Thursday, February 16, 2006

A while back
I said that I was quitting reading Christian blogs. Well, that was true and I have. The habit for reading those certain blogs, which I haven't read in well over a month, is pretty much gone. The reason I wanted to quit was that, while they were informative, (they have a national readership with lots of commenters) they tended to promote a critical spirit. Oddly, the irony at times, was their tendency to be critical of those groups which tend to be critical. So, I think I am off it.

However, I have a new thing: reading Christian blogs. It turns out that many of my fellow WSCAL students have blogs. These are different. They tend to be more personal and a lot less polemical. I don't really get to know very well any of these fellow students, so reading some of these has allowed me to learn about them at a different, non-academic level. Reading these blogs has basically rocked my world, so to speak. I have found out that anyone who characterizes WSCAL and its students as, nearly, Sandemanian (remember that post from a long while back) having no real devotion (as I have heard WSCAL described more than once) is all wet.

The line goes like this: If you are conservative, Reformed, a Calvinist, then you are only concerned with getting your doctrine perfect, as if it is the doctrine itself that you worship. Head knowledge, not heart knowledge. (If you know me, you know I don't buy that heart knowledge bit, but you get the idea. In fact, that false characterization of WSCAL more describes me than anyone I have run into at the seminary. But I have my own agenda for being there. I am in fact there precisely to learn the Bible -you know, faith comes by hearing the word, and all that). But these guys actually want to be pastors. Think of that, you go to a seminary because your motive is not to acquire a precise doctrinal knowledge.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can't find your earlier post re: "Sandemanian". Why don't you help us out by linking that word in this post to the permalink of the previous post?

Also, why not add all your WSCAL friends to a blogroll, so we can all go check them out? Everybody loves more traffic.

Bruce S said...

It is a lack of technical savvy stopping me from linking that specific post. It was the Sept. 26 entry. And, having just reread it, it was a pretty good one.

As for linking the WSCAL guys in some blogroll, I will put that on my to do list.

Anonymous said...

Good to see you writing again. Nothing wrong with wanting to learn the Bible. I need to get motivated to study the Word more. I can always use more faith...and more golf.