September 28, 2013
This first week of class has opened
my mind to a whole new way of thinking about my beliefs and my theology. I've
realized very quickly how much my labeling or naming of some of the aspects of
my own belief system are incorrect, or maybe more accurately too generalized,
and that the way that I use many theological terms is done in ways that leave
their meaning vague, or assumptive of a particular interpretation. Stone and
Duke say that theological reflection involves interpreting the meaning of
Christian faith (reading from page 27), correlating those interpretations with
other interpretations, and assessing the adequacy of the interpretations and
the correlations. For me a part of this week’s awakening has been noticing a
still lingering embedded personal theology viewed as ‘the’ theology, and opening
up to the worldview that my personal theological belief system is indeed just one
of those interpretations; an interpretation, certainly not the interpretation. Ouch!
What I want to know and learn is
how to balance this need to hold a personal worldview/perspective and balance
it with the collegial respect for other belief systems and other people's
understanding of God in a more skilled and professional manner.
In class Dr. Tom expressed an
insight that caught my attention: he stated that (using my words here) the similarity of
religions is that they are all asking the same questions; not that they all have
the same or similar answers. This
brought to mind a quote that I have used many times to express the similarity
of religions: "all rivers run to the sea". And then I said to myself ….. Really? You've been saying that quote for years now,
but is it really true? It may be true in
that all seekers who follow a spiritual path consistently and diligently would
reach the same essence conclusions of a path of faith (conclusions such as: the
importance of loving one another and loving a higher being, however named). But
now, with this new insight, I will have to narrow my use and understanding of
this quote, and not use it in reference to the various religions themselves. It was kind of like a Saturday Night Live
moment, wherein in the ‘Weekend News’ segment, they sometimes do a mini-segment
titled, "Really???" about a particular controversial topic of the
week.
I currently find myself leaning to
what I would currently name as fundamental Unity theology, rather than what may
be generalized as new age Unity, but I must allow that this process of learning
to think critically and reflect theologically may certainly change my
perspective and viewpoint. Actually, it would seem to be almost guaranteed??
I remember years ago when I was in
the jewelry business, and I had my own personal style preference, that of
contemporary elegant jewelry, and I really was not interested in much more than
that. But through the necessity of operating
a successful business, and through the coaching of my former mother-in-law who
in her late 40s had returned to finish her college work and earned an both a BFA
and an MFA, I learned to very much broaden my appreciation of various jewelry
styles and heritages and designs, with the result that I achieved a greater
overall appreciation and understanding of the history of jewelry, and how to
apply that to my work in my business. Looks
like were headed that way again in my new work as a minister.
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