Like Jon, I have been thinking about dropping out of school… or transferring... both look appealing at times. I don’t have the guts to do it though. It would be too much work... WAY too much work.
In othe news, a number of things have been pouring through my head the past few days. The stress of school and exams and other stuff kept me from focusing all my attention on MESP stuff... but now that I have time...
I visited a new church today. It was pretty conservative. In the sermon, the pastor talked about questions and questioning. He mentioned that many schools avoid transferring perspective and worldview directly. Rather, the professors at those schools tell the students to question everything and then form their own worldview. The pastor did not like this at all: "Those professors claim that they are not teaching a ideology, but they really are. Those professors are teaching that it is all right to question everything! This is an ideology that places the individual at the center of the universe and gives him/her the power to decide what is truth." (the quote isn’t exact, but it catches the gist)
He is right... partly. The fact that I question God is a form of idolatry that puts me in God's place. I talked to the pastor after church and asked him where we should draw the lines between proper questioning and improper questioning. He drew the line at scripture. Scripture is our guide. I asked him about times where scripture itself questions God (Psalm 77 and 88, Lamentations and Jeremiah are pretty good examples among many others) His answer involved something to the effect of David in the Psalms recognizing that his questioning was fruitless... which is also kind of true.
I heard a term a few days ago from a professor that described this whole process of questioning. He called it "mental masturbation." It feels really good but it doesn’t get you anywhere. This prof did not advocate such a view, but he had heard a friend use it and thought that it was funny...
I made it back to my home church for the evening service. My dad preached about faith. It was a really good sermon except for the fact that I had to fight back tears a large part of the time. The problem is that Im not sure that I have faith of the sort that he talked about. Recently, I have been struggling with the authority of scripture. How do we know Jesus was God? The scripture. How do we know that the scripture is true? Well, you can take Apostolic succession some of the way, but you eventually have to take a leap of faith and assume that God inspired Paul, Luke, Peter, James, Matthew and all the rest. Can I base my entire life on that assumption? The counter question to that is: "Is my life mine and do I have the authority to base it on anything other than Christ?"
A song that we sang in church today after the sermon had some comfort in it.
It went:
Faith begins by letting go,
giving up what had seemed sure,
taking risks and pressing on,
though the way feels less secure:
pilgrimage both right and odd,
trusting all our life to God.
Peace
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2 comments:
Wow Michah. I'm really admiring your questioning right now. I think we all can relate on every issue and that's what makes this blog relaly so important, doesn't it? My friend Stephen just came back from MESP a week or so ago and it was amazing. We went out, had ice cream and talked about Mesp. It really was cathardic for me as well as for him. Then he told me about someone who goes to your school, Justin who sounds a lot like you. A Calvinist, theology major who came to Mesp and went home questionion every belief he's ever known: including God's sovereignty (sound familiar). I hope you can get in touch with Justin, or at least call him or something.
If not, know that we're here Micah, contemplating and going through the same crapola as you.
Habib,
Mandy
Yeah, I had several good talks with Justin about MESP. The problem was that he was only at Dordt durring exam week. So, I talked to him a lot, but not as much as I would have liked. : )
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