The Christian Church needs to engage with the question: “In what ways did Jesus rely on the contemporary orthodox, traditional Jewish teaching and doctrine contained in the Hebrew scriptures and worship and in what ways did he challenge them?” More importantly, it needs to understand what “life in all its fullness” means in reality for every human being and learn how to live and communicate this transformational truth.
A friend suggested that I am daring to believe and trying to articulate is that something unarticulated is lying out there which, when named, will generate a widespread response. To put it out there as I am gradually trying to do is an act of faith. Getting it out there in a way that attracts maximum attention is the only way to find out if the Spirit is moving in the way I and some of my friends think she should.
In an article in last Saturday’s Guardian, Ben Okri describes how he has found it necessary to develop an attitude that he refers to as existential creativity. Okri believes we have to be strong dreamers asking unthinkable questions. Our whys ought to go to the core of what we are. Then we ought to set about remaking ourselves. The Archbishops of the Church of England claim to believe a radical (brave) new Christian inclusion is called for. For this to become a reality we, too, need to be strong dreamers asking unthinkable questions going to the core of what and who we are as people of God, called to set about remaking ourselves in the image of Jesus the Christ.
