How I Changed My Mind - 1

In response to a request from my longtime Minnesota friend Dan, I shall attempt to relate as succinctly as possible how I mutated or evolved from the convinced, sold-out Evangelical Christian I was when Dan knew me in the late 70s and early 80s to a very different perspective today. Like Dan, I was sad when I saw someone else change in a similar way, for I felt they were making the worst possible mistake and going down a path that would lead to destruction. It was inconceivable to me why anyone would choose to go that way.

This simplest and best explanation I can provide is that I read the Bible. Not carelessly, but carefully and attentively. One of my seminary profs had repeatedly emphasized the importance of noting "the phenomena [details] of the text." So I learned Greek and Hebrew as well as I could so as to be able to evaluate the interpretations of others and provide teaching and preaching that would be as truthful, and therefore helpful, as possible.

Somewhere along the way I realized that there is a difference between the reality of God on the one hand, and my idea of God on the other. This is self-evident, since there is also a gap between the reality of any human being, such as my wife, and my idea of that person. And I can spend my entire life trying to match my understanding of Jean (my spouse) or of God to the reality of each, and yet only partially succeed.

As with God and people, so with the Bible. I had a certain idea of the Bible in those days. I believed it was the true and correct one, and I based my life on it - my career, my family life, everything. But there was, in fact, a gap between my idea of the Bible and its reality. The more closely I studied and taught it over the years, the more I discovered that lay outside my concept of the Bible. This made me uncomfortable! So I worked all the harder to make sense out of what was becoming increasingly perplexing.

(To be continued)