and map-making ability. If you ask us a question, we’ll hand you a map (it’s already been drawn, I assure you) and it may even be a map of your hometown or your own backyard. And you will look at it with total fascination but utter bewilderment, unable to recognize the intricate representation of reality you’ve been handed. And we’ll look at you, gazing proudly at our marvelous creation, waiting for that aha moment of recognition on your face, a moment that, disappointingly and unfortunately, seldom seems to materialize.

Now, I’m using the image of a map, metaphorically, of course, to illustrate the map-maker’s abstract, conceptual, theoretical approach to processing reality, which pervades both our spoken and written word, leaving others scratching their heads and talking about us behind our backs (if we’re lucky). And this is being contrasted with story-telling, which has the ability to frustrate us as much as we frustrate others. You’ve heard the old joke: I asked her for the time and she told me how to make a watch. Well, that pretty much summarizes how most map-makers experience most story-tellers.

Now, there comes a point in time when one quits beating one’s head against the wall just because it feels good when one stops. After a great deal of introspection, one day, I went back and examined my many and diverse writings trying to recall which had elicited good responses and clear recognition and which had left my audience with glazed over eyes in a diaphanous miasmic fog of inaccessibility and unintelligibility. Put plainly, it wasn’t the absence of map-making that created clarity and fostered understanding, for I seldom depart from my default processing mode. Instead, it was the presence of story-telling in addition to the map-making, the inclusion of music, art, stories, images, metaphors and symbols. In other words, the good maps had legends (double-entendre intended), in a manner of speaking.

At any rate, I’ve never been a natural born story-teller and I’m not certain I’m going to bother deeply cultivating that particular skill going forward in that it has never been my particular calling much less charism. I have learned that it is often essential, though, as I have cultivated a better audience awareness. I have mostly hobknobbed with other map-makers and theoretical eggheads, exploring together the psychological, philosophical and theological aspects of the religious terrain of humanity’s formative and transformative spiritualities, mapping this terrain with esoteric jargon (heavily nuanced words used as shortcuts and not purposefully devised for their quaint obfuscatory charm). For the most part, we understand each other’s map-making and lingo.

What I have decided to do, though, is to complement my map-making website with this story-telling blog and to use it as a vehicle to begin translating my abstract, theoretical conceptualizations into more concrete, practical imaginations, or, in other words, as a place to begin adding legends (stories) to all of the maps I’ve made over the years, should I discern that such would be a worthwhile endeavor. It’ll be interesting to me to see how much of this I am led to do. One thing I hope I won’t do, any more, is to plop down any of my maps in the wrong places at the wrong times on poor souls who (through my most grievous fault, mea maxima culpa, not theirs) don’t know if those maps are designed to depict their own backyard or the way to Osama bin Laden’s cave.

There is also something that needs to be said regarding the need for story-tellers to become better map-makers. That’s something best left to a story-teller, I suppose, especially one with the experience of riding with a driver who simply refuses to ask for directions. Whoa! And, to be perfectly clear, I’m employing that driver as a metaphor for those who play theology without a net (how’s that for mixing metaphors?).

Jamie Smith discusses Drew Gilpin Faust’s essay, The University’s Crisis of Purpose:

“I wonder if we could imagine Christian universities having the same role for the church’s good–the Christian college as a space where, in psalm-like lament and questioning, we articulate those nagging late-night and early-dawn questions, those Abrahamic protests, those faith-full questions that can only arise for disciples (“How long, O Lord?”).

Have Christian universities produced enough doubt?

Have we sufficiently called into question our unquestioned assumptions–such as our automatic confidence that what’s “conservative” must be right and good?

Have Christian universities sufficiently resisted and questioned North American Christianity’s complicity with economic greed, nationalist fervor, and possessive individualism?

And in failing to do so, have we failed to serve the body, failed to love the church?  Might the production of doubt be the path to a more radical faith?” end of Jamie’s ?s

The great American pragmatist, Charles Sanders Peirce, advised us to speculate boldly on theoretical matters but to move cautiously and tentatively on practical matters of vital concern. (My paraphrase from an old memory.) There is undeniable value in tradition, but it is truth-indicative and not truth-conducive, a proper bias but not an absolute. Similarly, the subsidiarity principle represents a proper bias in favor of human freedom and dignity but neither is it an absolute. These biases are favored when all things are otherwise equal and in an ideal, perfect world scenario, which, last time I checked … … ahem … …

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