becoming

Anson, I read this during my trip on the plane. It echoes your thought on reform:

It would be so much better for the church and the world if Christians would be content to show a better way to organize community life among themselves. As Yoder never tried of saying, the crucial standard of Christian conduct is obedience and not effectiveness (The Politics of Jesus [Eerdmans, 1972, 1992]). Effectiveness in transforming culture may follow obedience, but that’s God’s business. not ours. Focusing on effectiveness (e.g., how many souls can be saved with a dollor invested in evangelism done a certain way) detracts from obedience in a sinful world. When obedience to God’s way revealed in Jesus Christ is subordinated to effectiveness, the latter always trumps the former, which then ends up failing at least partly by the way.

Roger Olsen, How to be Evangelical with being Conservative, p.126-127

Evangelical faith inevitably leads to faithful interpretation of the Bible in the light of conversion, including the Spirit’s regeneration of people. That inevitably gives rise to doctrines. But doctrines are not the center; they are intended to be ministerial (serving as servants) rather than magisterial (serving as masters). In other words, doctrines serve people rather than vice versa. Doctrines express a Christian community’s consensus about right interpretation of the Bible in the light of experience; they go wrong when they are enshrines as unquestionable authorities that enslave people’s minds and forbid all doubt or questioning.

Religionless evangelicalism will have doctrines, but it will approach them differently — with a different attitude that holds them lightly and keeps them open to reconsideration and revision. Secularity would enter this picture if some culture like “modernity” or “postmodernity” were allowed to become a major source or norm of Christian doctrine, but as long as Word of God is what gives rise to doctrine and norms, there is no hint of secularism.

Roger Olson, How to be Evangelical without being Conservative, p.113.

很有意思的一段話。Olson在書中不斷重申的，正是福音派這樣的本質：拒絕基要主義中的保守派（Religious Right）那樣一成不變：教義成為不能疑問的權威（背後的假設是自己的詮釋與聖經的內容等同）；另一方面，亦拒絕走自由派的路線，選擇擁抱世界而不再回到聖經（也不是單回到「我以為」的聖經詮釋）確立規範：聖經既沒有了指導性的權威，甚至在相當的程況下，連參考的價值也沒有了。

這是「非宗教性」的福音派，當走的「中庸之道」。

“Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” (1 Cor 13:12)

Being Evangelical, can we doubt? Or to put it in another way: Can we seek truth without certainty?

Not to confuse with that idea that there is no absolute truth out there, I am simply asking if we can admit that we don’t necessary have all the answers all the time, and that our seemingly bullet-proof system of faith, no matter what we call it, can still be wrong.

Not because God is wrong, but because as fallen human, we can be wrong.

In fact, doubt has always been our drive for truth. I believe a person can be evangelical through and through and continues to have intellectual struggles and real doubts in life. For a real Evangelical is committed to truth, as well as the search for it.

On the other hand, I do see a lot more Christians who think they have all the answers, and yet they have no real passion to seek for truth. Not only in matters of faith, but in ordinary life. Truckloads of easy answers readily available to every circumstances. Doubts are suppressed — “Oh don’t you worry! When in doubt, rest assured that someone else must have the answer already, and they are still believing, aren’t they?”

Musing on Olson’s How to be Evangelical without being Conservative, ch 4.