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David Armstrong's avatar

Very well-written! I’ll be linking this to a piece I have coming out on New Year’s re: Christian futures (from a bit more of a statistical perspective). Scattered thoughts in reply:

—Good to hear you’re a universalist. For what it’s worth: you’re pretty definitely not wrong! There just isn’t another answer that provides a fully satisfying and coherent read of the scriptural narrative / the God-world relationship / of the divine economy of redemption / of the theological value of our own reason and moral intuition.

—Re: the present state of sectarianism: while I think Rome is moving slower than the Protestant world on “radical ecumenism,” the one thing I will say for Peter’s barque is that once it gets fully turned around, it sails with great vim. The institutions of Catholicism, once they’ve fully embraced some of the ideas you list here (and I would say the Church is on its way that direction), will ultimately be more effective on the ecumenical front than some of the current grassroots activities. Or, they will be able to give new energy to those. However you prefer.

—Re: political philosophy: as I wrote recently, Christians have a bad track record here. But I think the world is currently facing a test that will force an answer from the church about how it wants to proceed in matters of politics. Liberalism isn’t perfect, and even has some really serious flaws. But is the proper response to that an evolution of something better from liberalism—liberalism as the floor—or some kind of nostalgic embrace of strong-man politics? The church has a prophetic opportunity. Here again, a shout-out to Rome: Synodality is a politics, which is why it is an ecclesiology.

—Re: enchantment/divine council things: I think accepting the notion of a cosmos that is alive and full of mind, and that might be full of all kinds of beings far beyond our ken and only dimly reflected in our traditional religions and spiritualities, is a step one. It’s basically just a corollary of the classical vision of who and what “God” is. The next step is to go not out but inward: I have to realize that all those things are in me, too, and to learn how to manage them there, like Adam in the Garden. Lewis, I think, had a grasp of this with his concept of the planetary gods: the real point is that there is a Joviality, a Martiality, a Saturninity, etc. which we all experience within, and so which can be symbolized by the external cosmos, etc.

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McKenzie Romero's avatar

Ooh, brother, preach! You're lighting me up here! This! This is what I have felt in my heart, too. I am with you all the way, Ant-Man!

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