What is Open Source?
I have been talking a lot recently about God being open source. I'm seeing huge parallels with open source software (OSS) and I wanted to comment on that a bit.
In OSS, there is always a baseline that everybody starts at. This is the basic outline of whatever project you are working with. Each person or company "checks out" the base project, makes whatever changes they want to it and runs it. Only a select few can actually change the base project, and that is after their changes are scrutinized very closely to make sure it doesn't really mess up the base.
I've been thinking a lot about the "God is Open Source" project and what the base project looks like. What items need to be in the base project? Who owns it and who can change the base?
Are the 16 fundamental truths in the base?
Nope, that is just my denomination adding to it's own project. It is definitely part of the AG's check out, but not in the base.
Is it the trinity?
Naw, that is just more added stuff to a check out of the project. Rob Bell describes this well in his book Velvet Elvis that while I believe in the trinity, that is not the base project.
I think the base project is just God or I am or whatever way you have to describe the basic belief in God. Denominations and religions just check out this base project of the existence of a God and add their own bits to it. We as people come along, find a denomination that tends to echo our own thoughts and we join it to be around people who have the same beliefs as us. But the things we argue about with other denominations...the things that tend to get us up in arms...these are not part of the project God is Open Source. These problems we see are the things we add to the project to make it proprietary. Anything beyond just God makes it a proprietary project.
Some of the best stuff can happen after we accept that people just have checked out the project and added what they know to it. If we can just take people where they are rather than trying to force them into our mold, we can truly enter into a relationship with them and learn as well as teach. That's okay. We can still have the base project God. I just hang different stuff on it than they do.
So who can change the base? Who is in charge of the project to allow any changes back in?
God
And I don't think He's taking changes these days. I think God is perfectly happy with His open sourceness right now as it is, and is willing to allow us to spend time talking about it, wondering about it and spending time on it.
Those are my thoughts on the God is Open Source project...why don't you check it out and make it yours?
In OSS, there is always a baseline that everybody starts at. This is the basic outline of whatever project you are working with. Each person or company "checks out" the base project, makes whatever changes they want to it and runs it. Only a select few can actually change the base project, and that is after their changes are scrutinized very closely to make sure it doesn't really mess up the base.
I've been thinking a lot about the "God is Open Source" project and what the base project looks like. What items need to be in the base project? Who owns it and who can change the base?
Are the 16 fundamental truths in the base?
Nope, that is just my denomination adding to it's own project. It is definitely part of the AG's check out, but not in the base.
Is it the trinity?
Naw, that is just more added stuff to a check out of the project. Rob Bell describes this well in his book Velvet Elvis that while I believe in the trinity, that is not the base project.
I think the base project is just God or I am or whatever way you have to describe the basic belief in God. Denominations and religions just check out this base project of the existence of a God and add their own bits to it. We as people come along, find a denomination that tends to echo our own thoughts and we join it to be around people who have the same beliefs as us. But the things we argue about with other denominations...the things that tend to get us up in arms...these are not part of the project God is Open Source. These problems we see are the things we add to the project to make it proprietary. Anything beyond just God makes it a proprietary project.
Some of the best stuff can happen after we accept that people just have checked out the project and added what they know to it. If we can just take people where they are rather than trying to force them into our mold, we can truly enter into a relationship with them and learn as well as teach. That's okay. We can still have the base project God. I just hang different stuff on it than they do.
So who can change the base? Who is in charge of the project to allow any changes back in?
God
And I don't think He's taking changes these days. I think God is perfectly happy with His open sourceness right now as it is, and is willing to allow us to spend time talking about it, wondering about it and spending time on it.
Those are my thoughts on the God is Open Source project...why don't you check it out and make it yours?
posted by Pastor Tom at 10:42 AM
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