I’ll keep this one pretty short. I’m taking Church History this term, and I’m currently reading through Eusebius‘ Ecclesiastical History. This is the major source for post-biblical Church history, and it contains many fascinating accounts of miraculous intervention in the early church.
As I read, I realized that I wasn’t believing (hardly) a word of it. My historical-critical skepticism was going full steam, and I looked with incredulity on the alien-ness of the world and church portrayed in this text.
And then it hit me. The Bible is just the same. It too is alien to me, but I have been inducted into a tradition that helps me to interpret the Bible as being familiar, like and near, rather than the unfamiliar, other and distant work that it really is.
The Bible really portrays an alien world and an alien people. Maybe we should stop trying so hard to domesticate it and start hearing it (and possibly God!) in all of its other-ness.
2 responses to “Christian Aliens”
It always awes me when threads get started on different blogs. Makes me wonder what the Spirit is up to.
Check out this post from Open Source Theology:
http://www.opensourcetheology.net/node/1296
Thanks for the link Kathy, truly interesting. As I looked further, the post at OST that gave rise to the link you gave is called Strange but true: the irrelevance of Scripture for the church today.
Indeed, he says the same thing as me, only longer and smarter. :)