About
The word irenic means promoting peace and conciliation, something like ecumenical but with broader application. I like the word’s association with Renaissance humanists such as Erasmus, who promoted the study of the arts and humanities for their own sake as well as investigating their connection to the divine, and strove to reconcile the Reformers with the Catholic Church through peaceful, rational discussion and argument.
Also, irenic derives from the Greek eirene, which was used to translate the Hebrew shalom in the New Testament and carries that same sense of wholeness beyond serenity or tranquility. Shalom gets pretty heavy use in Judaeo-Christian literature, so I tried to mix it up a bit.
These are concepts I like quite a bit. Of course, Erasmus was entirely unsuccessful at making peace between all those dogmatic fanatics. If reason were enough, we could solve our own problems, sans supernatural savior. On this point my thinking is influenced by Soren Kierkegaard. We must have an “encounter with the absolute” given only through grace, and which defies full understanding. (Though I have to say I understand at most 50% of his writings and think he really could have used an editor. He and Dostoevsky both. What is it about existentialism that encourages verbosity?) We can make shalom a part of our reality only with help from God.
I aim to strike a balance between these somewhat opposite schools of thought and maintain an authentic, intellectually informed faith in Jesus Christ. And have some fun along the way.
