approaching hope
Image via Wikipedia As demonstrated by my recent post on embracing the world as it is, there are different ways to live into the tension of our sin sick state.
This is how Richard Rohr looks at it
Greatness emerges when, above all else, people are confident. When we believe—together—that life is good, God is good and humanity is good, we become very safe and salutary people for others.
We do exciting and imaginative things because we are confident that we are a part of a story line that is going somewhere and we want to be connected to something good.
from Hope Against Darkness
An important note to insert at this point is that “original sin” theology and the way one views “the fall” are going to strongly come into play when one approaches the world in its current state.
One’s views on eschatology also play heavily into this.
One of the actions that has given me hope for my own Christian faith in the midst of a lot of disillusionment and frustration over the past 5 years has been studying Christian doctrine/dogma through different lenses, the 3 in particular that have helped me are Eastern Orthodoxy/Roman Catholocism, Liberation theology (South American and African/African American in particular) and Anabaptist thought.
When I freed myself to question the absolutism of original sin, wrath-filled substitutionary atonement, dispensationalist, pre trib rapture theology of my youth, I discovered the many other facets and ways of thinking about these issues.
The hope communicated here by Rohr is a very Eastern Orthodox view. I have no idea if it’s classically Roman Catholic or not but it’s definitely Eastern … interestingly, it’s also very reminiscint of the Buddhist approach that I talked about here.
Current mantra:
Where there is despair, let me bring hope
*just so I don’t get any concerned emails from well meaning friends and/or family, I’m not becoming a Buddhist hehe
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I so needed to hear this today. Thank you for reminding me of St. Francis of Assisi’s prayer.
There is so much freedom when we can listen to other ‘tribes’ within Christianity.
Oh, my! I’m so glad to have happened upon your blog. I saw the line about Richard Rohr pop up on my blognetwork newsflash and clicked on, and here you are writing about Rohr and getting rid of substitutionary/atonement theology, which is precisely what I’m writing about and thinking about today (if you’re intersted, my post is here http://musings-musings-musings.blogspot.com/2008/08/atonement-incarnation-and-despair-of.html). And the post on zen…really interesting. A wise person suggested to me this morning as I was talking about my struggles with a God who allows evil this concept of “radical acceptance,” which comes from Buddhist philosophy and is very similar to the post you linked to. Wow. I’ll be back to browse some more. Thanks!
Mak, interesting , very interesting, and I’m glad you’re seeing this different paradigm. So my musings come from two angles that I’d like to contribute and I think both of them has a thread on suffering/world problems, which is embedded in your recent two posts..
First, early(70’s) in my marriage, to an American from the South may I add, our pastor here in St. Louis, during one of my wife’s counseling/mentoring sessions with him, he said, with hesitancy and caution, something about the fact that Americans do no know how to suffer specially like the eastern Europeans.
Secondly, my parents were from Bieloruss and left just before the second war and imigrated to Brazil where I was born. Implied in this is that from my paradignm, a troubled world has been an integral part of my family life and mine where most Americans would say/considered we have been exposed/experienced suffering. Maybe wee have, howeverr my pooint is that for those who know me, I have a verry positive outlook to life; is it because the cultural/eastern theological background? I think it has a lot to do with it.
And yes, it is safe to say that for americans, to suffer is a big abnormality, which sadly hampers their ability to live life…
Sorry, if I rambled…
welcome muser
Carlos, you didn’t ramble at all