Thats a lengthy discussion yet to be, but the choice of this word as the verbal identity of the seed this site is hoped to give forest to – that started with this article, which is excellent:
(But, brief note … all is neighbor, all is family, all is god, all is prayer. Until we humans can embrace and engage that, all will struggle. Mitakuye Oyasin. Further, Jesus was a Brown Revolutionary Punk Neighbor).
“Plesionology, then, is the study of neighbours. It is the close examination of how we relate to our neighbours and how we love them in obedience to the Great Commandment. It is paying attention to, being curious about, standing in awe of something so profoundly vital to being a human made in God’s image. Plesionology puts others, specifically those we can talk with and pass on the street everyday, and places them right in the centre of this human experience. It puts neighbours right in the midst of our faith in Jesus and says that we meet God when we love our neighbours. Jesus thought it was essential, and I’m starting to think it might be, too.
We are enamoured with theology because we can, as one of my theology professors said years ago, pick apart God like a frog specimen in science class. Theology and all of her branches of investigation does not often require much of us. We can think about God without having to become like Jesus. We can read our books and prepare our sermons without much changing in us. Theology, without plesionology can be hollow and void of any true life. Jesus never intended theology to exist apart from living out the very thing that God (who so loved the world) intended for his theologians. We were always meant to love our neighbours, and it is in loving our neighbours that we make sense of God.” …