Monthly Archives: September 2011

Postmodern interlude: Choose-your-own-adventure history

I’m interrupting (because that’s what one does in postmodernism) my thread of posts on United Methodist unity to relate an idea from a conversation I had with my girlfriend Allie. We were talking about my dissertation, and I was asking her if she thought it was okay that my chapters overlapped somewhat in their content.  […]

Connectionalism as basis for United Methodist unity

For the last several weeks, I’ve been taking a rather long detour from what had been my topic for much of the summer, the sources of unity in The United Methodist Church, to talk about a related but still somewhat tangential topic: the aggregate model of unity I’ve introduced.  Today, I’m finally going to connect […]

Networks and bridge-builders in the making of unity

For the last two weeks, I’ve been talking about something I’ve called the aggregate model of unity: a model of unity that depends not upon some characteristic shared by all as the basis of unity, but rather sees unity as being built up through a bunch of overlapping social circles.  Today, I want to talk […]

Relationships and unity

Last week, in my on-going exploration of unity in The United Methodist Church (and, by extension, contemporary society more broadly), I introduced a model of unity based not on some shared characteristic that applied to all in a group, but rather a bunch of overlapping characteristics.  I called this model unity through relationship and networks, […]