Sacred Roots Workshop

36 Sacred Roots Workshop: Retr ieving the Great Tradi t ion in the Contemporary Church

appropriately, must take the form of a sustained engagement with the story rather than merely an engagement with the Church’s propositional responses to the story. And, since we come to know by indwelling rather than in detachment, Christian theology appro- priately attempted will take the form of an indwelling of this story, being drawn into its dramas, identifying with its characterizations, tracing the movements of its plot. And since appropriate knowledge should be appropriate to its specific object, and since God is the object (or rather the irreducible subject) of theology, this engagement with the gospel story which is the appropriate form of Christian theology is appropriately worshipful and prayerful. And it is precisely this manner of worshipful and prayerful indwelling that is enabled by the liturgy of the Christian Year.

~ John E. Colwell. The Rhythm of Doctrine . Colorado Springs, CO: Paternoster, 2007. p. 7.

A. Confused claims, strange spokespersons, weird alternatives (cf. Don Allsman: Jesus Cropped from the Picture )

1. Enculturated evangelicalism: crisis in the pulpit and pew

2. Distortions, reductions, and eclipsing of the foundations and the roots

3. Lazy Susan selections: Traditional, Pragmatic, Emergent methods of dealing with culture and spirituality

4. SLIM versus EPIC approaches

5. A new identity, a different agenda: recovering our Sacred Roots

B. Six intractable problems of Evangelicalism in western culture, and the challenge to contemporary evangelical faith

1. Reductionistic faith : ignoring the biblical, canonical story of God’s saving work in Christ