I am a novice blogger, so I hope you more experienced folks will have mercy on me. A word of introduction is perhaps called for. I am 53, a Presbyterian Church USA pastor in northwest IN, married with 10 children (3 home grown, 7 adopted, 2 with Down Syndrome, 2 with Fetal Alchohol Syndrome, 2 have passed away). My wife is an attorney and we have been married for 26 years.
Now, about the blog's title. It comes from a book by theologian Paul Tillich entitled, oddly enough, On the boundary. You will see as this blog continues that about the only thing that Tillich and I agree on is the fact that there is a divine being and the name Jesus keeps coming up in this connection. Oh yes, and the fact that, as Christians, if we are true to our faith, we can never feel completely at home in any human ideology. The book has chapters like "Between theology and sociology", "Between Lutheranism and Socialism", "Between Religion and Culture". The point Tillich makes is that, while he identifies with some aspects of all of these he cannot totally identify himself with any of them.
As to the specifics we disagree, but the basic premise is sound. Years before Brian McLaren and his pile of mush A generous orthodoxy, I would jokingly introduce myself as a Calvinist evangelical charismatic pacifist pro-life post-trib amillenialist Christian. All of those descriptions are true to a fair extent, but I find if I am with people who identify themsleves primarily by one of them (except simply Christian) I start feeling uncomfortable. It seems that, especially with the hot button ones like pacifist and pro-life, that people who claim those titles tend to become lap-dogs of the political party or ideology that fits their issue into their platform. When I see that there is a statement on some issue of the day from the Southern Baptists or my own PCUSA, I just have to look up the position of the Republican or Democratic party, respectively, and I already know what they are going to say.
Jesus said to Pilate, "My kingdom is not of this world. If My kngdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews, but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm." (John 19:36) Jesus did not mean that His kingdom had nothing to do with life on earth but that the values, the very nature of His kingdom is totally different from the way our world works. Our sinful nature has the way of this world as our default setting when it comes to thinking and decision making, so as followers of Jesus Christ we have to be on the lookout for this tendency in our life. We have to be willing not to fit in completely anywhere. That doesn't mean we go out of our way to be contrary as some do. It doesn't mean we pride ourselves on who doesn't like us. It does mean that, with the help of the Holy Spirit, we become aware when we become too comfortable, too complacent, when we fit too easily into any human category.