Wednesday, July 27, 2011

The Corner I'm Turning

As the stories of my experience have unfolded on the very public forum of The Unconventional Way, I've been inundated with fabulous, messy, complicated, raw, and unanswerable public and private questions.  I'm humbled that you would dare to ask the questions that you're now asking and join you in a posture of curiosity with God, myself, and my local and global community.  My desire is that, together, we would continuously become the place where the thoughts, words, and actions of Jesus become real in the unique and complicated soil of today.  Further, my desire is that we would become formed along the way such that we can fully participate with God in becoming the answer to the questions we're asking and prayers we're praying.

Therefore, within the subsequent four posts, I humbly seek to think some thoughts in relation to the four recurring questions that you, the community who has tread into the deep waters of this blog, are asking.  I will attempt to keep these thoughts as focused as possible such that we can find ourselves in a helpful, solution-searching dialogue in the comment section below.

The 4 Questions:
Question 1:  What do we do with the Abrahamic Covenant (Genesis 12)?
Question 2:  What do we do with the Conquering God of the Hebrew Scriptures?
Question 3:  How might we think theologically about the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict?
Question 4:  What can I do?

Before navigating into these questions, I want to mention that the thoughts that will emerge below (or above as the case may be) are a result of hours of lecture, reading, dialogue, and reflection, mostly over shared meals with friends and mentors.  Together, we found ourselves trying to sort out the complexities of the God-Life in the midst of a complicated social location.

Guides, Facilitators, and Co-Conspirators:
Dr. Glen Stassen, Lewis B. Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics, Fuller Theological Seminary.
Dr. Mark Gopin, Director of George Mason University's Center on Religion, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution.
Dr. David Gushee, Distinguished Professor of Christian Ethics, Mercer University.
Dr. Salim Munayer, Israeli Palestinian and Founder of Musalaha
Dr. Naim Ateek, Israeli Palestinian, Liberation Theologian, and Founder of Sabeel
Shira Nesher, Israeli Jewish Facilitator
Fakhira Halloun, Israeli Palestinian Facilitator
Jon "Huck" Huckins, SoCal Co-Conspirator
Steve "Steve-O" Martin, Southeast Co-Conspirator
David "PB" Bridges, Texan Co-Conspirator
Christy Reiners, Co-Conspirator, West Bank-living Founder of In His Steps: Pathways of Peace.


I'm grateful beyond words for the contributions these eleven people made into my life in a very short period of time.


Now...into Question 1 we wade.

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