More thoughts.

Well, whenever one brings up the gender issue in a Christian context, one is going to generate a lot of response. Not surprsingly, this has happened. On some level, though, it is surprising, because the odd thing about the internets is, you get a lot of advice, affirmation, and attack from strangers. This is a good thing, in that you have the chance to be heard by people you normally wouldn’t, like Tim Keller; at the same time, you have to sift through a lot of comments and decide: a) who you’re giving a voice to b) who’s reading c) what you’re then going to be associated with and d) what the point of a blog is in the first place. My thoughts about this are as follows:

a) I don’t want to muzzle anyone, or not engage with people because I disagree with them. At the same time:

b) A large portion (maybe 1/3+) of my friends and family (including my parents and only sibling) have no Christian faith, or even a Christian frame of reference. It is difficult to know how open to be about some of the debates that roil the (evangelical, mostly) Christian world. This is for 2 reasons: first, these debates can get pretty ugly, and often do not glorify God by the manner in which we conduct them; second, no non-Christian that I know is unclear about the fact that I believe in Jesus and in the exclusivity of the Christian gospel. This is not always easy or comfortable, and certainly not always popular, but it’s not something I beat around the bush about. However, the “secondary” things that I sometimes discuss with other Christians (gender, worship style, church gov’t, theology), or the things that embarrass me about evangelical behavior in the last 20+ years (religious right, buying wholeheartedly into free-market capitalism/patriotism as part of Christianity itself) are things that I don’t always like to publicize for non-Christians that I am close to. This is not because I am ashamed of the gospel, or any such thing, but because I think they are either secondary or a poor witness; for the people that I am referring to, some extreme opinions regarding the secondary issues would be an obstacle to ever listening to a sermon, opening a Bible, or setting foot in a church. If these are not my positions, and not positions I see as primary, I don’t want my blog to be a venue for evangelical-subculture debates where we continue to talk amongst ourselves rather than to the world that largely goes on without us.

c. I am reluctant, conversely, to give voice to extreme views on the other (more liberal) side, because this does not accurately represent my theology, either. It has often been the case that those who condemn sexism in the church without engaging the biblical texts (fine to do so if actually engaging texts) are not taking the Bible seriously in other areas. While this is the position of many in the mainline denominations these days, it is not my position. For me, the Bible is authoritative and has to be engaged with in the same way that the Holy Spirit does, in its leading of the Church, and tradition/history. This is why I want to agree with my classmate Wayne (see response to Keller, below), when he points us to Grenz’s position. We have to allow these aspects of God’s work in the world to serve as guides and correctives to each other, without discarding the authority of any one of them, if we want any kind of standard or foundation to define us as Christians.

In addition, I am uncomfortable being identified with the emergent/ing movement, in that I believe very strongly in larger denominational/ecclesiastical bodies (just not totally decided yet on which one ), because we can be pretty nutty when left totally on our own. Also, it represents an approach to church that involves a lot of seemingly-arbitrary picking and choosing, which makes me uncomfortable. At the same time, I understand and admire a lot of what they are trying to do, in terms of reevaluating the institutions of Christianity, and attempting to integrate new and old liturgical practices. I also understand that, in many ways, the emergent conversation is about responding to failures of the institutional church, which are certainly undeniable. However, because it is not MY movement, I am uncomfortable being associated with it one way or the other, much like I don’t want to be associated with fundamentalism, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, theological liberalism, Bishop Spong, Marcus Borg, et al.

d) I don’t know quite yet. When I had a blog in China, it was about my life in China, my personal development and growth as a person and as a Christian, as well as my take on the current state of the country, in light of all that has been going on there in the last 20 years, through the present, which was endlessly fascinating to me, and which the blog helped me to process.

I’m not sure, right now, that I have anything unique to offer. I’m not really an expert on anything, and I’m just another seminary student in North America. I have a lot of opinions, but other people probably share them and write more ably about them. I could write about my daily life, but if so should limit the blog to family and friends.

All that said, I’m still working out what this blog is about and who it is for. It got a little premature attention within the first week, because someone must have googled the Keller CT article and found my little blog. However, I am also in graduate school, and don’t have that much time to update as regularly as I would like. So, please be patient while this remains “under construction”/consideration/continues to evolve.

Thanks all, for participating in the discussion. I think I’ll try to post something non-gender related later today!

Post Script: I am terrible at proof-reading (by that I mean often too lazy to re-read); I will try to be better about it, but please forgive mistakes that I don’t catch–will try to catch them later.