Comments on: A tale of two kingdoms: 3 Domains

By: Helen

Helen — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 22:08:18 +0000

Oh, I see Jason beat me to it…but now I’ve done it twice!

(Sorry Jase, I couldn’t resist :-))

By: Helen

Helen — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 22:07:20 +0000

Yes, I agree…and I’m trying out the threaded comments to see how that works…

By: Jason

Jason — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 16:56:06 +0000

Thanks you, JD (http://buttondowndesign.com/) has done a superb job on the site

By: Christian

Christian — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 16:53:15 +0000

Jason, like the new layout – much clearer than the previous one :-
)

By: Jason Clark

Jason Clark — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 15:38:33 +0000

Hi Tom, thanks for listing antecedent for the diagram, and for the suggestions, very helpful.

By: Tom Allen

Tom Allen — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 15:20:41 +0000

Venn diagrams have been used for many years for models of mission.When I worked for CMS in the late 1970s this same model was used as the main mission education tool – but it was flawed becuase it actually re-nforces the duality which you seek to avoid – namely you have mixed human activity ie church and world with divine activity and end up with God in seperate circle. A more helpful model for a missional understanding is for God to be a God circle which surrounds the three circles (symbolising God is who creator and ever present) and then replace you first (God) circle with “personal faith”. I emphasise that this does not need to be a narrowly defined (have you been saved etc), but more broadly says something about whether live lives which involve may personal prayer and an experience of the divine in everyday live
Your number system then works much better as an explanation -so for example people in category 2 rarely “deny God” as such they just don’t realise (live life) in the light of a personal experience of God and therefore exclude circle one. Hope this helps. Tom

By: brodie

brodie — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 13:25:37 +0000

Jason – my tentative thoughts teasing out the interplay between mission and ecclesiology have now been posted.

By: Jason

Jason — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 12:09:10 +0000

Graham (28): great metaphor for clergy :-) Consumer culture seems to separate out any value and meaning from our beliefs, and makes them meaningless, and consumable.

Not sure what’s up with the posting clock everything is ok here :-)

Brodie (29): Looking forward to that, do post a link here.

By: brodie

brodie — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 10:28:45 +0000

Jason – How do I see the interplay working? Hmmm..I think the answer to that would be too long to put in a comment, so I’ll try and post something on it early next week and let you know in the comments here so you can read my thoughts.

By: Graham Stacey

Graham Stacey — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 10:21:48 +0000

Jason [27]: Of course [I say kicking myself] for this is exactly what culture is understood as “the way I [in the context of a we] understand life”. Martyn Percy has a very intersting approach when writing about clergy in his recent Clergy: The Origin of the Species. He uses a metaphor of evolution and creationism to help see how clerical identity has been the product of cultural movements. In contrast to a creationist approach which essentially sees priesthood instituted in biblical times and unchanged since then.

Beliefs and values, likewise, are as much a product of our culture, i.e. the one we inhabit and can’t escape, as there are a challenge to it. Charting the doctrine of penal substitution over the last 400 years is a good example of belief and understanding being a victim of wider cultural movement. Something I imagine I will get into when my research gets under way.

What then does this say in the context of the original post: I think the circles are too mutually dependant on each other for us to be able to meaningfully separate them.

BTW: I think your posting clock is wrong unless you have actually developed some kind of time wrapping device?!