Emerging Africa

I don't know if you have experienced this, but I'm experiencing it more and more. I get into conversations about theological stuff, usually sort of dogmatic stuff, and usually conversations where concepts like Sin, Hell, Heaven, Grace, Faith, are used. And suddenly I get the feeling that I'm at a distinct disadvantage.

This may sound very bad, like it's some kind of argument, or even worse, some kind of competition. Usually it's not anything of the sort. It's just that we have all these concepts that is simply assumed in our church circles. If you are comfortable with these concepts you have a whole system of theological thinking sorted out for yourself. If not, you have very little. I get into these conversations, and simply can't seem to express myself, because I'm not always comfortable with the traditional ways in which we used these concepts, but I don't have a nicely worked out alternative yet.

I like the principle of deconstruction, but to deconstruct, and really reconstruct these concepts in a responsible way is not that easy. Especially in this Protestant culture where we have these 500 year old/long tradition of how to understand these concepts. I won't claim to have it all figured out, maybe you have some ideas on how to understand it. Bottom line. When I look back at these conversations I realise that it must have looked like I really have the worse case. I mean, I didn't have it all worked out, didn't have a nice thesis or anything. I only had a hunch that there might be some different way of understanding it.

Scot McKnight quotes Wikipedia saying "The emerging church is concerned with the deconstruction and reconstruction of Protestant Christianity in a postmodern cultural context." And I guess you don't start deconstruction because you know what the reconstructed concept would look like. You simply have a hunch that there might be something more, and then start out on this road, and the implication is that your system of thought might not look that perfect all the time.

Maybe you understand my experiences, maybe I'm unique in experiancing it this way...