Why are you still a Christian?

-

I listen to podcasts. A lot of them. And I host one.  (Please check out Dialogues with Creators--sorry but I have to advertise!)

This morning I was listening to the Good Faith Podcast with Curtis Chang and Russell Moore as the guest (who is often on it). Dr. Moore has a book out, so he's talking that up. (Hey, I've been there.)

At one point he said that people have asked him, with all the things "going wrong" in the evangelical world, "Why are you still a Christian?"

Wow. That is lodged in my brain. I am going to explore that in the next few installments here (as you notice, I've been on hiatus due to the vacation season--I've flow twice to opposites sides of the country) and the beginning of the academic year. 

I do recall hearing Dr. Moore over 15 years ago speak at our church (I go to a church that gets some incredible speakers, obviously). He said in the sermon, interesting, that every day we decide to follow Christ. This is different from the viewpoint of a lot of "Christian authorities," who would say the conversion experience is an act of God that is unchangeable, not open to our decision otherwise. Yet I think there are some Biblical arguments against that "you have no choice or agency whatsoever in your life in Christ" position. 

 So when I heard him say  that about the question, "Why are you still a Christian," I couldn't help tying it to that sermon many years ago, back when he was a professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and not an officer in the SBC and then someone who made the decision to leave due to politics and abuse issues.  

More coming!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kallman's Syndrome: The Secret Best Kept

-
I went to my cardiologist yesterday.   Every year I have to wear a Holter monitor for a day because of a heart ablation I had in 2007.   If you don’t know what a Holter monitor is, it’s a 24-hour mobile, wires-hanging-off-your-body EKG.   The nurse practitioner saw me, (not the doctor, which is ok because his voice puts me to sleep).   She was very sweet.   She asked me if I was still taking Estradiol and Progesterin.   “No,” I said. “I’ve totally gone off those.   I was on them for a very long time and I wanted to be sure to stop.” What I didn’t tell her is how long I actually had taken those hormones.   37 years.   I started with HRT when I was 17 because I have Kallman’s Syndrome.   You may never meet a person who has this condition.   It only affects 1 in 10,000 people (or 1 in 86,000, according to one source) so that’s quite a range and far more males have it than females (as do most negative things).   So, being female, I am quite an oddit
Read more

Annie Dillard on Writing Advice and Some Observations

-
  https://getpocket.com/explore/item/write-as-if-you-were-dying-read-annie-dillard-s-greatest-writing-advice?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us I frequently listen to a podcast called THE HABIT. Its host is Jonathan Rogers, who for the most part interviews writers with a Christian focus. He is a better interviewer than I, and he runs a community of writers. I recommend him. I do have to say that the podcast makes me feel very shallow as a writer.  One reason is that Jonathan Rogers has a signature question, Who are the writers that make you want to write? If I ever land on his program (a dream), I will need an answer to that one, and right now I don't have one. Sure, there are writers I like, lots of them, but reading them doesn't send me to my computer to get cracking. They are more likely to make me think, you've got no business doing this writing gig.  Actually, bad or mediocre writers motivate me more although I am not exactly proud of that. And the fact that what I want to
Read more