Last Night at Pub Theology

Slade, Matt the Pirate and Mary the Goth Theologian, James (who had the ultimate statement on entropic spirituality for the evening), Mary the posh bathroom model/salesperson, Tom the chess-king, Elizabeth the violist who keeps us on track, The Prof. Carlos Z. who is heading to Spain tomorrow with 15 students for three months , and myself were the crew for Pub Theology last night.

We started by asking whether our philosophies dictated our actions, or whether it is possible that our experiences and actions informed and transformed our philosophies and theology. Of course, the answer was yes, but to varying degrees with each person. The discussion then migrated to the subject of entropy - I gave the 2nd law of thermodynamics definition of it, to which Slade my fellow anarchist (a title I only half jokingly apply to myself, but that's another long post to be sure, and it is tied to the idea of Christian Freedom, and the activities of God) added his retort on increasing disorder. This then moved to a discussion of spiritual entropy. James kicked this off by stating that unless we worked on serving others spiritual entropy was inevitable. I asked if he would either like to share that at church, or if I could steal it. I prefer the former.

James asked us why we were Christians at one point. That was a rather cool exchange. So often that discussion can be rather canned, but in a Pub it takes on a new life. We were loud, we were animated, we had fun, and we hung out for about 2 and a half hours - Nice.

Pub Theology with The Gathering occurs once a month on the last Tuesday of the month at The Old Spot in Salem.

Another Great Pub Theology

Tonight - May 27, 2009 a group of us met at The Old Spot, just like we do once a month for Pub Theology night.

Topic: Faith and Works how they fit together, and how they determine true spirituality.

Attending: Tom and Mary, Erin and Jim, The Prof. Carlos Z., Slade, Jeff C #3 (he's only the #3 Jeff because it rhymes with C), Mike C, and me (Phil).

Some random thoughts for the evening:

1) Mary and Tom capsized their canoe and lost their phones and wallets, and piles of other stuff, which is now on the bottom of the Atlantic. Somehow the canoe story became an illustration of faith and works. You know - storms of life, how we respond to them....

2) Mary's story about a relative who went to church all the time, but was as mean and cruel as anyone you ever met was a bit chilling.

3) Jim and Erin gave an illustration from personal life which was beautiful, on point, and you can ask them more. :-)

4) Slade called up James 2 first - "faith without works is dead."

5) Tom did not mention Obama until nearly the end of the evening! Wow, now that was restraint.

6) Jeff did not fall asleep. He wanted to I think, but he played the man, and actually was coherent.

7) Mike connected faith without much in works as a type of predeterminism, or fatalism; and works without much in faith as a type of legalism. This made the discussion take a robust turn for the good.

8) We ended by having everyone in a short phrase describe their idea of God's Government: The answers were Federalist Republic, Monarchy, Tyranny (actually something like a Kingdom Monarchy was meant I think), a Government to help the Weak, Anarchy (2 times), a Government run by the Military (Jeff called this a Hunta and laughed), and Socialism (of course this was the Prof Carlos Z., but you knew that didn't you?). So, if this was a democracy then Anarchy was the winner. Hmmmmm...

But, assuming that the government of God fulfills all the deep needs of humanity, and has all the best dynamics of any government we can imagine, then all the good things of all the kinds of government are a part of God's Kingdom, and all the bad elements of all the styles of government are lacking in God's leadership. Somehow that all tied into the topic of faith and works, and we all walked away feeling like the evening rocked.

Okay, I guess you had to be there to understand the Anarchy thing, but trust me it was cool. Peter Rollins gets it, I know that. Thumbs up Pete.