The Conversation about ID Continues
Fr. Mike and I are off teaching today and Keith will be out of town for the weekend, but the buzz about our blog, the Institute, and the whole concept of "Intentional Discipleship" continues to fly about St. Blogs.
Amy Welborn (Jan 25) Disputations (scroll down to Jan 24) Commonweal (where it all started with Peter Nixon's post about us, scroll down to January 23) and now Catholic Sensibility, There are other small conversations at other blogs as well. As I wrote on
Catholic Sensibility just now:
We have been quite startled by all the attention because the two things that make us stand out:
1) confounding conservative-liberal categories;
2) insisting on talking about about things that Catholics on both the right and left don’t talk about - like discipleship and formation and gifts and vocational discernment for all the baptized
have been the hallmarks of the Institute for the past 10 years.
St. Blog’s has just noticed.
So join in the conversation. I'll check back in tonight.
posted by Sherry W @ 8:00 AM
6 Comments
6 Comments:
Sherry:
I think the reason neither "liberal" nor "conservative" Catholics talk about the things that you (quite rightly) talk about is that most tend to assume that such talk is really code for something else.
Thus, when liberals hear "formation" and "discipleship," they suspect an attempt to impose orthodoxy; when conservatives hear "gifts" and "vocational discernment," they suspect the clericalization of the laity and a rumbling for the ordination of women or married men. Polarization entrenches prejudice. Even as you advocate the revival of charism within the framework of the Church as now constituted, the liberals fear the latter and the conservatives fear the former.
It can get awfully frustrating, I know. I just wish I could actually spend most of my time doing the sort of thing you do. Example is the best teacher.
Best,
Mike
A few things.
First, the church needs some "confoundation" of expectations, probably on all sides.
Second, I thought C&G was more of a progressive operation because the lingo is very much what one hears from liberals.
"Formation" is recognized among progressives as a successor to the notion of education (or indoctrination) in the sense of guiding people to be able to live a committed Christian life.
"Discipleship" doesn't really faze more or other liberals--it's what we wish our parishes were more steeped in.
I have to say I've not been following the Commonweal thread in detail. After the first few posts I yawned and thought I didn't want to get in the middle of it there.
The notion of "intentional" community has been flying around liberal Catholicism for a few decades now. One reason why I found/find the ID material so interesting is that it seems to have shed much of the b.s. from the more hackneyed representations I've seen in some liberal circles.
Well given all the publicity I rather inadvertently generated for y'all, I'd say one of you owes me a cup of coffee the next time you're in the Bay Area...:-)
Peter, we would love to get together and we'll buy the coffee.
I'm not scheduled to be in the Bay area again (I was just there last week doing a specialized workshop for the seminarians of St. Patrick's) for the foreseeable future but Fr. Mike is on the Provincial council and has to go to meetings on a quarterly basis. I'll have him try to set something up with you when he knows when the next meeting is schedule.
We'd love to get to know you better.
Todd:
In our case, we didn't shed the bs, we never knew it.
If it's common lingo around liberal circles, then why the intense negative reaction to the term?
And to the very idea:
*Recently, I was brought in to do a consultation on forming disciples in a liberal Catholic educational establishment that I won't name.
Very quickly, they realized I was not "one of them" and after that I was treated as "one of those". When finally I asked if what really united was us was following Christ, the sudden and complete silence that fell upon the room was very telling.
Apparently whatever they meant by discipleship, they didn't mean something so openly "pietistic" and baldy stated.
Sherry, interesting. Your experience, sadly, does not surprise me. The most difficult church experience I had was two years of working with a liberal campus ministry. They just weren't ready to have their assumptions challenged. Even when those same assumptions didn't work.
Keep up the good work.
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