19 August 2022
My heart is glad at the recent rise in email comments that support my work here.
But some of what you folks are saying suggests I need to offer a reminder. I'm not building a kingdom here. This blog is not a proper anchoring point for a community. This cannot become a virtual parish; I will not lead you that way. A major element in choosing anonymity is to prevent that very thing.
I'm not refusing to offer pastoral care; I'm refusing to offer it on this blog. I don't mind discussing things via email in this persona, but if you hunger for community, you really need to visit the Radix Fidem forum. That's what it's there for. You don't need to get to know this persona. I'm hoping you won't notice me too much; don't pay too much attention to the words, either.
Pay attention to what is awakened in your own soul.
The purpose of this blog is to help others who are already called to build something. You are building. I'm just offering some advice on the process, and some of it may actually be useful to you. I am trying to avoid offering you my religion. The focus is on the meta of religion, while you build a religion that properly reflects your faith. I'm rather like another English commentary on the Bible, but in the form of a person. I'm not a reformer and I don't want anything named after me. Don't spread my nickname; spread your own faith and convictions.
We are designed to seek structure. I want you to have one, but I already know mine is not suitable for everyone, so I want to emphasize you designing your own. Let's compare notes, but don't wave my model as the model for others. It's just an example for comparison. You can do this stuff, too.
But I cannot deny that I have an overwhelmingly powerful vision of what could be. I see a restoration of things long lost. I see the power of God working miracles and changing lives, not for the sake of change, but to shine His glory. I see the Covenant brought to life in how people seek peace with the Lord. And it's a vision of something very different from what we have around us today. It would have to mean something tribal and feudal, according to the Word, and more private. It would mean not focusing on visible manifestations, but on the faith itself, and changing people. It's a more mystical focus and less cerebral.
Still, I know beyond all doubt that God has given some of you a vision, too. Don't trade yours in for mine. Let's look at how to build yours. If you don't see it, start asking the Lord for it. Give thought to the things you don't agree with here. This is about faith, not me.
If you want to honor the work I do here, the best way to do that is seek the Lord about your own work. Maybe you don't write, but the Lord has called you to express faith in some other way. Do that. Don't promote my writing; promote what my writing provokes in you. I'll give you my scholarship, for whatever it's worth. Let it provoke you to your own scholarship. Use that to create a testimony of your own faith.
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