Geoffrey Holsclaw

Other resources: anglobaptist and scandal of particularity’s recent sermons (thanks to anglo for the link) and theopraxis’ continuing thoughts are all very helpful and challenging for this discussion-they’re keeping it practical. now, just a this blog is called “for the time being”, hold all these ideas and formulations provisionally, always ready to learn and grow. […]

community, individualism, and worship. This week i’m been trying to think through issues of community, individualism, and worship by replacing the typical pairing of community/individual with community/worship. After a couple rounds in the comments anglobaptist posed this question… “I think we ask for liturgy to do too much. I really do. So, I am struggling […]

How baffling youare, oh Church, and yet how I love you! How you have made me suffer, and yet how much I owe you! I should like to see you destroyed, and yet I need your presence. You have given me so much scandal and yet you have made me understand sanctity. I have seen […]

the subversion of community: Psalm 15. Communities become places to fix individuals (such that the community exists so the needs of individuals can be met) or the goals of the community replaces the individual (such that the individual must denied her desires/needs). These are the typical poles of community/individual. But as I said before, the […]

Community is like the sun. The more we stare at it the less we see. Or rather, community is like Happiness, which if pursued outright always escapes us, leaving a narcissistic void (much like most discusions of worship seem to miss the essence). Rather than a direct apprehesion or formation of community, we must think […]

the simulacra of community: the gathering of individuals. where is community? What does it look like? too often our search for community ends in a cheap simulation, a simulacra, and the church is most complicit in this illusion. Churches aren’t called “Church” anymore; they’re called “communities” of Christ, faith, friendship, whatever you want. Yet rarely […]

imagination and insanity: allow me several brilliant quotes from the first chapter of Chesterton’s Orthodoxy as I move on to my point. “These is a notion adrift everywhere that imagination, especially mystical imagination , is dangerous to man’s mental balance… (but) imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason…Poetry is sane […]

The Revolution of God’s Death, II. Last night, with several friends over, we again discussed mel gibson’s “the passion of the Christ”, particularly its vivid depiction of Jesus’ suffering. It promoted the only one among us to have seen it to rethink this theology of suffering (or lack of) in light of this filmic depiction. […]

The State of Emergency Called Love by Slavoj Zizek from lacanian ink. […] Chesterton is fully aware that it is not enough for God to separate man from Himself so that mankind will love Him–this separation HAS to be reflected back into God Himself, so that God is abandoned BY HIMSELF: “When the world shook […]

Postmodern Primer: I agree in general with Grenz’s summary of the postmodern ethos. In the first chapter is a brief outline of the book: references Enlightenment/Modernity, then the shift to Postmodernity, and ending with a brief exhortation to Evangelicals not to be the last defenders of modernity. His brief references to Derrida, Foucault, and Rorty […]