Jonny's tinkering

As he savours ideas from Robert Wuthnow's book after the baby boomers: how twenty and thirty-somethings are shaping the future of american religion Jonny Baker stirs in some of his own thoughts about the idea of the 'tinkering' approach to religion and spirituality ...

what skills do people need to be able to tinker? and related to this do people need some spiritual capital or theological capital to tinker? this is a challenging area. i think the answer is yes but often people don't have a lot - they think google is enough! a parallel could be drawn here with improvisation in music which will be much richer and more creative if the person knows the traditions and has done the work in terms of learning their craft - that will free them up. the same is true for spirituality - those that know the tradition, the scriptures, the theological takes, spiritual practices, liturgies, other improvisations that have been made etc will have much more to draw on. the problem for churches is that their tradiitions often feel like they are heavily policed, something to be protected rather than something to be creatively opened up, made open source and tinkered with.

Another bowlful of thinking for the 21st century, mixed together by Jonny Baker.