A Felicitous Journey
Part two of our 6-part blog series over at the re-church blog has been up for a couple of days and the conversation has begun. This week’s essay is written by Samir Selmanovic, founder of Faith House Manhattan and the author of the forthcoming Jossey-Bass book, It’s Really All About God.
I’d love to have you head over there and check it out. Especially those of you who have been reading along with us and know the subject of the chapter, your comments are especially helpful. I think Samir has posed some vitally important questions for us to consider, especially as pastors and Christian leaders in our world today. Here is an excerpt to whet your appetite.
I ask myself, why would I then take up this journey of
deconstruction? Why not turn the tools of deconstruction against itself
(deconstruct the deconstruction) and settle for something of substance?
Life is short. I want to die in one piece, constructed and whole, with
my family and friends around me, also constructed and whole. And my
hope within me, also constructed and whole.
Think of it. He describes people on this journey as “people who
crash-landed,” “frightened by the mysterious” and always partially
“lost.” We are supposed to live under “hauntological principle?” We are
invited to embrace “contingency” on a journey that has “teeth” and
“bite,” a path seeded with “interrupted passages and missteps,” maps
with “multiple tracks” and “counterpaths” on every turn. And to live in
the world where other people are “shores we will never reach!” He calls
this place, our very own lives (yes Christian lives too) “very spooky.”
He brings ghost back into the Holy Ghost. He summarizes the situation
we find ourselves in as the “postmodern condition.” It does not sound
like a journey or a path to me. It sounds like a chronic disease.
Read the whole thing here.
