Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Your way of life matters

On Pentecostal terms, the life of piety is the essential and orienting grounding for one's work of theological reflection. This way of putting the matter may sound altogether too pietistic for some, but early Pentecostals were explicitly disposed to consider the theological effort as necessarily dependent upon something greater than intellectual prowess and creativity. There was something vitally at stake for them in assessing and taking into account a person's Spirit-imbued power and anointing before moving on to evaluate his or her theological proposals. The theologian, in other words, had to be located within a broader context and reality, one in which spiritual matters were front and center.—Pentecostalism as a Christian Mystical Tradition, pages 20–21

<idle musing>
Amen and amen! That's why Barth's theology, as interesting and provocative as it is, doesn't pass the scratch and sniff test. Anyone who can justify having their mistress move into the family dwelling and live with them has a serious issue. It will affect their theology in ways that aren't immediately obvious, but are foundational.
</idle musing>

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