Week 1 – Reponse to Emmet B

I enjoyed looking at Emmet’s blog posts for this week. He made some interesting remarks regarding both what we read this week and what we discussed in class. This comment, in particular, got me thinking: “It’s unfortunate that the the Church, in a culturally and personally relevant sense, had to stagnate in order for this transition to start taking place.” I think Emmet is right: the church has lost much of its relevance in our society. But at the same time, I was struck by the word “stagnate.” Yes, the church has of late become less relevant to certain subcultures of society. But I wonder if sometimes we (myself included) are so eager to attack this failure that we fail to fully appreciate the power of this thing we call “the church.” It is dynamic and diverse, and I think we do ourselves a disservice when we discount the successes of the historical and present church. Particularly in the seminary setting, it is very easy to get caught up in dissecting what ought to change in the church (to the neglect of its successes) and thereby stumble into a cynical progressivism that disregards the validity of the traditions to which today’s church is indebted.