Comments on: The Danger of Over Simplifying the Complex Story of Christ https://mikefrost.net/the-danger-of-over-simplifying-the-complex-story-of-christ/ AUTHOR | SPEAKER | MISSIOLOGIST | AGITATOR Thu, 19 Aug 2021 02:03:44 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.4 By: Erin https://mikefrost.net/the-danger-of-over-simplifying-the-complex-story-of-christ/#comment-31493 Thu, 19 Aug 2021 02:03:44 +0000 https://mikefrost.net/?p=30677#comment-31493 Bathroom

]]> By: Jonathan King https://mikefrost.net/the-danger-of-over-simplifying-the-complex-story-of-christ/#comment-31483 Wed, 18 Aug 2021 19:06:40 +0000 https://mikefrost.net/?p=30677#comment-31483 Excellent piece, Mike. As long as we prefer the media of texts, tweets, FB posts, advertising slogans, memes, YouTube clips and cable news soundbytes, we will no doubt err toward over-simplification. God’s greatest revelation was not a simplified memo, but an incarnate human lived out over years in the texture of community, persecution, geography, clashes with the state, death, resurrection, ascension. Seems like so much comes back to “attention” these days – what will get our attention? Will we even stop and see if a bush is engulfed in flames? Or, do we prefer a pithy tweet or jingle?

]]> By: Andrew Stuart https://mikefrost.net/the-danger-of-over-simplifying-the-complex-story-of-christ/#comment-29704 Sun, 25 Jul 2021 07:40:07 +0000 https://mikefrost.net/?p=30677#comment-29704 In reply to Shannon Claussen.

Shannon (& Mike). So totally agree with all that you have written here. Spot on!

]]> By: Laura https://mikefrost.net/the-danger-of-over-simplifying-the-complex-story-of-christ/#comment-29685 Sat, 24 Jul 2021 16:14:44 +0000 https://mikefrost.net/?p=30677#comment-29685 You are a superb writer beyond the content. Congratulations on opening this topic and focusing on the church’s problem. You don’t have time to read my Facebook during Trump’s presidency. I wrote about MCarthy’s techniques and same for Hitler. I taught about slogans and the “bandwagon” effect years before, teaching about advertising to middle and high school kids in North Carolina and NY in the 70’s. I don’t think their descendants have advertising savvy. I can’t believe the atrocious reports circulated in social media – rumor is a cousin of slogans. There is so much money involved.
However there is nothing new about this cynical reprise of catchy phrases: Take a look at the traveling medical salesmen in Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain or the campaign spots for Eisenhower (a first in advertising) and President Bush the elder’s campaign to smear Dukakis and his son’s promotion for invading Iraq. Just a few.
How can we get this message to families of conspiracy theory members? Their churches? Advertising is very easy to teach – especially to teens and college.
We have dear friends in Adelaide so I’ll pass this along. I’m a retired Episcopalian and now attend First Congregational/ UCC Evanston IL
Laura Wilson

]]> By: Laura https://mikefrost.net/the-danger-of-over-simplifying-the-complex-story-of-christ/#comment-29684 Sat, 24 Jul 2021 16:13:45 +0000 https://mikefrost.net/?p=30677#comment-29684 You are a superb writer beyond the content. Congratulations on opening this topic and focusing on the church’s problem. You don’t have time to read my Facebook during Trump’s presidency. I wrote about MCarthy’s techniques and same for Hitler. I taught about slogans and the “bandwagon” effect years before, teaching about advertising to middle and high school kids in North Carolina and NY in the 70’s. I don’t think their descendants have advertising savvy. I can’t believe the atrocious reports circulated in social media – rumor is a cousin of slogans. There is so much money involved.
However there is nothing new about this cynical reprise of catchy phrases: Take a look at the traveling medical salesmen in Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain or the campaign spots for Eisenhower (a first in advertising) and President Bush the elder’s campaign to smear Dukakis and his son’s promotion for invading Iraq. Just a few.
How can we get this message to families of conspiracy theory members? Their churches? Advertising is very easy to teach – especially to teens and college.
We have dear friends in Adelaide so I’ll pass this along. I’m a retired Episcopalian and now attend First Congregational/ UCC Evanston IL
Laura Wilson
I hope this article gets around, especially to preachers and priests.

