10 Day Break - Part 1

We've been gone for a time because we were on midterm break from L'Abri. We took an unbelievable whirlwind trip of northwestern Europe, including France, England & Germany in 10 short days. We had a wonderful time that included visits with family & friends old and new. There are way too many pictures to post, but we'll work on putting a few of the key highlights as we can get internet access.

Of course the first to put up is the Eiffel Tower Paris.


The second is of Mont St. Michelle in the northwest corner of France. It is a monastary built on a rock that sticks up out of the marshlands. At high tide it is an island. At low tide, it is surrounded by swamp and bogs.


And this is us in Cambridge, England at Kings College.

Critique of Fundamental/Liberal Theology

This is something I read today that hit me in a very personal way as I have lived very clearly on both sides of this fence. It is a quote from Proper Confidence, by Lesslie Newbigin.

“The confession of the truth will be part of a continual indebtedness to grace. It will never be the kind of certainty which supposes that I can become a possessor of the truth by the exercise of my own natural powers. It will mean that my understanding of the truth must be constantly open to revision and correction, but only and always within the irreversible commitment to Jesus Christ… the strength of the liberal tradition is its willingness to be open to new truth. And the gospel itself makes this liberal mind possible; for if we know that Jesus is indeed the Word made flesh, the visible and knowable presence in the midst of history from whom and for whom all things exist, then we shall meet new experiences of any kind of reality with confidence that we are given the clue for their understanding. But if that clue itself is questioned or abandoned, then we become clueless playthings in the winds and waves of fashion… The fundamentalist critique of liberal theology must be taken seriously. But fundamentalists do a disservice to the gospel when… they adopt a style of certainty more in the tradition of Descartes than in the truly evangelical spirit. This can show itself in several familiar ways. Sometimes it is an anxiety about the threat that new discoveries in science may pose to Christian faith – an anxiety that betrays a lack of total confidence in the central truth of the gospel that Jesus is the Word made flesh. Sometimes it leads to a refusal to reconsider long-held beliefs in the light of fresh reflection on the witness of Scripture... (refer to Acts 17:11) And it can manifest itself in a claim for the objective truth of the Christian message that seems to depend on the acceptance of the false dualism of Enlightenment thought… Perhaps liberals would be more ready to listen to the very serious question put to them by fundamentalists if the latter were more manifestly speaking as those who must think, as they must live, as debtors to grace. There is much wisdom in the simple words with which Herbert Butterfield concluded his study of Christianity and history: ‘Hold to Christ, and for the rest be totally uncommitted’” (70-71).

Wrestling with Certainty

I've been reading "The Myth of Certainty" by Daniel Taylor this week. I still need to process it with my tutor, but I have been wrestling with some of his thoughts and statements (mostly ideas on reason).

These are the final statements of his book, in which I do appreciate.

"I have learned to live with the rise and fall of the thoughts and feelings of faith, to co-exist with honest doubt, to accept tension and paradox without clinging to it as an excuse for inaction. I have learned to be a minority without seeking to be an adversary. I am trying to do what people of faith have always done- respond to revelation by my own best lights, struggle to understand all that can be understood and have reverence for the rest, act beyond my certain knowledge in the faith that such action is blessed. 'Lord, I believe; help though my unbelief.'"

Sweet Booty! We got pictures again!

This is Bern, the capital of Switzerland. We were there a week ago.



And this is one more of the Lauterbrunnen valley.

Picture Problems

Sorry, but we've been having trouble uploading pictures for the last week and a half. We can only get one today. This was from a couple weeks ago in the Lauterbrunnen valley just south of Interlaken.

Tension

Tension is a buzz word at L’Abri. All of the books I am reading speak of tension; the word just leaps off the page at me now. I guess I hadn’t previously opened my eyes to it, but knew it well enough inside of my head. Tension is a good thing… so they say.

So, what have I learned about tension? As a Christian I will constantly be in this place. There is constant tension between reality and my set of beliefs. Francis Schaeffer says that being completely on one side or the other, being bound solely by reality, or being bound solely by a set of beliefs, is damning oneself. And he also mentions that we can never be completely balanced in the middle. So what do I do with this? Why did God make us this way, or did we make us this way (sin)?

This leads me not to have strict answers on most things, and it also leaves me struggling with the same things…over and over and over again. The tension will never leave, but it may be less at some points in my life, while other tensions seem to rise up.

I know this may seem vague or confusing, but it has been actually freeing to process this with my tutor. At least now I know that it is normal to revisit the tensions over and over again. I do have a foundation to wrestle with that tension upon (thank goodness)! But, with this in mind, I also don’t live with the guilt of solving that tension, but of approaching it with new experiences as well as hindsight.