The Christian tradition connects contemporary people to the culture of First Century Palestine: that's where the central stories of that tradition were first told. This connection is largely good. It ensures that a substantial group of people have an alternative to contemporary images and messages. But I wonder whether the implicit closing of the canon with First Century material is a good thing: it seems to me that that move discourages religious meditation on contemporary images of great power: the pictures from physics and astronomy and cell biology. We think religiously about -- well, about sheep, and much more instrumentally and coldly about mitochondria and quarks and quasars. At most, these things are lumped under "the wonders of nature," showing in some way that there must have been somebody pretty smart at the beginning to think all this good stuff up. But the images from scientific exploration are not generally used the way parables are used, as clues to the deep intentions of God, or as clues to the pattern of which human life may be some very small part.
Posted by shea0017 at May 23, 2004 10:49 AM