Anticipation and Contemplation

I know, this isn't Part 2 of my "Crushes" post. Don't worry, it is coming! I promise.

But I thought I'd tell you about something else you can look forward to on my blog!

I just sent an email interview to one of my campus pastors, Geoff Mumley, that I will post on here in a week or two! I thought as a guy whose career is all about "faith in college," he might have some interesting ideas to add to to my blog. I'm super excited to see what he has to say and share his (hopefully) wise words with you all.

In the mean time, as you all are anxiously anticipating that post and my second installment in my posts about dating, I thought I'd give you an interesting quote to chew on:

"Heads are neither open nor hollow. Heads have lids, screwed on tightly, and no amount of pouring can force ideas inside. Minds only open when their owners sense a need to open them. Even then, ideas must still filter through layers of experience, habit, prejudice, fear, and suspicion. If ideas make it through at all, it s because feedback operates between speaker and listener."

                                               - Haddon Robinson, of Gordon Conwell School of Theology

Boys, Dating, and Crushes Part 1

So, depeding on who you are, this may shock you or it may be old news but...

I have never had a boyfriend. Ever.

Never been kissed. Never held someone's hand. Not even really been on a date.

While there are probably many reasons this is true, I've narrowed it down to the two which I will explore through this series that I think are the biggest reasons why this is so.

     1.  My beliefs and standards about dating
  
             and, if I'm being honest....

     2.  No boy I've liked has reciprocated

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My first exposure to peers dating (if you can call it that) was in 5th grade. Yup, barely out of single digits, and we thought we were so grown up.

Me in 5th Grade

A couple of the coolest kids from the four 5th grade classes at my elementary school "asked each other out," which meant the "couple" would spend the two recesses we had a day walking around the playground holding hands. If your relationship was especially advanced, you might convince a some friends to be your lookout as you sneaked behind a tree to steal a kiss.

Some couples professed their eternal love to one another, saying they would never break up.

Yet, none of those relationships lasted the year. No surprise there.

I'm not proud to say it, but I was one of those lookouts more than once. Inside, I remember thinking it seemed silly, but I wasn't brave enough to say so.

In middle school, I began to compose a more concrete personal belief about dating, especially in the young, 10-15 age range. That belief: It's STUPID!

As I looked around and saw the amount of drama and heartache caused by these romantic relationships that could not really develop into anything substantial and always ended, it seemed a logical and simple solution to decide not to date.

This attitude continued on into high school. While I was maybe a bit more open to the idea of having a boyfriend, I didn't believe in dating just for fun. I thought any boyfriend I would want to have should have marriage potential.

I wasn't desperate for a boyfriend, but sometimes I would look around at everyone holding hands in the hallways and wonder if there was anything wrong with me.

I thought I was fairly average looking, but could I actually be hideous without knowing it? Was my personality repellent? Did I smell awful?

But then I'd look around and see all types of girls with a boyfriend, and I knew I bathed with relative frequency, so I knew that it had to do with something more than that.

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Well, I think I'll end this post here for now. I know I haven't really made any points yet, but it's already a good sized post. I'll pick it up again next week.

For now, here are some questions:

What did you think about dating when you were younger?

Looking back on them, do you still think that way?

What's one thing you know now that you wish you knew then?

Some Ways College Got Me Thinking

I want to take a minute to thank my readers. I’ve loved all your input! Thanks for all your honest thoughts on these complex issues. I love the furthering questions many of you have posed, and I really appreciate the points that some of you have contributed more to or expanded upon. That is exactly what I want this blog to be about. 

I will do my best to answer your comments, but I want to apologize in advance if I don’t have the time to get to something you posted or don’t address them as extensively as you might like. I’m taking a full load this quarter, plus working as a nanny, so I don’t have a ton of free time.

Now, let’s get to the subject of today's post. I thought I’d write a bit more about how being in college has forced me to start asking myself some of those “big questions” about life and faith.

Me (far left) with some cousins at a birthday party.

 

I “asked Jesus into my heart” when was 3 years old, and I have no memory of it. I have, however, been told the story on numerous occasions. It was my older brother, Josh’s, Christian birthday (the date he became a Christian). I don’t remember my family normally having a party or celebration for our Christian birthdays, but I guess that year, Josh was getting cake.  

I liked cake. 

Now, I’ve been told that my parents explained to me the reason why he was getting cake, and I said I understood, but I’ve never been quite sure whether I became a Christian more for Jesus or for cake.

But that’s another point for another post. What I'm saying is, I have considered myself a Christian for a long time. But in my 18 years following Jesus, no stage of my life has involved as much critical question asking as the past three years at college. 

Psychology classes made me ask whether guilt I feel is really God’s spirit inside me, or if I only feel badly because my parents and culture have trained me to feel that way.

Literature classes made me consider if the writings of Apostle Paul (author of much of the New Testament) really align with the teachings of Jesus, or if they are actually in conflict with each other.

