Life's complex sometimes. Often, actually. I think that's one of the many things I'm learning through my present programme of reading and reflecting. Evangelical certainty is a fine ideal, but it often doesn't seem to stack up well with reality, or, really, with the things we've previously taken as foundational - scripture, in particular.
Thinking this way is simultaneously liberating and disturbing, of course. Liberating to find people who want to ask questions, like I have lately wanted to, and are not willing to settle for simple answers. Some principles of hermeneutics are just, well, silly. Some commonplace exegesis is, frankly, incredible, implausible, even. Why does it have to feel daring to say so? There's something disturbing about letting go of some of the things you've held onto for years - even if doing so involved rather a lot of doublethink.
Why conflicted heart-searching today? Well, I have to preach a sermon this coming Sunday, at my parents' church. And the allocated topic is "the prophetic preparation for Jesus' birth". That's scary enough at the best of times. Right now, it's downright confusing.
I have ideas. I just wonder if they'll ever talk to me again, afterwards.
2 comments:
welcome to the club. it's definitely an odd journey walking through that process. discovering new things. feeling like a heretic. feeling closer to the truth. flipping back and forth between the two almost simultaneously. i guess that's why they call it a journey. i just wish more people were understanding of it.
Thanks Josh. I guess the other problem is that this particular kind of heresy starts to sound like old-fashioned Christian liberalism - though I don't think it is - for which I've never had much time.
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