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The Will to Action: Deconstruction and Reconstruction in Church
Why is the Emerging Church drawn to de-constructive theology?
I am at the early stages of my Ph.D research and my thoughts are those of the theological/philosophical neophyte, trying to see the ‘wood for the trees’, so please excuse my crude conclusion and suggestions. I’ll approach this topic from two perspectives, in terms of ‘best’ and ‘worst’.
If deconstructive theology teaches us anything it’s that our new theologies, and concomitant ecclesiologies will embody some wonderful new things, as well as drifting into some dire productions (which in any event locates the emerging church in the continuing nature of the historical church).
‘At it’s Best’
De-constructive theology enables us to be open to the ‘other’, and to take a position of epistemic humility. Whilst deconstructive philosophy has enabled us to unmask the a priori commitments of the church to modernity, theologians like John Milbank (in a non nihilistic and non Heideggerian/Nietzschean way) have so ably shown and unmasked the a priori commitments of secularism to liberal protestant ideals.
Christians are called to search for others not like us, not in aggression (as that destroys our openness and theirs to us) but so that we might hear and assess ourselves in light of others and they may in turn learn from us. This is so unlike pluralism, where consensus is the goal, or as in exclusivism with the crushing of the other into submission.
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welcome
Welcome to Deep Church. We hope to bring you shortly a number of guest authors, from a variety of perspectives to kick off the conversation on Deep Church.
In the meantime if you haven’t checked out the book, ‘Remembering our future - explorations in Deep Church,’ I can recomend it to you as a great book to begin exploring with.
