Benedictus XVI, påve, eller för oss biskop i Rom, har under sitt besök i Tyskland besökt Erfurt, och talat om Luther och reformationen. Hans tal finner den intresserade lätt på nätet.

Jag vill citera två avsnitt i hans tal. Jag tycker att de på olika sätt kunde lära vår kyrka mycket.

Han efterlyser en integrerad kristen tro, som är seriös, genomtänkt och förankrad. Det är tänkvärda ord.

I det andra citatet varnar Benedictus för att urvattna den kristna tron i man därmed skulle göra det lättare för den sekulariserade världen att tro.

Läs, och tyck!

”I would like to make two brief points here.  The geography of Christianity has changed dramatically in recent times, and is in the process of changing further.  Faced with a new form of Christianity, which is spreading with overpowering missionary dynamism, sometimes in frightening ways, the mainstream Christian denominations often seem at a loss.  This is a form of Christianity with little institutional depth, little rationality and even less dogmatic content, and with little stability.  This worldwide phenomenon – that bishops from all over the world are constantly telling me about –  poses a question to us all: what is this new form of Christianity saying to us, for better and for worse?  In any event, it raises afresh the question about what has enduring validity and what can or must be changed – the question of our fundamental faith choice.”

”The second challenge to worldwide Christianity of which I wish to speak is more profound and in our country more controversial: the secularized context of the world in which we Christians today have to live and bear witness to our faith.  God is increasingly being driven out of our society, and the history of revelation that Scripture recounts to us seems locked into an ever more remote past.  Are we to yield to the pressure of secularization, and become modern by watering down the faith?  Naturally faith today has to be thought out afresh, and above all lived afresh, so that it is suited to the present day.  Yet it is not by watering the faith down, but by living it today in its fullness that we achieve this.  This is a key ecumenical task in which we have to help one another: developing a deeper and livelier faith.  It is not strategy that saves us and saves Christianity, but faith – thought out and lived afresh; through such faith, Christ enters this world of ours, and with him, the living God.

Nog saknar jag en seriös diskussion hos oss. Kanske kan detta bidra till att någon börjar fundera.

Till eftertanke alltså.

Henrik