Well-done, Neil. Very exciting. You look good over there.

Thank you, Jeremy, and for the inspiration to submit something, indirect though it was. See you at Meshuggah soon.

It is unkind to label people as "fundamentalists," "liberals,""conservatives," this or that. People are people, and may have unique point of view, maybe from may different schools of thought, activism or persuation, from time to time. Let us reduce divisive elements, and try to find in eachother that commonality, that makes us all units of the human race!

Welcome to the Cubisphere, you are know entitled to all the privileges and perks that come with being a Cube Head.

Ivor,
I take offense at you labeling me simply a person or simply part of the human race! I do not consider myself in those terms and I find your statement disingenuous as you yourself are trying to label me according to a category you think is proper and good (whatever that category may be), which is of course, divisive. I mean what is common to all humans? We breath, have blood, eat stuff, what? Simply by stating a position you are being divisive. Sorry, that's basic logic.
Besides, what you are proposing is not only disingenuous (though you may not realize it), but it is impossible, unless of course you think we should live in a vacuum?

Rob, I do not think that Ivor was trying to make that nuanced or provocative of a point, though perhaps he was and I should just let him speak for himself.

Neil,
Who can tell? There's my point from blog post :)

In a similar vein, my response is very much tongue and cheek (of course, I am not offended, though I did chuckle when I read Ivor's statement). My criticism still stands though: by making his point, he is actually arguing for a particular view, i.e. we shouldn't label people and instead look for common ground, which of course undermines his statement. By arguing for a particular position is in itself to be willing to accept particular labels, namely ones we think should be ok. Ivor can only be consistent with what he espouses if he says nothing at all and never says anything period (that way he never will make a judgement which is what statements do), but really to be totally free from it, he cannot think either.
I'm just having fun, please don't read me as being antagonistic for the sake of being antagonistic. Ask Lloyd, I tend to be a nice guy:)

By the way, I enjoyed reading the article!

A quote that might help you in your postmodernity comes from George Lindbeck in his book "The Nature of Doctrine : Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age":

Antifoundationalism [think about some of your postmodern/poststructuralist thought here], is not to be equated with irrationalism [or total relativism which is certainly one option postmodernity plays with]. The issue is not whether there are universal norms of reasonableness, but whether these can be formulated in some neutral, framework-independent language.

One can be postmodern and espouse that the proposition "Christ is Lord" is a universal statement [lest, we really don't believe he is Lord of the created universe] while accepting that because this is particular statement of a particular story, it cannot necessarily be argued universally as if it is a neutral statement everyone or anyone can comprehend, like say a Buddhist or even a postmodern. To repent of being a Fundamentalist or espousing the Enlightenment (both of which I have been repenting for some time now) does not cast us into relativism or nihilism. It means we understand that a particular language (like say the Church's) is not going to apprehended universally.

Again, I liked your article, well done.

Hey Brother,

Just to let you know, Rob is a nice guy. :)

LJ

I read your article with a lot of interest. I found it to be quite well done. I understood what you were talking about. More often than not we are told something, or given a piece of information, and we stop. We don't go any further and accept it as fact without actually thinking or praying about it. That is how a lot of bad theology has entered the church.