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A vile poetics & a crowded table

Gentle reader,

What am I up to here at Church Blogmatics? What am I hoping for when I ask you to join me here?

To speak truth, I’m bad at identifying and naming an audience (with apologies to all my editors, ever).

If I told you Church Blogmatics was for pastors, or for people who want to know more about theology, or for supporting women in ministry, or for those new to the faith, or for Christian leaders, or for folks frustrated with bad and false Christian teachings, or for book lovers or . . . well, then I’d have an audience, but the truth is, I hope Church Blogmatics is for all of you—people in all the categories I’ve just named—and more. I hope that you can stumble into this community with a Ph.D. in theology and be glad to join the conversation, and I hope you feel welcome and comfortable here if you’ve never read a word of scripture before.

Maybe that’s the best way to define my audience: I hope this is a place of Christian welcome, where a wide variety of people feel welcome at a crowded table, and we can share a little taste of the goodness of the Lord.

And I believe with all my heart that we can learn from one another, that we shouldn’t be limited to our own little worlds.

I’ve been running this newsletter for more than a year using the following description:

What does that mean? Well, like my sense of audience, it’s a bit nebulous, and I like it that way. That’s part of what I’m getting at with “more poetry” and “less geometry.” How could a God who is Transcendent and Other and Holy and Eternal be known other than in mystery?

And when John Wesley calls us to vileness for the sake of the gospel, he recognizes that the Transcendent Other MYSTERIOUS One dived into love for our sake, for the sake of the vile, so that mystery could be born, an infant in Bethlehem, mystery could wear diapers (or swaddling clothes, I suppose), and mystery could wrap us (swaddle us? ) in the embrace of LOVE.

And that means there is no place theology can’t go, nothing theology ought turn up its nose at. Maybe it means that theology gets to resist defining an audience? Maybe it means theology gets to play with lots of topics and genres?

Vile theology isn’t for pragmatism or for prudence. Vile theology is for love.

I’m very glad you’re here with me, and I hope what you hear from me is WELCOME. Welcome, to those who’ve been here awhile, welcome to new readers, welcome to anyone interested in the idea that the Love Who made the universe wore diapers for the sake of love.

I hope you’ll take a seat at the table, and, if you’re not already subscribed, I invite you to join this community.

This is Dwight, my #theologycat

If you’re interested, you can learn a little more about me at the Church Blogmatics “About” page. Most of my work here is available for free, but I’m enormously grateful to those of you who give support with a paid subscription, which helps me continue to make space for this work.

Supporting subscribers also receive the following benefits:

• backstage pass posts and bonus content

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• access to commenting

• my hearty thanks for your support of my work!

If you’d like paid subscriber benefits, here’s a link for a discount on the normal subscription price:

Whether you choose a free or paid subscription, I’m happy to welcome you in the Church Blogmatics community, and I look forward to continuing conversation with you about the things of God!

Grace & peace,

BFJ

If you’d like to dig in further, here are links to some of the top posts here at Church Blogmatics:

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