Dem Bones Dialogue Series

I've been very thankful of the dialogue that is emerging on this blog and thankful to each of you readers and commenters. There blog has a wide array of political ideologies and religious theologies represented here, and I would like to take this dialogue another step, unless, of course, you feel strongly otherwise.

I am thinking about adding a weekly series, "Dem Bones Dialogue," in which I ask two of our reader/commenters to dialogue with each other. Ideally, in each of these dialogues we would have two distinctly different voices discussing one topic or issue. For example, having both a theologically conservative and progressive voice discussing a topic could show how two people, starting from the same epistemological foundation, could possibly arrive at different conclusions. Or, for example, how a theologically moderate and athiestic voice could begin with different epistemologies but could arrive at the same conclusions. These dialoging pairs would be chosen for optimal discussion, as some dialogical pairs can be counter-productive; I want people to talk with each other, not passed each other.

Ideally, I, or someone else, would find a topic worthy of engagement and find two different theological perspectives. Each responder would write 1-2 dense, concise, well-written paragraphs on the topic. I would trade those initial responses in order to illicit a 2-4 sentence second response. After these responses are all collected, I would post them here to further engage this community.

It is important, to me, to investigate how we structure and organize our worldviews, and hopefully, these dialogues could shed light on how different, intelligent people arrive to their conclusions. With these understandings, hopefully we all can fully appreciate, even in disagreement, how others interpret our world.

I have asked some of you in private and have recieved enthusiastic support. I would like to open this up to all of you to expand the dialogue. If you would like to participate, please comment in the comment section with an email address in which I can reach you. Or, if you think this isn't a great idea, I would love feed back and constructive criticism.