Faith's Edge

I don't know, wanting a house and a baby is a LOT to blog about. :)

Enjoy your summer in Portland. It's promising to be far sunnier than usual (and HOT, too!). Who knows, Oregon might just grow on you!

yeah, the house and baby thing are kinda big...whatever.

by the way, I need to figure out a way to get contact info from you(or to you) while I'm in Oregon.

You can email me via my website: wende @ evidently.org... OR you can comment on my website (heh) and your email will appear and I can contact you that way.

Hi
I've been reading here every once in a while; interesting blog! I am a Christian as well. I don't want to be pushy or offensive, I was just wondering about a comment that kind of concerned me. You said that you feel like you are becoming more and more liberal, though you try to fight it (something to that affect)? Why do you feel like that? I guess I worry about schools these days, even Christian seminaries. It seems to me that most professors try to make the bible fit into the secular worlds view, and that is compromise. With issues like evolution, gay marriage, and on and on, it seems to me that the bible is quite stright forward with these things, yet Christians are becoming more and more accomodating, and in doing so are creating a "wimpy" sterotype (one of compromise and wishy-washy beliefs). I guess, for myself, the more I have studied the bible, the more conservative I have become, yet also the more open-minded I have become (more understanding, more patient, more knowledgeable). I know, it sounds like an oxymoron, but it really isn't. To me, the more one fits into today's atheistic world view, the less accepting / open-minded they are.

Please know I don't mean to say you are ANY of these things; only your one comment just spurred these thoughts, and I hope to only give people something to think about, maybe encourage discussion as well.

I pray you have an uplifting and exciting time this summer with your internship! God Bless.
Kathryn

Hi Kathryn,

Thanks for your comments. I hope they do lead to an open dialogue here and elsewhere. I hope you read that full post where I talked about becoming more liberal. I also mentioned there that my understanding of Jesus also got bigger. To me, the most important things that Jesus taught were about breaking done the barriers of who is on the inside and who is on the outside. Jesus' harshest words were always for the religious establishment and not because they were watering things down. It was because they weren't practicing what they preached, namely justice, mercy, and love. Respectfully, I have to disagree with the idea that the Bible is clear on issues such as evolution and gay marriage. What's more important though is that we not make make those "issues" the central tenants of Christianity. The more important questions are will you exclude someone from fellowship for believeing in evolution? Will you exclude someone from fellowship for being gay? Will you exclude someone from fellowship for being an unwed mother? For having HIV/AIDS? For drinking? For smoking? For being poor? I pray that as liberal, conservatives, moderates, etc... that we get to the point where the answer to those questions is "no".
I appreciate your self-understanding of being open minded. Often the "open-mindedness" that Christians show is actually just condescension to "sinners".

Those are some initial thoughts. I hope we can keep this conversation going.

Hey! Thanks for the reply.

I totally agree that there is a hypocriticalness in Christians that we need to watch out for in ourselves. It’s so sad to see so many believers leave a sour taste in a non-believers mouth. I agree, we need to have open arms to those who need help, those who are struggling and lost, we need to show everyone who Jesus is, and what he's done, excluding NO ONE. I think Christians who are living in sin should be reprimanded, and today no one seems to care much about discipline. It's a free for all! My concern about being liberal, is that we let biblical doctrines follow the way the world is going. We slowly change our standards to fit the secular world. I just think that there is too much compromise in the church (also in universities) these days. I guess if you mean liberal as in everyone is welcome, then great, I agree! He also stated old testament laws, and instead of letting people off the hook, took these laws to a higher level (Matthew 5:17-end ). It is also written that we would never be given more than we can bear (1 Corinthians 10:13). So, Christian people who have the most difficult struggles, (gay lifestyle, addiction, etc.) know that they can beat those afflictions. I don’t think because a believer sins, throw him to the lions. I think that we can’t allow sin to fester just because these days its so prevalent and it seems the norm. I know non-Christians should not be judged to Christian standards, they need to be saved first, then the lifestyle cleanup happens because they’ve chosen to believe.

