Looking back and onwards

2020 is a year of breakthrough and breakdown. Thoughts on 2020

I wrote that 2020 is a critical, important year. Many see it as the beginning of a new decade, even though it is the last year of the old one. That makes it a year of transition in our culture. I think we can all agree on that.

2020

It seems as if more breakdown has been done than breakthrough, but I can see both personal breakthrough as well as on a large scale in all this.

While CoViD-19 has polarized us even more, it also brought us together, and the longer it continues, the more this potential will hopefully be realized.

As a friend of mine wrote, 2020 does not stand on its own, but it is the decade that has a theme. A theme of division and civil war, but also of budding new hope and new alliances.

When I look back on the year my blog has had, I see a new record high of readers. Don’t get me wrong, this is still an obscure niche blog with less hits in a year than some have in an hour. But it grew to 166% of last year.

These were the articles most read:

What is interesting about those articles: they have reached a certain age already. I have to say that I grew and possibly outgrew some of the opinions I expressed in them. Don’t get me wrong. I still think that they are worth a read and they still express a valid perspective of the respective topic.

Lately, I have written from another perspective, and I would encourage you to read some of the articles that I have written lately. I think that they can enlarge our view of Christianity and the Bible as well as deepen our relationship to Jesus and each other. Let me know whether that holds true for you.

When you read some of these articles, you will see that I have developed some non-traditional, non-fundamentalist views by enlarging my tent, a metaphor for our thinking.

Thus, I do not want to keep you in the dark that those views are in conflict with some of the views of the church and network that I was a part of for the last 17 years. Though I do not see that conflict as I see the different viewpoints as non-contradictory, but complementing each other, I do understand that from the blue perspective that the church and the network find themselves in, it absolutely looks as if I was leaving the right faith. At least, my views would bring confusion to the members that are looking for absolute truth, not possibly multiple viewpoints.

We parted in early November. We did so in peace, blessing each other for our respective future pathways. I believe that we both have an essential part to play in the kingdom of God. The network will provide a safe haven for people on the search for structure in their life as well as conformation for their worldview, while I might help others on their search for more.

I do not quite know yet how I will proceed from here. The first steps will be downsizing in living space and finding a new job. I will continue to coach.

I have found some contacts worldwide that share the direction God is taking me. I am looking forward to deepen those relationships and thoughts.

I will build an online community soon where we will be discussing coaching and faith related stuff behind a small, affordable paywall in English and German. I hope that it will become a place for thinkers and seekers.

I will keep you posted.

2021-29

2021 will start in turmoil, which is not hard to predict. The world will be unstable until the change in leadership is done in the US and longer.

This is a picture for the church as well. There is a culture war going on in the church. There are the conservative traditionalists and the progressive grace church that are about as divided about faith as they are about politics. Both camps largely define their faith in political terms, misunderstanding and mistaking the political system as the implementation of the kingdom of God.

Since the marriage of Christianity and the Roman empire into Christendom, this has happened all the time.

The fundamentalist camp has decided that government is to keep up morals and ethics according to the perceived christian heritage of the nation–that is not only true in the US. Morals and ethics get reduced to a handful of topics, mainly abortion.

The progressive camp tends towards human rights and inclusivity.

All those topics are important. But it will never be government that is the solution. The law is for the non-believers, and we cannot force our moral understanding on them in a democracy, and that would be the only way to implement and enforce the laws. That does not sound like God at all.

I think that many will undertake a journey in these years to come that resembles mine. I have written about it in four installments:

What the Bible is for me:

I am looking forward to the next years. Are you?

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