Dr. B
Steph is back, Mikey is back (with a deeper voice, more height, longer hair, and a genuine teenage look, amazing) and school starts for me Monday. Since I'm teaching almost all new classes, two new courses online, the first half of American lit for the first time, an Honors comp (for which I ordered things like Bacon's essays and Plato's Symposium and Faust, Part One) I have lots of prep work ahead.
I only hope all this doesn't cut into my blog time too much. I have a hard time getting free online time as it is!
Since I've begun going to church again I haven't really 'shared my faith' except perhaps here. Maintaining the skeptic's attitude and often, struggling with many questions about my faith (some fair, some driven or at least exacerbated by anxiety) I haven't been out knocking on doors. And so it was odd that two days ago, having lunch with the first friend I made at my college, this is what ended up happening.
My friend B has a doctorate in anthropology. This means he is an expert, or at least well-read, in evolutionary biology, religious systems across cultures (he says things like, 'only agrarian, land-owning cultures worship a single male deity') with great conviction. Of course, he knows more than I do about world religion, and I've read enough world mythology and other sacred texts to make discussion. The only thing I could share with him, finally, was my own experience and though process, which began by reading the gospels, or actually Mark and then John (after long resistance, as I've shared here). I was surprised when at the end of our lunch he agreed to pick one of the four and read it. When I don't know.
Because I told him that when faced with questions like, 'what about the indigenous people of Borneo who worship spirits in the forest like every other culture at their level of technological and social development, are they going to hell!' I simply have to say that only Jesus can answer that question. I mentioned Luke's parable of the Good Samaritan, where the man who acts according to God's character is not from the chosen people (I can still hear Dr. B almost yelling, even if non-aggressively, 'how unfair to choose one group of people, the Jews, what kind of God would do that?'). In the Lucan parable, the man Jesus holds up as an example is not-Jewish, worse, not exactly a Gentile either, who, as far as I know, would have been excluded from the Temple rituals and sacrifices. In other words, he was from the unchosen people, from a group excluded by the chosen, but his act of kindness is held up as the standard over the behavior of the very chosen by Luke's Christ.
When I was talking, oddly, I felt like I was actually beginning to answer some of my own questions.
I don't know where this will lead; Dr. B. did have a Catholic childhood (during our lunch at the brewpub he starts yelling...and no worries, professors yell when they argue all the time and mean well anyway...'nowhere in the bible is premarital sex specifically prohibited and Christians are obsessed with it,'...well, literally, he might be right, but it didn't seem like a central issue). He left his child's faith years ago, decades ago, and his arguments regarding the multiplicities of religion are fair questions. Now he's newly married, with a baby on the way, and that perhaps is making him re-examine his attitudes. For sure, he's very smart, very well-educated (he continues to do field work for National Geographic, in fact the project he's assisting on was featured in a recent issue), and astutely skeptical.
Pray for my friend Dr. B if you can; I don't know what to do except follow up in a couple weeks and see if he's started a gospel, maybe even do what John Kwon did for me: meet with him on occasion and read a chapter. I have some anxiety because my own faith is going on trial in a way, though I think I'm willing to hold to both the possibility of natural selection/macroevolution and the clear fact of the multiplicity of world religions, perhaps even the evolution of religious idea, and still have faith in Jesus.
When he got to Spong, who I haven't read, and the alleged errors Jesus made on earth (according to Dr. B, pointing skyward and saying heaven was 'up') I was at a bit of a loss, though I don't remember Jesus ever saying heaven was 'up.' The demonic possessions are also tricky simply because I've never seen a demon possessed person and am unaware of any evidence for such a thing. It is possible some of the demonic possessions in the gospels were misunderstood by the gospel writers (epilepsy, for example) though not all could be unless the accounts were greatly fictionalized: in some places, the demons speak directly to Christ. I have seen an article on this referenced I'd like to read. In any case, all of those who sought help from Jesus got it.
Dr. B did point out that he is unaware of proof of any culture that doesn't have some belief in the supernatural. I don't know about that, but he certainly would.
***
I start my efm classes soon, next month, S and I both. This will give me a great beginning, an entire year in the ot, another in the nt, then a year of church history and a year of theology. I'm actually disappointed I don't have to write any papers, geek that I am. Actually, I'll probably impose on my friends here when I feel the need to sort things out in writing.
Why do I have such a strong need for a rational support structure for my beliefs? I don't know, but it's where I'm at. At the very least, it helps me talk to people like Dr. B because we approach knowledge in such a similar way (taught, of course, by the spirit of our own age with all its strengths and limitations).
