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[[http://www.jesusnetwork.eu/de/doku.php/jn_de_2014_01_14|Deutsche Version]] [[Start|| Wiki Start]]
[[topics_collection_vi|| Topics Collection vi ]]

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======The dictatorship of Reason? ...======


Tuesday, Jan 14, 2014. Two weeks ago one of the youth groups of our church
had a lot of fun on a Sunday afternoon - by making kind of nonsense.

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**Crazy and Adventurous ...**

They bought a network ticket for 
the Frankfurt area and then went around by subway for the whole afternoon,
stopping here and there and having fun by crazy games. In the airport, they
played "we follow this person" and then the whole group just followed it,
one by one in a long queue. Or they went to McDonalds and the first one asked
for chokolate. They said: "no chokolate here". The first one told the second,
the second the third etc. Until the final guy in the queue then asked for
something else crazy.  

This kind of experience 
fits to a question I have asked myself recently. Do we allow reason
to be a kind of dictator? Do we only allow things which are reasonable? When
we talk about how church life should be developed, do we only consider those
steps for which reason tells us that it is good?

I have been in a Konrad Zuse museum in Berlin recently. Konrad Zuse was the
one who built the world's first mechanical computer, and also the world's 
first electro-mechanical computer, during World War II in Berlin. He started
doing this by leaving his secure job, and he started it in the living room
of his parents. That is not an act of reason. It is crazy and adventurous.

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I also doubt that the people who discovered America were very reasonable. They
managed to get funding for two or three ships to sail west (trying to find a way
to India). It was not completely crazy, but it was neither secure nor clear
nor did they know how long the way could have been. And history shows that 
the knowledge of that time about the earth was not that reliable, so they 
re-discovered the American continent.  

**Life in faith ... **

How reasonable is life in faith? How adventurous is it? We have been reading
the book of Daniel in our youth group recently. And that is really adventurous.
Daniel was living in a foreign environment, but refused to worship the 
foreign Gods. He knew, that there is only one living God. But it was crazy 
to stick to it and tell the head of the Babylonean empire. So he had to suffer
a burning oven and was thrown into a lions den. 

I believe we need this adventurous moment. Of course, there are those among
us who rather stay secure. Others need this moment of thrill, to go into the
unknown. They cannot stand the boring (and indeed illusional and delusional) 
security of our existence. Both is 
absolutely crucial for human society. Both are extremes which have their role and
their time. 

God seems to know both moments. He supports both our longing for security, as well
as our longing for adventure. And faith IS an adventure itself. It is going into
the unknown, by getting to know a fantasticly colossal God, who spans time and space,
but at the same time comes close to us, closer than anyone or anything! Faith
is THE ultimate adventure of our life, spanning life and death. Come, and join
the adventurous crew, come to faith. Come. 
(Roland Potthast)
[[http://www.jesusnetwork.eu/en/doku.php/topics_collection_vi|... more texts]]
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