This is the mission of the Centre for Reflexive Theology: To be a small attempt by the Free Community Church to build a Christian faith that is able to engage a postmodern world, develop personal spirituality and work for the growth of justice, peace and reconciliation in our fragmented

Sunday, March 06, 2005

Introduction to Centre for Reflexive Theology

Centre for Reflexive Theology



We live in an increasingly complex world. Christian spirituality is fast becoming a hypermarket where one can go to and choose from the vast varieties of Christian flavors we are drawn to. Singapore is no different. One count suggests that there are at least 450 registered churches in the nation representing over 190 denominations. From churches who allow only its own baptised members to participate in communion to churches that sometimes sound like a rock concert followed by an inspirational talk you name we have it!

More than ever before we need to grow Christians who are able to think through their faiths and work through the complexities of our increasingly postmodern world. Our faiths need to be relevant within our hyper technologised and consumerist societies with its increasing socio-economic divides. We need to be able to engage pop culture and kitsch and yet remain true to its Christ centred ideals.

This is the mission of the Centre for Reflexive Theology: To be a small attempt to build a Christian faith that is able to engage a postmodern world, develop personal spirituality and work for the growth of justice, peace and reconciliation in our fragmented worlds.

Why a Centre?


We use the word only in terms of focus. The Centre will be a safe space for Christians to engage in focussed theological reflection and discussion.

We could have called ourselves a cell group or a discussion group but it would not have sounded self important enough! (you do realise we are saying this tongue in cheek right? reflexivity starts even here).

Why Reflexive?



Reflexivity is becoming an increasingly important skill to develop whether in business, international relations or even theology. It means the ability to look back into oneself, to question and explore ones own assumptions and to try to see oneself from anothers perspective in other words to be self critical and to be willing to look for the planks in our eyes before we run off searching for splinters in otherseyes. We firmly believe that it is impossible to be incarnational without being reflexive.

At the CRT we are committed to listening to the voices of the Other. We are committed to hearing empathetically even when we disagree and we are committed to learning how others perspectives can enrich our own.

Why Theology?



This is probably the simplest question to answer. Because fundamentally every human being is a theologian. We all develop views about God, the cosmos and how these impact human relationships. More pertinently because at FCC we believe that our view of God and his purposes fundamentally affect the way we live our lives.

Who Are Welcome?



You are. We ask only a few things of people who attend:

1. To be respectful of other views even if we disagree.
2. Come to learn not correct
3. Come to build not tear down
4. Take responsibility for your own faith journey

If you are interested to attend our next event please write to Centre for Reflexive Theology



Upcoming Events



We’re streamlining the sessions into something practical – learning how to read the bible with some structure.

The next meeting dates are
19 August
16 September
21 October
18 November

Details below

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Learning How To Explore Paul’s Theology in Romans



As a church FCC is diverse...or some might say, "confused". Often we sound like the people at the foot of the Tower of Babel - speaking many different languages failing to understand each other and ultimately counfounded. Dare we dream that FCC might one day be instead be like the people at Pentecost - still speaking many different languages and still struggling to understand each other and yet somehow God is glorified in babel of speech?

That is one of the aims of the CRT (Centre for Reflexive Theology) - to learn and teach us how to be a listening community and to explore how different people understand and interpret the Bible. At the end of the journey while we may not agree with the various perspectives, it is our hope that we can at least appreciate them and perhaps even use these differing perspectives to enrich our own spiritual journeys.

Since FCC has commenced a monthly series of sermons on Romans 1-8, we thought it might be a fruitful area for exploration as we try to appreciate this monumental writing of Paul from various perspectives. And of course being a church with many gay people, we start with Romans 1:18-2:1.

  • Content Objective: To explore and engage aspects of Paul's beliefs and comments about homosexual persons in Romans 1-2.

  • Process Objective: To examine different ways of reading the Bible via application of various interpretive techniques to Romans




  • Unit One: Paul and Homosexuality

    Text – Romans 1: 18 – 3:20


    Approach One (August)


    How to Read a Text on its own

    What does the text of Romans itself say? What are Paul's arguments?

    Approach Two (September)

    How to Read the Contexts of the Text

    What influences impacted Paul's writing of Romans? How does Paul read his texts? What texts and philosophies does he seem to rely on? How did these influence his writings?

    Approach Three (October)



    How to Read a Text for our own

    How has the passage been used to oppress? How have theologies formed by oppressed communities read Paul? How are these relevant or not relevant for us today?

    Summative (November)



    How to use different approaches and inform one approach with another


    Reading



    From time to time we recommend books that our members are currently reading regardless of whether we may agree with the author. Instead the books are recommended on the basis of being effective in gettingus to think more about our faiths and may therefore include books by non-Christian authors. Eventually we hope to include our own reviews of these books. This month we recommend the following books:

    A Generous Orthodoxy by Brian McLaren
    http://www.presence.tv/cms/generous_orthodoxy.php

    http://www.presence.tv/cms/books253.php

    The Post-Evangelical by Dave Tomlinson
    http://www.zondervan.com/Books/detail.asp?ISBN=0310253853

    http://www.christis.org.uk/archive/issue50/post_evangelical.php


    Other Sites of Interest


    Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly

    The Christian Century

    Beliefnet: religions, spirituality...

    The Centre for Progressive Christianity

    Please note that the Free Community Church is not in anyway affiliated to the websites cited here.