I can't say how much I appreciate this place to share. I need it. I love it. Thanks again to those who read.
t
I only hope all this doesn't cut into my blog time too much. I have a hard time getting free online time as it is!
Since I've begun going to church again I haven't really 'shared my faith' except perhaps here. Maintaining the skeptic's attitude and often, struggling with many questions about my faith (some fair, some driven or at least exacerbated by anxiety) I haven't been out knocking on doors. And so it was odd that two days ago, having lunch with the first friend I made at my college, this is what ended up happening.
My friend B has a doctorate in anthropology. This means he is an expert, or at least well-read, in evolutionary biology, religious systems across cultures (he says things like, 'only agrarian, land-owning cultures worship a single male deity') with great conviction. Of course, he knows more than I do about world religion, and I've read enough world mythology and other sacred texts to make discussion. The only thing I could share with him, finally, was my own experience and though process, which began by reading the gospels, or actually Mark and then John (after long resistance, as I've shared here). I was surprised when at the end of our lunch he agreed to pick one of the four and read it. When I don't know.
Because I told him that when faced with questions like, 'what about the indigenous people of Borneo who worship spirits in the forest like every other culture at their level of technological and social development, are they going to hell!' I simply have to say that only Jesus can answer that question. I mentioned Luke's parable of the Good Samaritan, where the man who acts according to God's character is not from the chosen people (I can still hear Dr. B almost yelling, even if non-aggressively, 'how unfair to choose one group of people, the Jews, what kind of God would do that?'). In the Lucan parable, the man Jesus holds up as an example is not-Jewish, worse, not exactly a Gentile either, who, as far as I know, would have been excluded from the Temple rituals and sacrifices. In other words, he was from the unchosen people, from a group excluded by the chosen, but his act of kindness is held up as the standard over the behavior of the very chosen by Luke's Christ.
When I was talking, oddly, I felt like I was actually beginning to answer some of my own questions.
I don't know where this will lead; Dr. B. did have a Catholic childhood (during our lunch at the brewpub he starts yelling...and no worries, professors yell when they argue all the time and mean well anyway...'nowhere in the bible is premarital sex specifically prohibited and Christians are obsessed with it,'...well, literally, he might be right, but it didn't seem like a central issue). He left his child's faith years ago, decades ago, and his arguments regarding the multiplicities of religion are fair questions. Now he's newly married, with a baby on the way, and that perhaps is making him re-examine his attitudes. For sure, he's very smart, very well-educated (he continues to do field work for National Geographic, in fact the project he's assisting on was featured in a recent issue), and astutely skeptical.
Pray for my friend Dr. B if you can; I don't know what to do except follow up in a couple weeks and see if he's started a gospel, maybe even do what John Kwon did for me: meet with him on occasion and read a chapter. I have some anxiety because my own faith is going on trial in a way, though I think I'm willing to hold to both the possibility of natural selection/macroevolution and the clear fact of the multiplicity of world religions, perhaps even the evolution of religious idea, and still have faith in Jesus.
When he got to Spong, who I haven't read, and the alleged errors Jesus made on earth (according to Dr. B, pointing skyward and saying heaven was 'up') I was at a bit of a loss, though I don't remember Jesus ever saying heaven was 'up.' The demonic possessions are also tricky simply because I've never seen a demon possessed person and am unaware of any evidence for such a thing. It is possible some of the demonic possessions in the gospels were misunderstood by the gospel writers (epilepsy, for example) though not all could be unless the accounts were greatly fictionalized: in some places, the demons speak directly to Christ. I have seen an article on this referenced I'd like to read. In any case, all of those who sought help from Jesus got it.
Dr. B did point out that he is unaware of proof of any culture that doesn't have some belief in the supernatural. I don't know about that, but he certainly would.
***
I start my efm classes soon, next month, S and I both. This will give me a great beginning, an entire year in the ot, another in the nt, then a year of church history and a year of theology. I'm actually disappointed I don't have to write any papers, geek that I am. Actually, I'll probably impose on my friends here when I feel the need to sort things out in writing.
Why do I have such a strong need for a rational support structure for my beliefs? I don't know, but it's where I'm at. At the very least, it helps me talk to people like Dr. B because we approach knowledge in such a similar way (taught, of course, by the spirit of our own age with all its strengths and limitations).
I can't say how much I appreciate this place to share. I need it. I love it. Thanks again to those who read.
t
Comments
Whatever the outcome, an opportunity has been presented to you. See where it leads.
For sure, I'll pray for Dr. B and you. And that class you guys are taking sounds awesome. Can't wait top read about here.
Glad Mikey returned home safely.
Blessings and peace to you and your family.
I think saying I don't know is always part of it.
t