Anthropology classes made me wonder if the God of Christianity was a god that could transcend culture, or if he was merely a “rich, white, American” god.

 

Some of these questions, after prayer, research, and much thought, led me to the answers I held all along. Other forced me to change my thinking.

An example a point on which my thinking has changed is about the first chapters of Genesis. (One of the reasons I use this example is to answer a question that was posted in response to my last blog entry).

Four years ago, I would not have tolerated anything but a completely literal interpretation. There was a physical place called Eden, a man and woman named Adam and Eve, and a real snake. 

Then in college, I heard sound, logical, fact based arguments that didn't seem to fit with my understanding of creation. I thought a lot about them. I wondered changing my mind would mean invalidating my faith. I talked with other wise Christians and listened to their views.

Now, I am ok with the Creation Story not being literal. I actually am leaning towards thinking it is most likely not literal.

The author was not an eyewitness. In fact, he lived thousands of years later. I’m ok with Adam being an archetype. In fact, his name is a play on words.  God made Adam out of dirt. In Hebrew “Adam” means mankind, and "adama" means dirt. Adam out of adama.

The writer also used imagery from cultures around him, but changed it in significant ways to show how this God is different. In those days, idols where created in the image of gods and they were believed to have that God’s spirit living in them. Man was made in God’s image, and he breathed the His spirit of life into them. In addition, the Sun was a very common god in many surrounding nations. I don’t think it’s any mistake that God created light and day before he created the sun. It’s like the author is saying, “Our God is so powerful, he doesn’t even need the sun for there to be day.”

 

The man who wrote Genesis was using human words, written in was his current culture would understand it. He was striving to tell the story of an event that no human witnessed and is probably so extraordinary that it is beyond human comprehension. I think his main concern was to establish Yahweh God as the Supreme Being and Creator of All Things, setting him apart from the gods of other nations.

I now believe that that is the important part of the story. The “how” behind creation, while interesting to think about, is not as important to me as the “who.” Too often, I think Christians cling onto one detail, while not looking at the big picture.

Just look at Galileo, almost excommunicated because he challenged the "fact" that the earth was the center of the universe.

What do you think? Are you comfortable with my take on Genesis 1-3?

Do you have any beliefs you’ve had to reconsider after asking yourself some tough questions?

Can a "Good God" send people to Hell?

Whoa... big question, right? One that has been asked for ages.

It has been pondered and anguished over by both great theologians and average people for centuries. Today, it’s one of the most common questions I hear when I tell other people on campus that I am a Christian.

I know I’m not a great theologian, and I have already told you I don’t have all the answers, but since this is such a great question and it came up in my comments, I felt I should give you my thoughts on it.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about my answer to this question, as I believe all Christians (and non-Christians) should. Its answer will determine what I believe about the character of God. If I truly came to the conclusion that the God of Christianity was a cruel or unjust, I would not follow him. In fact, I think I would try to stop others from following him too.

But I am following him, and let me tell you why.

I believe that God is good in the fullness of the word. He is the definition of goodness and everything good is of him. As the definition of goodness, he cannot be with anything “un-good.” The Bible uses the analogies of light and darkness, order and chaos; they cannot mix because their definitions are in inherently opposition to one another.

Now, you’ve probably all heard the story of Adam and Eve, the snake and the forbidden fruit from Genesis chapters 1-3. While I don’t believe that this is a historical account (in the modern sense) of the fall of man, I believe that it shows us that mankind chose to have part in evil. The “forbidden fruit” is from the tree of the “knowledge of good and evil.” The word “knowledge” here means intimacy and experience with something. At this moment, humanity lost its innocence and became mixed beings, with knowledge of both good and evil.

And this evil, like a disease spread into all creation. In my Discipleship Class, we talked about the concept of "total depravity," a theological doctrine that states that there is evil in all things. This concept is often defined wrongly. It does not mean, as some would say, that every person is as affected by and filled with as much evil as they possibly could be. We need only look around to see that that is not true. Not only are we not all murderers, but we see people helping the homeless and holding doors for one another.

What "total depravity" means is that every area of a person's life is affected by evil. There is no perfect aspect of any person's life. We need only look around to see that that is true. Peopel's relationships, self image, priorities are all imperfect, all broken. Try to live one week without being unkind, ungrateful, impatient, or selfish, and you will see that is utterly impossible. We are undeniably flawed.

Since the fall of man left us all flawed, riddled with evil, we are doomed to be separated from the Good God both in this world, and for eternity. Separation from God for eternity is what we humans have named Hell. And I don’t believe Hell is a literal lake of fire, but I believe the human writers of the Bible were trying to use human words to describe the agony of an eternity separated from all things good.

But God loved mankind too much to leave the world condemned! He designed a rescue plan, at great cost to himself, to ransom humanity back from the separation they chose. Since it was their choice to leave, it has to be their choice to come back. But he holds out an open hand to anyone who will reach for it.

"For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16

So, it's not God who sends people to hell. It is God who offers to save them from it.