I appreciate this very much, Tom. There are some nuggets to ponder and hold on to.
I found my mind want to flip your framework of three factors from coherence, meaning, and understanding to understanding, then meaning, then coherence. Or you might flip the last two. Clearly they overlap and influence each other. But it is deeply ingrained within me to seek first to understand. Then it begins to mean something, and then I can consider whether it coheres - with its own argument, with orthodoxy, or with my own evolving Jesus-and-Scripture-anchored habits and virtues, worldview and practices.
Those concepts have been hanging around in my head for so long. I’m pretty sure I put them alphabetically so I like your edit. I also like how you engaged with them in your own way of thinking. Very helpful.
Watch for the post on “lived religion” and see if it helps you better understand the ways in which people land in their corners. I’ve come to the place of seeing people create their reality and I try mightily to understand how they stitched it together.
I appreciate this very much, Tom. There are some nuggets to ponder and hold on to.
I found my mind want to flip your framework of three factors from coherence, meaning, and understanding to understanding, then meaning, then coherence. Or you might flip the last two. Clearly they overlap and influence each other. But it is deeply ingrained within me to seek first to understand. Then it begins to mean something, and then I can consider whether it coheres - with its own argument, with orthodoxy, or with my own evolving Jesus-and-Scripture-anchored habits and virtues, worldview and practices.
Those concepts have been hanging around in my head for so long. I’m pretty sure I put them alphabetically so I like your edit. I also like how you engaged with them in your own way of thinking. Very helpful.
Hey, Brother,
This is the best thing I’ve read that you wrote! Superb!
Unfortunately for us our current political, moral and spiritual moorings are detached.
We have been presented with polarized caricatures because they make good theater in the “WWE Octagon”.
In one corner we have insipid and in the other profane. In both corners inept, simplistic and mean.
Is it any wonder we get sick of it, but “bark up the wrong tree” for answers.
We look inward for “my truth” and find nothing but fairytales that not even we believe.
Every generation before us looked for truth outside of ourselves and found it in the God of Scripture.
May we do the same!
Watch for the post on “lived religion” and see if it helps you better understand the ways in which people land in their corners. I’ve come to the place of seeing people create their reality and I try mightily to understand how they stitched it together.