Parchment & Pen Blog

This came from one of our readers. I thought it was worth sharing considering my last post.

Let me give you a brief back ground of myself. I was raised in an extremely fundamentalist Baptist home where everything was cut and dry and very dogmatic. Doubt and questions of theology were generally met with a polemic attitude. The King James Bible was the only bible allowed in the home and my dad was a firm believer in spare the rod spoil the child. I did not necessarily see the love of God in our home only a dogmatic system of living.

Needless to say my teenage and young adult years brought about swift rebellion to God and everything I was “told” to believe. I DO NOT blame my dad for this rebellion but I do partially blame the system in which my sisters and I were taught our theology. It seemed everything from smoking, drinking, gambling, wearing anything but a suit to church would send one straight to hell.

I was blessed to have a family who worship God and one who tried to raise their children in a Godly manner. This is what I believe brought me back to my knees in search of my Lord and Savior. Sadly, my younger sister is still in rebellion.

I continue to attend a Southern Baptist Church in the OKC area (but I don’t hold to the belief that I was brought up with that Baptists are the only ones going to heaven) and I do strive to know and understand the God of my worship. Some of things I was told to believe as a child I questioned and have since come to an understanding of on my own. But there is still much I question (mainly non-essentials) and don’t understand. I feel there is not an avenue where I and others can explore our beliefs and/or uncertainties and come to an understanding. My church does offer the standard generic classes but they don’t offer truly biblical study courses. Courses where believers can come together using exegesis and proper hermeneutics to flush out biblical teaching to determine timeless principals.

Thankfully, through a very good bible study group here at my office a gentleman has mentored me through some of my questions and doubts. He is patient and understanding of my questions and his knowledge of biblical Greek is wonderful. Through this gentleman I was lead to the Theology Program. I first began to watch the videos on-line through self study and when I found out you would be teaching it at Crossings I knew I had to attend.

I enjoy your approach to this class [The Theology Program] and I believe any layperson who feels called to teach or anyone who desires to know why they believe what they believe should go through this program. I have tried to get it started at my church but to my disappointment it does not seem to be a priority.

As a father of two children I desire for them to come to their own understanding of truth. What I mean by this is I don’t want them to believe and come to faith because that’s what daddy says (I want them to place their faith in Jesus Christ and not in daddy’s faith). I want them to come to their own understanding based upon biblical truth. But now, like you, I fear the church has in some ways lost its calling of making disciples.

The focus on the present day church can be anywhere from what type of music to play; do we build a gym to reach the inner city youth; do we stay with traditional bible study or go with home groups; to how can we grow the church? Anyone of these may bring people to the church but what do we have established right now to walk them through to Christian maturity? (I am speaking of my church)

Have we allowed ourselves to become anti-intellectual to a point of being afraid to engage in irenic conversations about difficult or differing beliefs? Has our plan of evangelizing blinded our mission of creating disciples also?

The answer to these questions is I don’t know. I can only speak from the perspective of my own church. I fear some of those we bring in through the music, gym, or home groups may one day fall to the secular teachings of the world around them. The message of God is love is not always reflected in the world around us. It is only reflected in what we know to be absolutely true. The sad thing is we are not all equipped to articulate absolute truth to the postmodern world.

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• Live in the Oklahoma City Area?
• The Theology Program Online Classes Start Next Week: Enroll Now
• A Message from Reclaiming the Mind Ministries
• Nine Step Guide to Studying Theology (or Any Issue)
• Credo House of Theology