Archive for August, 2007:
On Doubting My Faith
“Too much to deny and too little to be sure”
(Pascal)
“Faith appears where least expected and falters where it should be thriving”
(Yancey)
The North American church has given in to a sad stance on what it means to believe. It has slid into an all or none fallacy. This means a person either believes without reservation and without doubt, or they cannot be considered a Christian at all. Philip Yancey, author of the book Reaching for the Invisible God, explains that Christians regrettably view doubt as a “skeleton in the closet.” Christians are scared to talk about it, so they lock it up. Thank God such a view of faith is unwarranted by true Christianity.
“Dear Legalism,” A Personal Letter of Hope
The following post is a journal entry I wrote late Saturday night, August 15, 2007 (with a couple edits for the sake of explanation).
The night after I was baptized on March 15, 2005, I wrote:
“I will never deserve the love you’ve shown me, but I will spend the rest of my life trying to earn it.”
The day I realized I wanted to spend the rest of my life with the beautiful woman who is now my wife, in November 2006, I wrote:
“As always, I will spend my entire life striving to be at least halfway worthy of all the blessings you have bestowed upon me.”
Where did this come from? How could I not see that the Lie of legalism was already planted and growing in my newfound faith? As I read this, I am totally appalled. Each of these writings came at pivotal points in my life, and in my faith especially. And now I write again, as I struggle with the shadow of fear and inadequacy. Truly, I am grateful for the love shown for me by God the Father and Christ, but why do I feel that I must still earn it after the fact?
Read more »
“your God don’t have to go home, but He can’t come here”
I was an evangelical Christian when I went off to college. I joined a nondenominational campus Christian group as a freshman, went to some Bible studies, and attended church most every Sunday morning along with sometimes participating in a weekly Wednesday night worship service.
And already you’re judging me.
It has long been asserted among evangelical Christian circles that Christian viewpoints are often disdained and/or ridiculed in most college classrooms by professors. I remember when I was as a sophomore in my Exploring Religions class, hearing the professor opine about how the Hebrew word for God in the first few chapters of Genesis is grammatically plural in some instances, so he questioned how Christians could possibly believe in only one God (nevermind respecting the grammatical subtleties of a dead language from another culture, or even the author’s possible intentions). In other words: anyone that still held onto the idea of the existence of only one God after learning this was perhaps an idiot. This was his dismissive attitude all semester exclusively toward Christianity. And so it goes for Christian beliefs on a fair number of campuses: evangelical Christians often perceive belittlement regarding what they believe is the truth from their respective campus community.
But it’s not just me saying this.
God Loves YouTube Too
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=wE_gSO7EnRc]
Our desire to consistently present the truth in love to anyone and everyone has led us to take this discussion over to YouTube. Sadly, my ugly mug is the one representing the blog, but hopefully that doesnt distract from the content too much. I would encourage anyone in the blogosphere to hop on YouTube and join in this discussion as well. The more the merrier.
Posts
