Saturday, April 05, 2008

Bailie - Talk on Freedom & Ontology

Gil Bailie, founder and president of The Cornerstone Forum spoke at Washington Theological Union in D. C. It is the first stop on his monthly circuit of Emmaus Road Initiative talks endeavoring to "inspire a wholehearted faith in a half-hearted age."

He traced the gradient of the West's relinquishing of what Henri DeLubac called "ontological density" and Gabriel Marcel deemed "ontological mooring" between the bookends of two sayings of Our Lord, the parable of theProdigal Son and the Vine and Branches discourse. "Without me," says Jesus, "you can do nothing." The paltry alternative, as we see around and within us, if we are honest, is multi-phrenic "scattering" in a misdirected effort somehow to "outdo" Christian freedom: a sad and shoddy parody that is singularly unsatisfying and the worst kind of slavery.

If you live close enough to one of the Emmaus Road Initiative venues, I heartily recommend you get by to hear him.

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