ABOUT CHRIST & COSMOS

OUR PURPOSE: THE FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS

The purpose of Christ & Cosmos is to fulfill a need – a need that I think is felt by most Christians, and understood by many skeptics and seekers. The need is for a properly articulated vision of Christ, the universe, and our place within it.

The fundamental question of this site is: What does it mean to follow the Logos (Word) made flesh, crucified, and resurrected? What does it tell us that the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, the One who spoke forth the world, died for us in human flesh?

Just what does it mean that the very way of grace, the power and order and movement of the world, became a creature, was undone, then was gathered back together in resurrection and transfiguration?

What does this tell us about our lives now: who we are, where we come from, what we are meant for – what is our value, our purpose, our hope?

And how might we live our own lives so that we can contemplate this more clearly in ourselves, the natural world, the Scriptures – and show forth this meaning, this love, to others?

WHAT IS NEEDED

The overall idea of Christ & Cosmos is to articulate a Christian way of thinking/being in the world in a modern/postmodern context. And to do so in a way that’s spiritually, even contemplatively grounded, and accessible to those curious about the faith.

I consider this highly needed, for Christianity is in a state of crisis. This is a crisis of confidence, primarily: after multiple wrong turns in the twentieth (and now the twenty-first) century, Christ’s church seems to have lost a proper sense of mission. It has lost itself in various political idols, demythologizing projects, and fundamentalist reinterpretations of historic Christianity.

We do not need yet another new Christian theology, some trendy attempt at relevance that gets forgotten within a decade. What is needed, instead, is a return to historic Christian orthodoxy, to the Scriptures, the Church Fathers and Mothers, the Ecumenical Councils of the Church – and with this an attempt to place the historic Christian tradition in dialogue with philosophy, modern science, art and culture.

OUR FUNDAMENTAL PERSPECTIVE

With this in mind, the fundamental approach of Christ & Cosmos will be Paleo-Orthodox. “Paleo-Orthodoxy” is a term invented by the twentieth-century theologian Thomas C. Oden. It designates those Protestants who have renounced the claims of “modernism” and “postmodernism” upon theology, and who seek a retrieval of the ancient faith, the faith of the first millennium of the church, before its greatest schisms occurred.

Paleo-Orthodoxy, in other words, is a form of Protestantism with an unusually high view of tradition. But it is not some form of crypto-Catholicism or pseudo-Orthodoxy. Following the Protestant impulse, Paleo-Orthodoxy places Scripture highest of all, and stands committed to justification by faith alone as a principle that is both Biblical and consistent with church tradition. Thus we combine an evangelical sense of the gospel with a reverence for universal church tradition.

THE JOURNEY AHEAD

But the purpose of Christ & Cosmos is not simply to rehearse the thoughts of the ancient church. Rather, I will be reflecting on and using this ancient faith as a lens through which to view contemporary questions.

Meaning, the cosmos, the biosphere, language, tradition, metaphysics, truth, history, spiritual practice, authentic existence, community, love, art, music, literature – all this and much more will be considered here at C&C.

But what will orient it all is a Christian way of seeing – not a “Christian worldview,” but rather an ability to see and know Christ in all things, such that all can be lifted up before him in a hymn of sacrificial praise. To learn to do this, and to love the lessons it gives – this is the purpose of Christ & Cosmos.

With C&C I seek to articulate, to the best of my ability, a vision of Christ in all things – a vision that might move us, transform us and transfigure the world around us. And I hope to do so in a way accessible to both thoughtful Christians and to the many seekers and skeptics dissatisfied by the Christian message as they have received it.

That this site might lead them – and all of us – to new insights, and to new paths of inquiry and practice, I pray in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.