Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Conviction, Resulting In Humility
'Bout a month ago, Bonnie at Intellectuele wrote on the growth of Eastern Orthodoxy and praised general ecumenical growth. I too am pro-revival in all Christian expressions and have a very fond place in my heart for Orthodoxy.
That we have many different views of our common Christian faith is unremarkable to me, but that we have huge fights over them, worse, that we celebrate the decline of branches of that faith, I find abhorent. I am often accused at this point on being somehow "soft" or "mushy" or "relativistic" or some other perjorative, most notably, that I do not believe there is "truth." Which is a symptom of what I find abhorent.
I search constantly for the truth. I am a pretty hard-core Calvinist and believe that to be as close to the truth as I have yet to discover. I am perfectly willing to debate it with anybody interested in a genuine intellectual search for the truth. But I stop there. I am not willing to press the point to the level of animous. My unwillingness to do so is not born of a lack of conviction, but of a deep conviction, resulting in humility.
I fail to understand how, as Christians, a people defined by their fallen nature, we can become so prideful of the salvation we received as a gift of grace...
Do I wish everyone was as I, yes, I do because I think I have it right. But I lack the surety of having it right. I am willing to argue, I am willing to discuss, but I am not willing to coerce, nor am I willing to wish ill on the other. Mostly, I trust God to handle it.
Related Tags: ecumenism, truth, humility, faith, works
That we have many different views of our common Christian faith is unremarkable to me, but that we have huge fights over them, worse, that we celebrate the decline of branches of that faith, I find abhorent. I am often accused at this point on being somehow "soft" or "mushy" or "relativistic" or some other perjorative, most notably, that I do not believe there is "truth." Which is a symptom of what I find abhorent.
I search constantly for the truth. I am a pretty hard-core Calvinist and believe that to be as close to the truth as I have yet to discover. I am perfectly willing to debate it with anybody interested in a genuine intellectual search for the truth. But I stop there. I am not willing to press the point to the level of animous. My unwillingness to do so is not born of a lack of conviction, but of a deep conviction, resulting in humility.
I fail to understand how, as Christians, a people defined by their fallen nature, we can become so prideful of the salvation we received as a gift of grace...
Eph 2:8-9 - For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast.Wouldn't "works" include the development of a theological understanding or a liturgical tradition?
Do I wish everyone was as I, yes, I do because I think I have it right. But I lack the surety of having it right. I am willing to argue, I am willing to discuss, but I am not willing to coerce, nor am I willing to wish ill on the other. Mostly, I trust God to handle it.
Related Tags: ecumenism, truth, humility, faith, works
