Controversial Questions

source: sbts.edu/women/seminary-wives-institute/

Well I've sure been a slacker when it comes to SWI. It's a great resource for the ladies not in seminary around here, and I'd been taking only electives and not core classes for... ahem... 5 years now! lol. I can't believe it's been 5 years. In 5 years I have taken 6 electives, 2 required, and a combined total of 2 years off. Of course they aren't super strict with it. I've never been told: "You have to take this course or we'll kick you out!"

It was honestly hard to get into SWI because I had just finished getting a B.A. in Bible at Moody when we moved here 5 years ago. It wasn't so much that I had nothing new to learn, but that I was a bit burnt out from intense theological studies and paper writing and reading and wanted to relax and take more directly applicable classes. 

My favorite so far has been Nuts and Bolts of Local Church Ministry, which taught all new material for me and required us to read Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome by Hughes. I can't say enough good things about that book or that class. But especially the book - all the things that people get disillusioned with when it comes to church, all the obstacles a man like my husband faces in his ministry career... it all has it's cure in the Scriptural principles that Liberating puts forth. "Success is serving... success is praying... success is loving... success is faithfulness... success is prayer... success is attitude... success is holiness..." Those are the chapter headings. It sounds cheesy but when you get into the book, it makes perfect sense. 

Anyhoo, I was going to talk about the current SWI course that I'm signed up for. It's called Controversial Questions. It deals with creation and evolution, government and law, sexuality and gender (uh-oh...), family and children, medicine and bioethics, and doctrine and Scripture. 

If anyone reading my blogs in the past hasn't noticed, I kind of have a thing for controversies. It bothers me that all kinds or people, even people with less education than me in these areas, will proclaim their opinions and rants on the internet and get a lot of agreement, not because they are saying anything true, but because they are mad or hurt and are saying what peoples' itching ears want to hear. It's especially hard when I see people my age, who I've known from church or bible college, denying what they used to hold to for the sake of having their itching ears relieved for a time.

Not only do these things bother me, but my own questions and disillusioning experiences and doubts are what drive me to seek answers. When someone seeks answers to their questions with a heart that believes their God is good, a heart that is willing to feel hurt and be healed, those answers are easy to find. Hard to apply. God gives wisdom to those who ask. But when someone seeks answers that satisfy their desire for revenge or to cast blame, including on God, or answers that justify the things they do that are not pleasing to God, they'll find the fake answers. 

I don't profess tons of knowledge gained in experience in these areas, but I have enough experience of churches to know that you can never go to a church expecting a utopia. The only utopia that will exist on earth is when Jesus returns. But when utopia-seekers join a church and become disillusioned, they blame it on their local church or denomination. They leave. They cast judgments and use their bitterness as fuel for snide remarks. This reaction is just wrong.

What is stopping me from joining this online discussion and providing another perspective? Again, many people I read don't have any more educational experience than I do, especially in Biblical studies. Maybe someday I'll jump in an be an orthodox voice in the debates. The holdback is the drama. Sigh, the drama. The ad hominem and the name-calling. The slippery slopes and the straw men. If I jump in, I may never come out alive!