changes

A more personal reflection on the course of this blog:

Originally, this blog was to allow my friends and family to keep up on my life as I transitioned from my padded life at Wheaton College into the more independent and multi-faceted world of full-time ministry. I wanted to include pictures, events and updates. To some extent, I have done that.

But while the past few months have certainly been situationally transitional, they have been more than that as well. As I've left the very finely nuanced environment of Wheaton College, where students are encouraged and allowed to safely think of the practical application of Christianity, and entered into the actual full-time application of that ministry, I've noticed my perception and world-view alter. I alluded to this phenomenon earlier in this blog ("a confession") as "conservatising." As my friend Mark pointed out, that might not be an apt name.

I never meant my political perception has swung right. What I was clumsily trying to articulate was the dichotomy between thinking of things from an obvious Christian perspective versus thinking of things from a subtly Christian perspective. Ultimately, my terminology was chosen as a subtle jab at those who obtusely choose to boil every decision anyone ever makes down to the fundamental core.

The change has come as the environment has changed. While at Wheaton, because the environment is so steeped in Christianity, students are allowed to examine things from fully within the Christian world-view in manners which might seem outside of the normal bounds of Christian thinking. Wheaton allows for the almost scientific study of Christian application; students are then often aloof from the truthful division between Christian and non-Christian world-views.

Since leaving that subtle mental safety net Wheaton offered, my style of thinking has changed as I've realized the extent to which I must approach the world from a proclaimed Christian world-view. I have begun to realize the difference between the gospel of Christ and the message of the world; often these differences have been hidden and surprising to me. The message of the world, which is so contrary to the message of the cross, saturates this modern world in which we live to a stifling extent. As I considered this "eye-opening" realization, my mind was drawn to the words of Jesus in John 9:39:

"For judgement I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind."

He then responded to those who thought they could see by stating,

"If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains."

What a condemning sentence for so many in the world today! As my eyes have slowly begun to be opened to the irony and depravity of the world's blindness - to the counter-gospel message which fills so much of this world's media - my heart has broken.

But it has also rejoiced as I've seen glimpses of the Church Christ has ordained to bring forward his counter-cultural gospel (see the post: camp).

Christ has given us, as Christians, such a different way of seeing the world. We view reality through the lens of Christ's humble death. We realize power and exaltation comes through servanthood and kenosis. And we realize that His power to change the world is manifest in a body of believers: rarely fully realized, but powerful and moving when so.

I hope that this blog will become a testimony to that. This blog will be my reflections on that dichotomy - the vision of the world versus the vision of Christ. I hope this will offer a new vision - a better vision.