Discovering the Christian imagination

The American imagination today is distressingly
sluggish. Right now, one of the
essential Christian ministries in our ruined world is the recovery and exercise
of the imagination. 

We have a pair of mental operations, Imagination
and Explanation, designed to work in
tandem. Explanation pins things down so
that we can handle and use them – obey and teach, help and guide.

Imagination opens things up so that we can
grow in maturity – worship and adore, exclaim and honor, follow and trust. Explanation restricts, defines and holds
down; Imagination expands and lets loose.

Our technological and information-obsessed age has cut
Imagination from the team. –

Under the Unpredictable Plant, Eugene Peterson
pp. 171-172

Say what you will about the Emergent church, it seems to me
they have attempted to re-engage the imagination of Jesus followers.

If the Emergent church could focus on
re-introducing Christians to the power of the Holy Spirit as well they might
really have something.