Thursday, October 18, 2007

Today I was privileged to be at a ‘town meeting’ in the Cannon Chapel at Emory University with President Jimmy Carter. He spoke engagingly of his faith, the struggles of his own denomination (Southern Baptist and Baptist Cooperative Fellowship), and the challenges of being faithful when he was President. The question that kept coming up in one way or another was the one about how to hold together when one party or other will not stay in the conversation. The question was never really answered and it continued to be on the minds of those students in contextual education who met afterwards. I tend to resort to the principles of Bowen Theory as expounded by Edwin Friedman. The goal is to define ourselves while finding ways to stay connected even when we are the only one striving to do that. This is not unlike the gospel itself in which God keeps holding out the invitation even when we ignore it or reject it.