(Originally posted March 26, 2007)
About two weeks ago I found myself sad and stressed, with no clue why. Over time my wife pointed out to me that I was always frustrated about what I’d read in the news and in the blogosphere. I thought about it and she was right. So I began my experiment.
I stopped reading political and progressive Christian blogs (for the most part). I didn’t plan how long it would last, but that wasn’t really important.
Two or three days later I noticed that I was more relaxed and a little happier. Over the last 12-14 days my spirits have lifted, and some joy has returned to my life. I recently read Mark Driscoll’s blog On Brokenness and Buddies, and thinking back, this may have been a similar break for me. So, I’m going to be making a few changes in the blog.
Well, just one really: This will be a theological reflections blog. No news, no politics…maybe the occasional unrelated comment, but that’s about it. I’ll comment on things like the Anglican controversy and the growing divisions in the ELCA and PCUSA only to the point that it involves important theological subjects. Of course, they all do, but I’m going to try to avoid the controversial subjects as much as possible.
Since the posts that have gotten the most hits have been political in nature, I expect my page views to fall in short order. But if you choose to stay, and want to have a decent theological discussion, there will be a couple rules:
1) If you agree with me that’s great, don’t belittle those who disagree.
2) If you disagree, you need to use Scripture to back up your point. Arguments based on anything other than Scripture are unfounded and have little use in building Christian theology.
3) Don’t tell me things like “they understood x differently back then” unless you can point me to some real research (no assumptions) that supports it.
4) The “historical” Jesus has less supporting evidence than the New Testament Jesus, so any argument that starts there will be ignored (well, it won’t be ignored, but may be belittled a tiny bit).
5) Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through him. If you believe anything other than the traditional interpretation (that there is no salvation outside of consciously choosing Christ) then we’ll never agree, but I’d love to engage the discussion.
Aside from those 5 points, I’m happy to debate any and everything that comes up. I hope we learn a lot from each other!
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