It is funny to read my journal archives (which nobody but me can read now, and you should thank me for that, reader) and see the nonsense I spewed sometimes:
Calvinism is what happens when theology comes too close to reality. Pure theology is like pure mathematics—beautiful to few, useful to even fewer, when you can do something with it, then it’s the only thing that works; otherwise it is just a waste of time in most people’s minds and it will actually keep people from accomplishing their ends when its use is inappropriate.
I am in one of those phases where I’m having trouble figuring out what to write about next in the testimony. There was a long period from the beginning of 2001 to almost the end of 2003 in which my theology underwent significant changes, and some of them weren’t good at all. In the middle of February 2003 I wrote the above quote, I guess because by then I had figured out that there wasn’t much I could do with the sovereignty of God but accept it, but I couldn’t understand why God had revealed it to us.
I should say that these days I know that true doctrine displays its power in changed lives, and I am living proof of that.
In the meantime, a few teasers for the immediate future of the testimony:
- The aftermath of September 11, 2001
- The deity of Christ
- Constantine, the Antichrist
- Church discipline
- The conference
- Textual criticism and its impact on ecclesiology (it’s not as boring as it sounds) (well, maybe it is)
- How Isaiah 7:14 forced me to believe in biblical theology
And that should lead us right up to the place where the schism stopped being something in my heart and started being something that everybody could see.
A couple of tidbits from March 2003 which will amuse those who know where this is going:
In our case, all theories about the interaction between Scripture and tradition stink, but Calvin’s stinks less.
And then this lengthy bit:
From the Living Torah Journal, 12 March 2003, by Charles Sebold:
At the moment I (and readers, if they’re following along closely) are stuck in something I call a “Maimonides moment.” Rabbis used to warn people not to read Maimonides’ philosophy/theology work Guide for the Perplexed, because the way he would posit dilemmas and then resolve them, one could fall asleep an unbeliever while trying to read to the resolution and believe again. If you died in your sleep, the thinking goes, you would die an unbeliever, because you didn’t finish the chapter or whatever.
My core beliefs aren’t shaken, but at the moment I have to admit that I don’t have a resolution for my secondary beliefs—the way I run the church, the way I teach, the way I live, the way I view my God. I have often joked with my wife that the more I learn, the more I become a Presbyterian, but this kind of thought experiment pushes the boundaries much farther than just Geneva—there are moments when I find myself in Wittenburg. Oh, don’t worry, I still think that I will never again fit the church mold; I’m too accustomed to thinking for myself, and wrestling with questions that few ask. I’ll never be able to sit still for typical Sunday morning fare, ever again. I am “ruined forever” as far as that goes. I just have to find out where this is taking me. Why did the people after Luther, the ones who did not end up Lutherans but were still Protestants, decide that they could set aside greater quantities of church tradition? At what point did they see the valid tradition ending and the corruption beginning?
If any of you are desperate for a resolution, I will give you a simple one, but it doesn’t answer everything and it might not hold up through the process of examination: the second generation, the people who took over the European and Asia Minor churches following Paul and John, may have fumbled the ball. Evidence seems to indicate that they were not Jewish, and therefore did not bring the depth of Jewish understanding to the table that Paul started them with. I have not done the deep study of the Church Fathers that I have wanted to do, but right now I can point out where Clement quoted the Septuagint and misconstrued a passage on that basis. (But then again, one could argue that Matthew did that too, in Isaiah 7:14, by going with παρθενος or parthenos, virgin, rather than going with a word that matches the Hebrew better.)
Good old Charlie, can’t fix everything without breaking something else.
Want something different to think about while I try to rebuild my theology?
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