Hello Everyone!
For better or worse, this post may be my first actual “rant.” Hopefully for the better. Maybe my post and the struggle I detail in it will help some people. At least I hope so. I’d really like to share a struggle I have had with Evangelicalism in general and more specifically, some of today’s reformed Calvinists.
A few months ago, while at a Bible study I attend regularly, I attempted to ask a question about some sincere theological struggles I had been having at the time. When I posed the question to my Bible study leader, I was laughed at by some friends of mine who were there that night. In fact, my Bible study leader himself cracked a jocular smile at my question as if to dismiss to it (which related to the deity of Christ). Now, granted, my friends may have not been aware of the sincerity of the question and my struggles with it. Yet, I could not help but leave that night discouraged to ever ask the questions again and even a little hurt by how my questions had been mocked.
This and other similar occurences lately have got me thinking. One looks out today at the growing Emergent Church movement and other Liberal strands of Christendom and finds people who hold broadly divergent and “unorthodox” views on so many issues, whether it be the deity of Christ or the role of the church. We also find that many of today’s most prominent atheists are former Christians. One of them is a man by the name of Bart Ehrman, author of Misquoting Jesus, who has made it his crusade to destroy the faith of Christians, largely because of his terribly negative run-ins with so many self-rightoues “believers.”
We have to wonder: “Where do all these folks come from with all these ‘out there’ views”? And I think we can conclude that in most cases these people have come from mainstream evangelical backgrounds. I only wonder if they had similar experiences to my own. Were there honest questions stifled or ignored or even mocked? Likely. Very likely. In fact, many of them have said so themselves.
At this point I want to thank the Emergent Church for what they have done to correct mainstream evangelicals in this area. Church is the place where questions and doubts should be welcomed most! Yet in most evangelical churches today they are shunned and suppressed. Or even worse, many people are told they are not true believers if they don’t fully understand some doctrine immediately. The Emergent Church has fired back by getting people together for “conversations” where people are welcomed to ask honest questions and wrestle through their doubts. I even read in Rob Bell’s book Velvet Elvis how he held a “Doubt Night” at his church where people were invited to come with their doubts and struggles and ask the pastors their questions. What a great way to help someone with their faith!
Anyway, I guess I am just tired of talking to so many of today’s young Calvinists (better known as “Cruel Calvinists”) who think they have the theological answer to everything (I myself am guilty of being one of them at times). It is amazing that so many twenty-somethings think they are more or less ready to be pastors because they have read Luther and Spurgeon, yet they have no real spiritual counselling experience with REAL people! Look deeply enough beneath the surface and I bet you’ll find alot of immature kids who care most about winning theological arguments and looking brilliant in front of their friends. Instead of loving people, they laugh at their “silly” questions.
Moreover, why can’t we just put away our theological systems and read the Bible for what it is? If we really did this I think we would find that unlike our carefully constructed theological systems:
- Divorce is in fact ok in some instances (”I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness…”)
- That maybe Jesus’ identity can’t be neatly boiled down to this thing called the “Hypostatic Union” (which frankly, the Church made up)
- That evolution really did happen (Genesis 1 is NOT literal, sorry Ken Ham)
In conclusion, maybe next time someone says something a little strange, put down your theological boxing gloves and try to actually help them instead of using them for your own self-glorification.
There, I said it. 
