I've been doing a lot of participation in a
very interesting blog recently. The blog is entitled Transformation: Evangelical to the Unknown and it's by Tim Justice. Tim lives in Alabama, he's 39, married, four kids, and is an instructor in management and economics. He describes his blog as "A somewhat introspective journey into the thoughts of a wanderer, as he discards the traditional garments of the 'evangelical' church and seeks a more realistic and honest faith."
At the risk of oversimplifying, Tim is going through a crisis of faith, although "personal growth" might be a better description. Tim is having some differences with the standard evangelical Christian viewpoint and is finding his way to a place in Christian evangelicism that (my opinion/interpretation here) is more inclusive and... well, Christian in its views. He's an articulate person who is looking at things seriously. It's good reading.
How I found Tim's blog is that I happened to be casually looking for references to Reed College in this blog domain and his blog was one of the ones that popped up. I got very interested in what he was saying and added some feedback. (Those of you who know me will appreciate it when I say I have been making every effort to be very respectful. Tim is not the run-of-the-mill evangelical: he can think, he can write, and he is honestly interested in being a better person as manifested through his life and his religion.)
Apparently, I have been successful in not being an ass (again, those of you know that know me should be impressed). Tim's blog entry today had this incredibly flattering comment about me:
John is 80% of what I want to be, although I prefer the Christian route. He knows more about Christianity than most Christians, and practices more Christianity than most Christians. It ought to be interesting...
I'm honored by this.
One of the things that I've been doing as part of this is thinking about what I believe and how I think people should approach their religion. Having been a priest for lo! these many moons--almost three decades at this point--I tend to think that people should learn a lot about what they're worshipping and why it's important to them. (Conversely, if you have no idea who/what you're worshipping, why should you expect your prayers to get answered in the way in which you expect or even at all?) This applies across the board: everyone should know more about their religion's history so they don't get suckered by additions that just got tacked on. Why tolerate one mistranslation of your holy book when you might get closer to the original with another? I've enjoying the opportunity to contribute to someone's spiritual growth and in turn get a better understanding of evangelical Christians from someone who is closely connected to them.
If you're interested in the general discussion, go take a look and offer your comments. Please be respectful; Tim strikes me as the kind of evangelical the world needs more of.
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