Church Dogmatics<\/em> \u2013 \u201cThe truth cannot be that long.\u201d If you\u2019re a theology nerd like me, you\u2019ll understand exactly why everything about that is just too awesome for words.<\/p>\nAnyway, during his introductory lecture on\u00a0the first day of class, Prof. Volf said something I thought was brilliant. Actually, he said several brilliant things, but this one stuck out to me the most.<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cThe faith you have may be worth losing.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not often you hear Christian theologians tell their seminary students they may need to lose their faith.<\/p>\n
But, of course, that\u2019s not exactly what he meant. Prof. Volf wasn\u2019t calling on us to completely abandon our faith in God. Being a Christian himself that would have been a bit hypocritical, if not just plain odd.<\/p>\n
Rather, Prof. Volf was challenging us to consider the nature of our individual faith and what it is we actually believe in and value the most. Which is something I don\u2019t think many of us do often enough or have ever done if, as is the case for many first year seminary students, our faith is something we inherited at birth from our family and have never been without, let alone been seriously challenged to question its validity.<\/p>\n
For those of us brought up in the Church, it\u2019s easy to think our faith is exactly what the Christian faith is supposed to be, that our<\/em> version of the faith is the<\/em> version of the faith and any other version of Christianity is heresy. After all, we\u2019ve been to Sunday School countless times. We\u2019ve read through the Bible front to back. We almost never miss a church service. We know what to believe and what (or who) to denounce). We\u2019ve got this Christian thing down pat.<\/p>\nBut while all those things are well and good, is that really what Christianity is all about?<\/p>\n
And if it\u2019s not, do we have the courage to admit we might have been wrong about some things?<\/p>\n
Maybe even some really important things?<\/p>\n
Honest reflection about the things we hold most dear is an incredibly difficult thing to do. But it\u2019s also critically important for personal growth and integrity. Which is why Christians for centuries \u2013 as well as the people of God throughout the Bible \u2013 have from time to time stopped to ask serious questions of themselves. Questions about what they\u2019re doing with their lives, who they really are, and what it is they really believe in.<\/p>\n
It was in the vein of this ancient tradition that Miroslav Volf challenged us to consider whether or not the faith we came to school with is really a faith worth hanging on to. Or to put it another way, is our faith really even all that Christian to begin with?<\/p>\n
Do we really have faith in a God who loves his enemies so much he was willing to live among us, serve us, and even let us kill him in order that we could have life? Do we really believe that being a Christian means incarnating that very same sort of grace filled, self-sacrificing love for others in our own lives? Do we really have hope and trust in the promises of Jesus that the kingdom of God is beginning to dawn in the here and now and that we are a part of that transformative and redemptive work in the world?<\/p>\n
Or is our faith in a God who is bound to give us what we want because we said a few magic words at an altar?<\/em><\/p>\nOr do we believe the Christian life is ultimately about having all the right answers?<\/em><\/p>\nOr is our faith something that empowers us\u00a0to neglect our neighbors and the world around us because we\u2019re so consumed with getting to heaven?<\/em><\/p>\nBecause if that\u2019s the case, if our faith is all about personal gain and being right, then I think Miroslav Volf is absolutely correct.<\/p>\n
We do have a faith worth losing.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
FROM THE VAULT: As I\u2019m always welcoming new people to the blog I sometimes like to revisit an old post or two that sparked a good conversation, but may have been missed by those who weren\u2019t around when it was originally posted. A slightly\u00a0different version of this post originally appeared about two years ago.<\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(Credit: Bill Emory) During my time at Yale I had the chance to\u00a0take Systematic Theology with Miroslav Volf. To say I was excited\u00a0about the class would be an understatement. In fact, I may or may not have had a minor theology nerd meltdown the first day\u00a0when Volf shared a joke his professor, J\u00fcrgen Moltmann, used […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3437,"featured_media":10676,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a><\/p>\n