the friesen blog

David Benner  is one of my favorite authors when it comes to writing on Christian Spirituality.  As I blogged a while back, I am reminded of the value of questions and that our journey is more about questions then answers.  Listen to what Benner says in Sacred Companions: The Gift of Spiritual Friendship & Direction,

"If satisfaction has replaced longing and certainty has eliminated questions, a spiritual way station has supplanted a spiritual journey."

This idea has come up again and again lately.  In that dialogue on theology and philosophy that I attended recently I was struck at how fundamentalism has exploded in the wake of relativism.  I understand how follower's of Jesus can feel the need to 'return to the fundamentals of the faith' in a society that places such a huge emphasis on our own personal experience.  I would love to be able to give nice neat answers to my students and those in my church community, but I don't want to be known for living in my spiritual way station. 

You will now find a photo album on the sidebar.  At this point there are mostly pictures of friends and family.  We'll see what happens with it.

Hope you enjoy! 

Recently, I was able to attend a discussion between two philosophers and two theologians where they talked about how the two fields can interact with each other. 

First, let me say a giant thank-you to Jason Robinson for putting the conference together.  The dialogue between philosophy and theology is extremely important and Jason embodies, and participates in that discussion like few people I know. 

One of the philosophers who spoke was Gary Madison, Professor Emeritus, McMaster Univeristy.  He has written on phenomenology and hermeneutics, and was a student of Gadamer.  He gave a great challenge for theologians.  He warned us that theology can be the enemy of religion.  He shared with us that dogmatics in many ways divides more then it heals and unites.  He said that in an age of fundamentalism, dogmatics can be misused and abused.  But then he charged us to do theology but to just do it better. 

I think that theology can learn a great deal from phenomenology.  I do hope to be a student of phenomenological thought and to allow the dialogue to help shape my thoughts.  I think that if Christianity is going to have a voice in this world we need to continually rethink our hermeneutical assumptions.