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So, here is a summary of what I'm saying about being stuck. This applies to ecumenical winter, the Anglican Covenant and many other issues that plague our thinking.
Being stuck is not a bad place to be, although it is a frustrating place to be. It is hard when everything's been tried and most actions make matters worse. Being stuck is a place where there are no manuals and no-one has any experience to offer.
Memory undermines us because all we can recall is we've tried everything. But we need memory because we need to know what has been tried. We also need to understand why we are where we are. But our memory is coloured by old models and so we also need to forget.
It is imagination what enables us to step outside the old constraints, the old models and try something new. Most likely it won't work because it isn't really new or we didn't really understand our old mindsets. So, we try again.
Trial and error or iteration; works where the only thing we can do is to keep trying until something works. The idea unsticking a problem can be done in theory first, in conversations between those with theological or some other technical expertise is simply false. Theologians will interpret whatever turns out to work, they have no foreknowledge of what will work. The academic thinks in a different way to people on the ground. For the academic there is something called truth and if only we can find it, we'll find a way forward.
For the person on the ground there is the ground. Old buildings, no money, broken relationships. Where do we go from here? And of course they are right. The doctrine of incarnation tells us God is found in the material world and not in our theories about it.
First, there is no need to move forward from here. Being stuck is a good place to be. To be stuck is to be close to God because to be unstuck we must abandon our assumptions, including the ones that we are not even aware of. For that we need prayer.
I am sure when Christians pray together, particularly enemies, those with very different views, the chances of being unstuck increase. As our assumptions fall away, perhaps we'll see more clearly the bars on our cages.
The aim is not to convert the other to my view but to find a way forward together that works for God's Kingdom.
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