OK, so now to the part where I also respectfully disagree ;) :
Why do you say Jesus has nothing to say about evolution or gay marriage (only 2 of the many examples of difficult subject matter we could talk about)? He talks about marriage as being for one man for one woman (Matt 19:4-5). He also talks about how man and woman were made at the beginning of creation (Mark 10:6-8). He refers to Genesis more than any other book in the old testament (somewhere around 25-40 or more times), obviously believing in its integrity as true literal history, regarding creation and all else talked about in Genesis (Mark 13:19). I don't think that if a Christian believes in evolution that they are no longer saved. I do, however, think that they portray a wishy-washy Christianity, not fully understanding what the Bible teaches. I think they can lead others astray, since evolution was "invented" to explain the universe without God--to leave God out of the equation. Evolution, by it’s definition, tries to undermine the Bible. It says there was death before man was created, though the Bible says opposite (1 Corinthians 15:21–22). The Big Bang model is opposite to the Biblical teachings of earths origins as well. There is so much information out there about these topics, and countless more. A great ministry which has accumulated articles, mp3’s and video is http://www.answersingenesis.org/ There is media on almost every topic you can think of.

I know a lot of these topics are not salvation issues for Christians, but they could be for non-christians. "Science" changes. By that I mean that there have been many discoveries or theories from the past, now proven wrong. Why would we change the bible's meanings to fit man's fallible thoughts/opinions/theories when they are not absolute truth? In this age, creation is somehow considered "unscientific (though it is more scientific than evolution, should you study it in any depth), it is what the Bible tells us what happened, and I choose to believe what God told me, not what man's ideas are. If we can’t trust and follow the Bible when God says how He’s created it, then how can we believe anything else in it? (John 3:12). I don’t think these issues should be put on a shelf, because the rest of the world is asking queations, and most of us don’t know the answers.

Let me know your thoughts...
Kathryn

Hey Kathryn,

As I'm getting ready to go to Portland tomorrow I will be brief for now, but thank you SO much for being willing to have this dialogue with me! Also if anyone else would like to add their 2 cents, jump on in.

Before I got to seminary I would have totally agreed with you. You may see that as a weakness in the seminary, but that's another conversation (which I'm totally open to having). The bottom line is (and I know I'm opening a huge can of worms here) is that the Bible cannot be our sole source of authority when we make a theological assertion of any kind. The Bible was written by humans, mostly men (if not all), who were doing their best to interpret God's will for their community within a particular context. If you believe that the Bible was directly dictated by God to human authors then you have to deal with the contradictions within the Bible (even just within the Gospels).

i would love to write more about this, but I'm feeling limited on time. Let me just leave with this: when theologians make their assertions, they do so based off of one of four sources (or some combination of the four) 1) Scripture 2) tradition 3) reason 4) experience. Oftentimes, those of us sitting in the pews (which I guess I won't be much longer) rely on the first two at the expense of the latter two. Our own reason and our own experiences can sometimes teach us things about God that the Bible or whatever church tradition we are from cannot. to me, its not about discarding one for another, its about integrating all four. I think oftentimes the church is afraid that science will unravel all the "truth" the church has established. The fact of the matter is that some of the most faithful people in the world are scientists who realize that the world was made with order and purpose. Even Darwin, who is credited as the father of evolution, was himself a devout man as were many of the people that we consider to be giants in the scientific world. Science to me does nothing but prove that God is and that God gives things order and purpose, and most importantly life. My faith is in no way incompatible with science.

Okay, I could go on and on, but I need to finish packing. Thank you, Kathryn! This conversation has been exhilarating and deeply impactful for me! More later...

This has been great, I agree!
I love discussion, it challenges why I have the beliefs I do, and makes me think them through thoroughly.

Whenever you have time, I would love to continue this...maybe a refutation or thoughts on my last post? This summer I am also busy, as I am moving to Australia in August (from Canada). I will also ask my questions about your last post soon.

I wish you the best this summer, and hope you get to spend time with your wife as often as possible too. I will be praying for you a ton as well...

(oops, I re-read my last post...looks like I missed a sentence or two in the editing phase...When I said "he also stated old testament laws" I was refering to Jesus.)