Choose Door #1 or #2

Choose Door #1 or #2 September 1, 2006

Choose Door #1 or #2:
Door #1:
This morning when I got up, I got my first cup of coffee and sat down with my daily devotional. In today’s entry I read: “The preaching of the gospel awakens an intense resentment because it must reveal that I am unholy; but it also awakens an intense craving” (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest). Okay. I resonate with that. I know what he means. Then I read this within the same hour:

Door #2:
“The Protestant emphasis on sin is one of the ways minds are abused. Many of the church fathers and almost all the Protestant reformers stressed that humankind was in a state of rebellion (sin) over which we have no control. Because of sin, the reformers taught, people are estranged from the divine. At its extreme, the doctrine became the idea of total depravity: that is, humankind is so corrupt and unacceptable to God that we are incapable of doing anything to redeem our states. Especially, we cannot reason our way into the good graces of the divine” (Good, The Dishonest Church, p. 100).
The first two lines of thought are incompatible. I choose door #1.

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