Since the launch of Disruptus (2014), I’ve written primarily about three overarching topics/ideas:
- Spiritual formation. Articles concerning the recovery of its place of primacy within the modern church. Particularly as spiritual formation and soul-care shapes and molds spiritual leadership and congregational life.
- Pornography, Addiction, Recovery. Recovery issues related to compulsive sexual disorders that plague our world and are directly connected to the mass production of pornography. The porn industry, with global revenue in the multi-trillions of dollars, is arguably the largest industry in the world that commodifies the human body in a way that dehumanizes both consumer and consumed.
- The Social Imaginary. Articles revolving around the hope that there is still time to recover what I call a Sacred, Soul-full, and Satisfying Social Imaginary. Many of these articles include ideas related to wonder, awe, beauty, the mystical, enchantment, etc.
Of the three, my favorite is writing about the hope of reclaiming a Social Imaginary that’s Sacred, Soul-full, and Satisfying. I’ve all but ceased writing about that because many of my readers find it difficult to conceptualize what I am talking about when I use the term.
This week, however, while reading an excellent article, Is Ecology Haunted, I was reminded of how important it is to keep the focus on this topic and invite my readers to consider how we might awaken to the reality that a flattened world (one with no depth) nurtures shallow connections, frail and feeble institutions, and political systems teeming with fear, power, conflict, and control.
The article to which I am making reference notes the importance of our modern ecological awakening (the recognition that we may be facing dwindling global resources), how we should respond to our awakening, and – most importantly for my audience – what this means for Christian Creation-Care.
In the author’s estimation, what’s missing from the ecological conversation regarding global warming, dwindling resources, and human consumption, is the sense that the world is created and held together by both by order and harmony.
As such, it is designed to produce flourishing for all its inhabitants. The author, Doug Sikimma, calls this “x” axis ecology, an ecological framework that exists within a flattened, or as Charles Taylor said, “immanent frame.”
Sikimma sees the need for “y” axis ecologists (and he notes there are a few), those who, as he cogently says,
“look up, like Dante looking at the stars, and strain to hear the harmonious music—the creative logos—of the heavens by which and for which the whole ecological order hangs together, and attune ourselves to this music in small individual acts and larger institutional acts that bring the health—a word connected to healing, wholeness, and holiness—of shalom into this world, our common home.”
The “y” axis is the “let’s look up again and dream a world shaped by the sacred, saturated with wonder, and soaked in awe” axis.
That’s the axis I believe the church is in a unique position to restore. To do so, it will require we jettison some “x” axis commitments we dearly love.
I hope to explore those in the coming weeks and provide some vibrant “y” axis material and illustrations from both the modern and ancient world.
Material that might help us reclaim and restore A Sacred, Soul-full, and Satisfying Social Imaginary.
Disrupting to Renew!
Biz
