Thursday, March 05, 2009

practical theology for the liquid church

Last week I blogged about our images of church: as supermarket provider of product or as retailer of seeds. I noted practical ways that Opawa was framing itself as a provider of spiritual resources- through courses and takeaways and internet resources.

Today I picked up Participation And Mediation: A Practical Theology for the Liquid Church. He is wrestling “intellectually” (albiet with some nice earthed stories about the culture industry around Shine Jesus Shine, Hillsong and Taize) with the same issue.

“The mediation of theological expression in popular culture represents a vital and missiological challenge. How can theological capital and the Christian habitus be developed in this context of an extended ecclesial life? This is a complicated issue and will require further reflection that lies beyond the framework of this book. What seems clear is that the mediation of the divine life that has allowed the Christian community to extend and make more fluid its ecclesial being, suggests that such an enterprise may be possible. The clue to the way forward lies in the freedom of God to be present both in the Church and beyond it through participation and mediation. So like a light beckoning us forward the Spirit is inviting us to find a way to ‘go with the flow’ of the liquid church.”

Posted by steve at 03:29 PM

2 Comments

  1. Would be interested in your overall reading of the book, i.e. worth a read? I flicked through a copy the other day, but it’s very expensive… so would have to be very useful to offset the price…

    Comment by Paul Fromont — March 5, 2009 @ 3:59 pm

  2. just browsed it paul. at this stage, it’ s more of a prolegomena, trying to clear the space for the work to actually happen. i’d keep my $ esp given price of kiwi dollar at moment,

    steve

    Comment by steve — March 6, 2009 @ 2:25 pm

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