Thursday, March 12, 2009

The Orthodox Heretic: A Parable

I want to share a parable from Peter Rollins, a leader of an experimental faith community in Belfast, Ireland called Ikon. He has a new book coming out in a few weeks called "The Orthodox Heretic: and Other Impossible Tales" that is made up entirely of parables. The video below is Peter reading one of the parables from this book. I think it's pretty interesting. Remember, the point of this parable is not to give an answer, but to ask a question. I have a feeling there will be many different responses to this, so I would love to hear your thoughts after watching this video and check out some of his other videos on youtube as well. He has 2 more parables and a couple other short videos with interesting ideas.

***I can't seem to get the video to work when it's embedded into this page, so watch it here. Let me know if you have any problems.***
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2 comments:

Matt said...

My primary problem with this story is that the caretaker doesn't trust God in the end. By refusing to trust God & do what He commanded, the caretaker thinks he knows better than God does. This story, at some level, mirrors God telling Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Tho child sacrifice is "wrong", Abraham does as God asks & is rewarded there & commended later (in Hebrews) for his faith.

I also don't like how the first reason the leaders give for turning the man in to the neighboring authorities, is that their town will be persecuted alongside the man. I fail to see how being punished by someone else for doing right justifies doing wrong.

I think the only way out of that is if you assume that what God said to the town wasn't a command (turn him in) but a statement of fact (turning him in is the only way to protect the town). Unfortunately I don't think that reading is consistent with the rest of the story.

March 12, 2009 at 10:28 PM
Matt said...

What are your thoughts?

March 18, 2009 at 7:45 PM

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