Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Anglican - Lutheran International Commission Communique; in what language are they working?

Some decent stuff at their recent meeting in Sweden, but you gotta hack through a bunch of church jargon to get at it. Bring a translator.

This reminds me of last week's report in The Telegraph, in which the Archbishop of Canterbury suggested that Philip Pullman and other non-Christian sources might be our best hope for asking life's big questions: "Theology has itself in some ways drifted out of the intellectual mainstream. On the whole theology doesn't figure."

Here's a bit from the Anglican - Lutheran report to that might explain why:

The life of the Christian Church has diaconal character, this commission believes. Using a diaconal lens has allowed the commission to examine issues of ecclesiology and ministry from fresh perspectives. Diakonia and koinonia (communion) are two faces of the same reality, two sides of the same coin on which God’s image is stamped. The commission believes that a renewed and full understanding of diakonia will strengthen the mission and unity of the Church at every level. God is now calling Anglicans and Lutherans to find concrete diaconal expressions for the growing communion between them.

Spellcheck stops me seven times in just that paragraph - and none of the flagged words are misspelled. They just aren't words that anybody uses enough to put in a program.

Yeah, I might take an atheist with good prose over that. Heck, believers used to have some pretty good stories this one guy told.

In case you hunger for more mixed metaphors (lens = coin = concrete?) and exotic vocabulary, the Commission's next meeting will be in Columbus, Ohio in April of 2010.

No comments: