[emergent evolution]: New Bill Bean Blog

[emergent evolution]: New Bill Bean Blog

New Bill Bean Blog

Recently discovered this old site. Bill Bean's blog is now at www.whatbillthinks.com.
Bill Bean on Twitter and for those in the Hoosier State, check out Bill Bean on Smaller Indiana.

Faith Forward

i will be at the "faith forward forum" in cali at the end of jan - spencer burke and i will be hosting the faith cafe and offering some very cool ops for some very open and expressive dialog - i hope to see some old friends and make some new ones :)

new dictionary

ginworld.net and songevolution.com have joined forces [as powerless as that is :) ] to form a new "wiki" based project called "ginktionary" [untill a better name is selected - and all ideas are welcome] - here is how it works, or is supose to work:

ginktionary is an open dictionary of emerging terms - we are looking for people to write definations to terms that are meaningful to the emerging church. sure, we have wikpedia and it's a great thing - this is just like that, except for terms that are used in the emerging.

being that it is new, just launched today, we still have some tweeking to do - but come on by and add definations, ideas and expressions. at ginkworld, and at songevolution, we believe that all people should have an active voice in the emerging. here is a way of getting your voice heard, and your views expressed - free, open and real.

pax
john o'keefe - ginkworld
stephen miracle - songevolution

a video look

here is a video look at what we are doing at 247connection. i like the way they put it together, but i think the sound could be better and the pictures make me look fat :) but other than that, i love this slice - it's from the charlotte observer, and they will be putting out a paper story this sunday in the "catawba county section" - very cool stuff

here is the link

a fallen world?

Here is the problem I have with the idea of a "fallen world” [a “fallen humanity”]; it does not express the reality God, it can't. It can only express evil. In that, the reality of evil, because it is evil, can not express the reality of God. If the world is fallen, then the 15yr old I saw give her food to a homeless man did it for some other reason than to share her food with someone in need. if the world is fallen, then the 90yr old women taking in aids babies is doing it for more than the love of the child and the care of those in need. If the world is fallen, we must have an alternative reason, or desire, for helping people other than helping people. If the world is fallen, God can not be in the world, because [as traditional theology teaches] God can not be in the fallen/evil.

If we live in a fallen world, and we are never “outside” that world, "redemption" can only truly happen after this world - and with that thought, "the kingdom of God" can not be "here and now" - and I believe that the kingdom of God is here and now. When we think of a "fallen world" we can not express the salvation offered in Christ, because we always turn back to the fall and not the resurrection. We are stuck in the words and reality of “the fallen” and are unable to speak the words of salvation. I can not live in the fall, it is too negative, and I need to life in the resurrection, the light of Christ; and it is a place where [as Paul puts it] I “moved out from.”

When ever I hear terms like "original sin," “fallen humanity” and "the fallen world" it is seldom accompanied with the idea that salvation is here, now - but that it comes at another time. No matter the statements, when we start with the fall we never pick ourselves up, we are “always fallen.” We always see the worse in people and we never see the possibility that Christianity can truly change a life. When we center our theology on “the fallen world” we find the drug addicts, the prostitutes, the criminal, and the “ugly” and we never see in them the possibility of salvation. We seek to punish those who do wrong, and justify that punishment via law, and we never see the power and love of grace. We do not move forward in Christ, because we use the excuse of being a fallen people to hold us back. We think in terms of what we can not do, because of the fall, and not on what we can do because of the resurrection.

I firmly believe we need to get past this idea of a "fallen world" and move to the idea that we are a people living in a new land, a land of Christ. I see it all the time in talking with those who have "come from church." When questioned as to why the church hurts its own, we are told that we do not move forward in out faith, because we are fallen; people in church treat you poorly, because we are fallen; people in the church talk and gossip, because we are fallen - yet, all those are not what we are told to be in scripture. When I hear "we are fallen" from church people, I wonder if they truly understand the Christian walk. Yet, in that the misguided theology of the fall, we forget that as a believer in Christ, we are made new, and in that we must act anew – not fallen, but resurrected.

marry christmas

marry christmas

[at least in my time zone]

some questions:

over at our ginkworld blog i answer a question given to me by a friend on the postmodern theology egroup - but this has lead me to sme other questions i think i will ask over at the ginkworld message board. and it seems, some tentions we need to work out in the emerging.

are we called to do anything as a follower of christ? let that one run your processor for a while as you read some of the other questions.

are we to do more the "care" for the hurting? this one seems to be less in your face, but it still needs to be worked on.

are we called to sit on our collective ass and do nothing? this one seems to bring out the most debate - because i think the word "ass" in in the question and christians freak out when words like "ass" are used.

how should we balance the idea of "giving" money to a ministry, and actually giving our our time to the ministry? this one assumes that, like most good evangelcial churches people are taught that the ones who give the money get a special deal from God to not have to do anything.

i think that we need to truly to go past the evangelical theology some seem to be raised on [i love not having a church background, i dont carry all the garbage others seem to carry]. i am not suggesting we "change evangelical theology" - but what i think i desire is that we start, in an open process, develop a "emerging theology" which is always in process.

for me, and i think for many, our faith is one that requires we do stuff - and if as a collective people we actually got togther and did things we could truly change the world.