If you've been in or around the United Church of Christ the last couple of years, you've seen our now-famous comma logo (see picture) and its tag line "Never put a period where God has put a comma." Over time, the comma has become an interesting point of conversation as we discuss precisely what this means.
Well, someone has finally identified what's going on here. In the most recent issue of "United Church News," a Bruce Farrell from Myerstown (Pa.) UCC had this to say:
"Jesus often teaches that you can have the right theology but the wrong actions. What Jesus is not teaching is that theology is unimportant. Jesus was harshly critical of the theology of the Samaritans...when he spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well.
"Healthy theology, like good grammar, has a wide range of punctuations: commas, periods, question marks, exclamation points. We in the UCC seem to have one: the comma."
The is an issue not just for the UCC, but for all mainline denominations. Like a run-on sentence, the theology that is happening in the UCC just seems to go on and on and on. At what point does it stop? When do we say, "Here I stand, I can go no farther"? Jesus does use periods. We had better learn how to do likewise.
No comments:
Post a Comment