Thursday, March 29, 2007

It's almost the end of March. If I can be granted permission to state the obvious. I'm not sure why this thought suddenly struck me, but it did, and I find myself scrambling to figure out where time is going.

That's about all the philosophical musings I have in me tonight [note: I just finished writing, and this statement turns out to be false]. Other than that, I've got a recap of the day, and some comments on 24. Read on.

The usual kind of Wednesday today. School early 'til late. In my 8:00 class, my prof is always late--no exceptions. He's at least five minutes late every class, but usually he's more like 10-15 minutes late. He's so chronically late, that he's past the point of even apologizing for it, or perhaps even pretending to care. His claim is that he's busy making class handouts, and if he hurried to get to class on time, the quality of our handouts would suffer. Yes, he actually said that. I'm glad he's well-prepared, but it's one of my pet peeves when people don't respect my time. He must be one of those people whose alarm clocks can't be set for any time before 7:00.

Anyway. Went to chapel--met wife and son there as usual for Wednesdays--but wasn't really feeling it, so we snuck out and headed next door for some coffee. The campus coffee shop (not the student one, but the one for the community and students) is quite large, and Theo has ample room to run and frolic--a benefit to all. After having a lovely time with my family, I went to the next class.

Lunch back at home, then back to school again. Not much to report for the afternoon. In my last class of the day (the one where we studied feminist theology earlier this semester), we're talking about the exclusivity of Christianity, which is a really interesting topic. We're trying to answer the famous question about the state of the salvation of that guy in some tribe in Africa who's never heard the message of the gospel. The debate is framed something like this: if an explicit declaration of faith in the work of Christ is necessary and essential for salvation, are those who cannot reasonably make this claim due to lack of proclamation held eternally responsible and condemned to hell? Okay, I'm making it more adversarial than it needs to be, but that's the gyst.

It's an interesting, and very expansive, topic. As usual, there are more than just two views on the answer--it's more like a spectrum, with guys like DA Carson on one end, and Clark Pinnock on the other. In between, there are probably hundreds of permutations and varations on the theme. I, personally, have no idea where I stand on the issue. I know what the typical evangelical response is to the question, but is that sufficient? I'm not sure. How can we balance God's grace, love, and desire for all to be saved, with His wrath, judgement, and fair punishment of sin that we have inherited from our first parents? It's a difficult question.

All this discussion has also led me to a different theological rabbit trail that I'm going to try to head down as the semester closes (and I have free access to an average library of theological works)--open theism. In brief (check the linked website for more, and do a Google search to get the arguments against), this is the belief that God has a limited knowledge of future events, in that He knows how things might turn out, but He does not know for certain until humans have made decisions and acted. In other words, God knows all the possibilities, but not which of the possibilities will actually happen, because He has chosen to create human beings as free moral agents--agents who have some influence (whether they know it or not) on events.

As much as I may want to dismiss a new theological paradigm like this one immediately because it counters what I've been taught, the authors who are behind the movement give me pause. These are well-respected, godly men, who have dedicated their lives to the pursuit of a closer knowledge of God. They're not trying to start a cult or subvert Christianity, they're just offering ideas. As one who pursues knowledge for its own sake, and who is going into ministry (likely to be faced with questions like these ones from time to time), it's important for me to be conversant in these things--to know the angles so that I can accurately support my own viewpoint.

But this whole thing also has to be tempered, of course, by the realization that as much as I enjoy thinking about theological constructs, it's not theological construction that's going to get me into heaven (to be crude), nor will my staggering intellect win any souls to Christ. No, my role in ministry is to live my life in a way that gives glory to God, and that makes the concept of faith and the relationship with Jesus so attractive that people can't help but ask questions about why I am the way I am (and not in a psych-eval kind of sense, either).

It's easy many times to get lost in the lofty theologizing that goes on at a campus such as this. It's easy to isolate myself from the real world of hurt and pain because I'm in my little bubble here in Three Hills. It's easy to forget that life is made up of messy people in messy situations, and when I'm face-to-face with a teen who has just found out she's pregnant, or who just got beat up by his dad, my ideas of whether or not the Western Christian ideal of God has been unduly influenced by the thought of Greek philosophers such as Aristotle suddenly become unimportant. In the real world, Jesus walks and lives with sinners, calling them to a better, more abundant life, through a relationship with Him. That message of hope is transmitted unfettered by theological nuance, and is simply stated as an invitation: "Come." That, above these other things, is what I need to remember as I bring it on home.

Moving on, without any kind of appropriate segue.

Hey, did you catch this week's 24? Has to be one of the best so far. I mean, two miraculous healings in one episode (the president, who was crashing moments ago, suddenly regains consciousness and has a national security briefing just in time to stop an ill-advised nuclear strike on an unnamed country in the Middle East; and hey look, Milo doesn't need his sling anymore--I guess threatening to punch out ugly face really did him some good)? That's good.

And I'm glad to see Camilla Parker Bowles is back from the airport and counselling distraught family members to make rash medical decisions based on emotional manipulation. And who doesn't like a shout out to Rain Man, really? I can picture the scene in the writer's meeting: "Okay, what haven't we done yet?" "Oh, I know, a brilliant autistic guy who hacks into government computers and steals important information--it's solid gold!"

And I wonder if Bill and Jack aren't on good enough speaking terms yet for Jack to not have to say, "Bill, it's Jack" every time he calls. If nothing else, the panicked tone of voice and rapid respriation rate ought to give him away. And you know, if I was Bill, I'd be making notes for Jack's personnel file on how many times he's hung up without an appropriate good-bye.

Furthermore, what's with smarmy-face-from-division guy who owes Doyle from Dallas (is that a great name for a B-film, or what)? He's only had two minutes of face time, and I already hate him. Gosh.

But the very best part of the whole show is the fact that this was probably the first and only time in the history of television where the words, "Get me the attorney general" were used effectively as a cliff-hanger. Except maybe on C-SPAN. Even then, it's probably a stretch.

Okay, that about does it for this evening. Hey, did I mention I appreciate you stopping by and reading all this stuff? Well, I do. And I hope you'll come back again tomorrow. See you then.