Thursday, September 17, 2009

oh, darn...

by Larry Beane

Look what I'm going to have to miss. I'll be going here instead.

So, instead of going to Minneapolis for a hip and exciting "progressive" conference put on by 21 women clerics with such exciting topics as (all presented in über-hip lower case letters - even when the names "God" and "Jesus" are used...):
  • treating women jesus-style
  • the boundary-breaking god of hope and promise
  • jesus' body is hot again
  • praying in color - doodling redefined
  • missional, emergent, monastic, methodist, newday
  • coming out of all closets
  • HUMBITIOUS [an exception to the all lowercase rule...] - women & ambition, power, humility
  • doubt is the new faith
and...
... I will be forced to miss out, instead spending time with all-male "blackshirt" Lutheran clergy in Downtown Metropolitan Kewanee for bratwurst, beer, and a discussion of Lutheran liturgy!

Can you just imagine?

The topics for discussion will have nothing to do with women, the hotness of jesus' [sic] body, coming out of the closet, nor anything to do with orificia (regardless of what some people say about "The Gottesdienst Crowd!(tm))." And I do believe the plan will be to make full use of the uppercase letters - especially when it comes to the initial letter of the divine names (how "establishment" and "reactionary" can you get?). The theme is: "Not a Matter of Indifferent Things" and the questions under discussion are:
  • So what's negotiable and what isn't, in worship?
  • Nothing is an adiaphoron in a state of confession: meaning what, exactly?
  • Is Gottesdienst adiaphora? Of course not, but why not?
So, the choice is yours, dear readers. I'm afraid I'm locked in. Oh the indignity! ;-)

2 comments:

  1. You're gonna be talking about the liturgy when you could be taking Yoga classes? Where are your priorities?!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sigh.

    I promised myself that I wouldn't click on anymore links in Fr. Beane's articles about the 'mergent church; they only make me sad.

    But click I did above and found this from one of the presenters - the scare quotes are hers, and ever so appropriate. Lord have mercy.

    "Seth is sitting in a coffee shop in Denver, CO presently wondering how she's going to come out to her queer friends about the fact that she is presenting at a "christian" conference in October. Other things she's thinking about today: how she's tired of deriving identity from the two dozen social justice organizations she works with/for; why her 362nd attempt to leave "the church" in the last decade of her life has failed again;"

    +HRC

    ReplyDelete

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