Shalom Place

This is a question that Johnboy and I have discussed off and on for years. With Apple's release of OS X Public Beta (which I bought and have tinkered with), we were inspired anew to finally tease out the implications, and decided to do so as people interacting on an Internet Discussion Group (like the ones on Shalom Place). This, we figured, would be a modern way of "doing theology," so we each role-played several characters representing a wide range of viewpoints and allowed them to interact.

Once we got started, an amazing thing happened: the characters seemed to take on a life of their own. For several days in late January 2001, the interplay of these fictional roles literally dominated our attention as they made statements, responded to each other, clarified positions, dealt with insults, questions about salvation, evolution, and even flirtations. Then, just as mysteriously, the characters had nothing else to say to each other. Nothing! I'd read over the dialogues in Wichita, but nothing would come; same for Johnboy in Louisiana.

The next step was to set up a guestbook form to extract from the dialogues key exchanges, and try to put them in some kind of intelligible order. I more or less took over this role, with Johnboy's editing and observation. It might be nice, I suppose, to merge these into some kind of neat synthesis, but every time I've tried, it doesn't seem to do justice to the insights expressed.

So. . . you can read the raw data in the Group Discussion, which is a threaded discussion, and/or a kind of summary in the Significant Quotes. The form actions for these have been diabled, so you won't be able to respond or participate, however. I've also included a table, which summarizes some of the discussion about continuity and discontinuity that comes up at times.

If you've a question or comment, you can e-mail me, and if there's enough interest, I'll create a new Discussion Group to take up the matter in earnest.

Regards,

Phil St. Romain