Serious Christians

Several things that I wanted to talk about today, first of which is Christians who take their faith seriously. What do I mean by take their faith seriously? People who investigate their beliefs and the the historical tradition of the faith that they practice. Who is someone who doesn't take their faith seriously? One time at seminary I was talking with a guy from Miami who wanted to be a missionary to Spain and convert Spainish Catholics to SBC. Ok fair enough... but he made a very strange comment that Catholics worship Mary. This is true, in certain South American countries. In general, Catholics who take their faith seriously (emphasis on seriously), in the United States are very similar to evangelicals. The second and even more disappointing thing that this guy told me is that systematic theology is not practical, in fact, he believed it to be a waste of time. When he said that, I didn't want to talk with him anymore. How can you share the love of Christ with people when you don't know who Jesus is? How can you tell people about Jesus when you haven't studied the Trinity? How can you preach the gospel when you don't understand justification? We do many people a great disservice when we don't explain to them that ALL of the Bible is significant, not just passages that discuss salvation or make us feel good. Every Christian ought to be a theologian. One last point before I end this part of my musing. For the girls out there who read this blog: if you husband married you because you're hot and liked your hotness, but didn't know anything else about you, how would that make you feel? How do you think Jesus feels when we say we love Him and all we know about Him is that He loves us and "saved" us?

So, on Thursday night at a coffee house in Fort Worth (Artistic Blends) I saw Bill Mallonee play. Bill Mallonee is the lead singer for the underground Christian band, Vigilantes of Love, but on Thursday night, Bill played the acoustic guitar and harmonica (the harmonica was around his neck Bob Dylan style). It was a cool show. Bill is a conservative Christian - he used to be reformed and went to Reformed Theological Seminary, then converted to Catholicism. Why did he convert? He claimed that many evangelicals didn't have a high view of Christ and were searching for the real Jesus (many old SBC professors got sucked into this) and the Catholic Church always maintained an orthodox understanding and belief in Christ. I am very sympathetic to this line of argument. I get so beatdown by the baptist resort to the priesthood of the believer, which is often manipulated by baptists to be understood as "I can believe what I want to." My conclusion from speaking with Bill after the concert is that for the most part, people who examine their beliefs concerning their Christian faith have more in common with me than the every Sunday baptist Church goer who has no idea what he believes.

One more thing. Bill used a s-bomb in one song. In the context it was "you should pray to God one more time to get your s-bomb together." A girl from the seminary was very offended that a Christian artist would use a profane word. It didn't bother me for several reasons. One, he plays in clubs all over and is not a "youth group" band, i.e. Audio Adreneline. Second, sometimes profane words can emphasize a point. Third, it seemed to emphasize the point that he was making in his song. I don't know, I'd appreciate any and all random comments.

For the record, the number one reason why I am no longer a Catholic is due to the Catholic view of justification. Yet, not many baptists understand what the Catholic view of justification is, and so they frequently misrepresent what the Catholics actually believe.