As I contemplate my religious, theological, and intellectual journeys I have
found myself in different places in different stages of life. When I was in
high school and early college, I was very conservative in my thinking.
While in college I was taught of the harmful pettiness of some of the
leaders in the fundamentalist camps (whether referred to as the New
Christian Right (Ammerran, 1991). I became disgusted by “sky-box
takeover” (McBeth, 1982) and as the way that the former president of my
seminary (Dr. Russell Dilday) found out that he had been fired. He was
called in to a meeting to be told he was fired, during which the lock to his
office had been changed. I quickly clarified my own terminology. I was
conservative, but not fundamentalist. But I was also being influenced by
my best friend was becoming increasingly liberal in his thoughts and
theology. I was disturbed by the actions of those more conservative than
me, but he was hurt and angry. I refused to “fall in line” in my theology,
so I termed myself as a “thinking conservative … maybe a moderate”.
Clinical Pastoral Education also challenged my conservativism, but I was
able to easily work through some of those battles due to the biblical
ignorance of our site director. Eventually, life pulled me into a diversified
ministry in Army Chaplaincy. I found that I could be pulled in all
directions, or I could establish my ground and stand on it. My biblical and
language studies would not allow me to go with the strictly literal
interpretation of passages that was clearly written as an allegorical word
picture. Nor would my studies allow me to condone the choices of many
of those around me. There were a couple of sins that I struggled with, and
yet was disturbed by how little I struggled with them. I prayed that God
would give me conviction, and thus motivation to stop doing them. God
gave me my wife. Her theology was still forming, but her convictions
were solid. The older I get, the more conservative I get. I also hold that
the Bible is filled with allegory, word pictures, and sarcasm that must be
interpreted in the translation.
My mind has always functioned logically. I have not struggled with the
integration of science into my theology, so long as science supported my
theology. One of the biggest areas of contention was with the creation
story. Whereas I believe and hold to a six-day creation, I also believe that
God is great enough, powerful enough, expansive enough to have created
however He chose. I do see the issue that without Adam, Eve, and the
serpent there must be another explanation for the entrance of evil in the
world (Entwistle, 2015). I recognize that this issue as well as the crossing
of the Red Sea, the feeding of 5000, and multiple other fantastic stories
seem just that to many people … fantastic stories. I assert again that God
is bigger, greater, more powerful, holier than I can fathom. I am
completely okay with that.
Resources
Ammerran, N. (1991). Southern Baptists and the New Christian
Right.Review of Religious Research,32(3), 213-236. doi:10.2307/3511207
Entwistle, D. N. (2015).Integrative approaches to psychology and
Christianity: An introduction to worldview issues, philosophical
foundations, and models of integration. Cascade Books.
McBeth, L. (1982). Fundamentalism in the Southern Baptist Convention in
recent years.Review & Expositor,79(1), 85–103.