]]> By: mark nelson https://mikefrost.net/the-danger-of-over-simplifying-the-complex-story-of-christ/#comment-29645 Fri, 23 Jul 2021 13:17:07 +0000 https://mikefrost.net/?p=30677#comment-29645 Mike…great stuff. I just came upon this by McLaren this week. At least for me, these thoughts and the thoughts you shared in this piece seem to go together a bit:

Beatitudes reworded, pages 218 – 219, Faith After Doubt, Brian McLaren

1. Blessed are the curious, for their curiosity honors reality.
2. Blessed are the uncertain and those with second thoughts, for their minds are still open.
3. Blessed are the wonderers, for they shall find what is wonderful.
4. Blessed are those who question their answers, for their horizons will expand forever.
5. Blessed are those who often feel foolish, for they are wiser than those who think those who think themselves wise.
6. Blessed are those who are scolded, suspected and labeled as heretics by the gatekeepers, for the prophets and mystics were treated in the same way by the gatekeepers of their day
7. Blessed are those who know their unknowing, for they shall have the last laugh.
8. Blessed are the perplexed, for they have reached the frontiers of contemplation.
9. Blessed are they who become cynical about their cynicism and suspicious of their suspicion, for they will enter the second innocence.
10. Blessed are the doubters, for they shall see through false gods
11. Blessed are the lovers, for they shall see God everywhere

]]> By: Jack Haberer https://mikefrost.net/the-danger-of-over-simplifying-the-complex-story-of-christ/#comment-29617 Thu, 22 Jul 2021 12:58:32 +0000 https://mikefrost.net/?p=30677#comment-29617 I long ago jettisoned the relentless attempt to lead church boards to write a mission statement in 7 words or less. My defense:. God needed 850 pages or so to formulate heaven’s mission statement; I’m sticking with God’s formula. I also have taken to saying that the church needs to be much less focused. Peripheral vision is what we need to cultivate Add: any and every church, whether it has 30,000 members or 30, has been commissioned with a job description so expansive that it’s only second in scope only to the U.S. government; stop doing just what you do best and start being the church God called and is empowering you to be. The churches I have served have mostly flourished, and this bigger vision has fueled it’s energy.
Thanks for your expansive writing on such an expansive faith..

]]> By: Peter W, https://mikefrost.net/the-danger-of-over-simplifying-the-complex-story-of-christ/#comment-29606 Thu, 22 Jul 2021 06:22:31 +0000 https://mikefrost.net/?p=30677#comment-29606 It was an interesting article. I think a lot of people have lost the power to keep an open mind and to respect those who may have a different opinion or view on a topic of a discussion. Just look at the recent U.S. elections. Truth, respect and fairness seem to be an ever diminishing qualities in modern lifestyles.

]]> By: John F. Noack https://mikefrost.net/the-danger-of-over-simplifying-the-complex-story-of-christ/#comment-29604 Thu, 22 Jul 2021 04:58:08 +0000 https://mikefrost.net/?p=30677#comment-29604 In reply to Shannon Claussen.

The Christian Gospels are certainly are complex. I recently read the book, “God Incarnate: Story and Belief”, edited by Anthony Harvey (SPCK 1981). In the chapter on “Truth in Christology”, John Macquarrie has sought to “make sense out of the mass of diverse material”. He therefore presents three types of truth. (1) “Historical Truth” involves the establishment, within our normal and natural World, of the factual nature of the recorded events, persons and places in Palestine, which existed within the first century C.E. (2) “Theological Truth” involves dealing with the World of the supra-natural events and beings, including a God-Man and a Resurection, in terms of esthetiic truths or authentiuc experience from an awareness of other Worlds. (3) “Reflective and Contemplative Truths” involve the deep pondering of the theological beliefs and the re-expressing and formulating of them into propositional creeds and confeassions. In this format, they can be appropriated either literally, symbolically, allegorically, spiritually or anagogically. Hence, these three types of “truth” relate to factual truth; to esthetical truths and to confessional truths. Perhaps this is why the Bible has been called a “Soul Book”.

]]> By: Erin https://mikefrost.net/the-danger-of-over-simplifying-the-complex-story-of-christ/#comment-29602 Thu, 22 Jul 2021 04:30:06 +0000 https://mikefrost.net/?p=30677#comment-29602 What good is having freedom when we don’t know how to access it and to give ourselves permission to use it? -Marianne Williamson

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