Re: [asa] The ASA and the Soft Sciences (ASA focus for the future)

On Jan 3, 2009, at 7:51 AM, David Opderbeck wrote:

>
> When we talk about "crisis," I always feel that we're ignoring
> history as well as theology. The Church has always faced major
> challenges. Responses always come, but they often take centuries of
> struggle. God is in control of His Church, against which the gates
> of Hell will not prevail. This doesn't absolve us of
> responsibility, of course, but I think it allows us to exercise our
> responsibilities with some humility and perspective.
>

If there is a crisis it's in the American church and it's a crisis of
a failure to have humility and perspective. I am deliberately painting
in broad strokes here but please indulge my hyperbole to illustrate.
We don't listen:

1. To other bodies through a rejection of connectionalism, a.k.a
denominations
2. To history through the rejection of tradition
3. To nature through the rejection of science
4. To other nations through American exceptionalism
5. To outside experts or "elites" of any sort through crass populism
and anti-intellectualism

To be sure, this doesn't mean there is crisis in the Church Universal
but do we really want the American church to be named Ichabod (the
glory has departed)?

Rich Blinne
Member ASA

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Received on Sat Jan 3 11:06:47 2009