Theology is done best not as logic, but as doxologyIt struck me sometime last year after decades of knowing the creeds that they should be regarded as praise more than political rhetoric or violent syllogism.
Bruggemann (Israel's Praise, Doxology against Idolatry and Ideology) sees the potential for manipulation in praise without reason, --- but what polity does not manipulate a disorderly people to stop them from breaking the bonds of civility? The truth of a religion does not rest in its ability to engage the mindless mob. The mobilized mindful may rather rest in that light that 'cannot be possessed' (See Jim Gordon's recent posts).
So what can we do with the mindless and with the extortioner? What is there to say about disorder that has nothing to praise? Disorder - that would be the mindless. And how (occupy anybody) do we really engage those who want to steal rather than create wealth, the gamblers, fixers, and hedgers?
In some 60 years of liturgical practice, what says to my own rebellious mind that there is something worthy of praise? And what prevents me from manipulation that would benefit me first? Why do I search for logic - theologic?
It is that God in Christ and in those in Christ, an endless recursion, give me reason to not put me first except to participate in the First-born. I am bound in fetters of iron (Psalm 149). My freedom is not measured by my own attempts to free myself from obligation and responsibility (Psalm 2). The one who said 'must I not drink the cup ...' has invited me also to drink (Psalm 75). This is as Jim writes 'the wild untamed beauty of a Love utterly beyond our words, radiant with life and light, made accessible only by the condescension of the Triune God who in love became incarnate, enfolding and embracing humanity and createdness.'
And here's another good morning to you from Liturgy - a prayer by Lewis and this from Augustine:
We are talking about God. What wonder is it that you do not understand? If you do understand, then it is not God.
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