The end of Enlightenment and the future of the church

The national catholic weekly America's 100th anniversary edition has a fabulous article by Timothy Radcliffe. It speaks my heart about the perspectives of the church, current and future. I won't try to summarize it here (I'd rather translate it into German perhaps), but what struck me particularly were two things, related of course: "Some of the thought patterns (of Enlightenment) locked the church in narrow places, cramped her into ideological positions that have not always helped the church to flourish." Radcliffe says the end of Enlightenment and the emergence of a new world, which we all can testify to, although too often without knowing what to make of it, may offer new opportunities to the church, beyond the dichotomy of tradition vs progress.

The other thing that struck a cord I've been playing for awhile, is about preaching vs conversation. Radcliffe: "Teaching about Jesus Christ is necessarily dialogical, because he was a man of conversation." It will be a wonderful day when going to church means engaging in conversation and not mostly be subject of being preached at. I say that, being a preacher myself, while most of my best friends don't go to church much precisely because of that.

Radcliffe's hopeful and revolutionary perspective is my sermon of hope this weekend.