There are two things I particularly love about Reformed theology: its ability to drive one towards humility, and its emphasis on upholding the importance of doctrine. First, Reformed theology is perfectly equipped to drive one to humility through its doctrine - doctrine which demands introspection. The Reformed are well known for using the saying, "There but for the grace of God, go I." Due to the strong doctrine of total depravity, God's grace, and an understanding that our hearts are wicked and deceitful, Reformed believers have no grounds to be shocked when the most godly leader in the world falls, and no grounds to think that anyone is above any sin, even and especially oneself. There is a fear and trembling that Reformed doctrines should produce in our daily living, as well as a converse wonder and awe at the beautiful and extravagant grace of God. Reformed doctrines ought to drive us to humility..

Second, Reformed doctrines are equipped to drive us towards holding doctrine in high esteem. If humanity's problem is a looking to self and a forcing of God into the dark recesses of one's heart and mind, then the knowledge - the true and accurate knowledge of God and his son Jesus Christ, revealed in the Word, through the Spirit, ought to be core to our conversion and continued sanctification. Reformed faith should drive us to seek the knowledge of God in our theology, because right theology ought to cause us to become more and more conformed to the image of Jesus, who is the perfect image of God.  ​

My life feels like a series of pendulum swings. As I learn more and as I attempt to empathize with views I don't initially hold, I find myself being flung between extremes of belief until time levels me out somewhere closer to the middle. One of these back-and-forths has been on the issue of "Pascal's Wager." For those unfamiliar with this idea, Pascal basically said that when one looks at the choice of becoming a Christian or not, they are wiser to choose Christianity even if it seems like it is less probable. So long as Christianity is potentially true, one should choose to believe in Christ. Why? Because if you do believe in Christ and turn out to be wrong, you've lost nothing. However, if you don't believe and it ends up being true, then you lose eternity. If Buddhism is true and I don't believe in it in this life, I'll eventually arrive at bliss. But if Christianity is true and I fail to believe, I'm damned forever. 

I initially thought Pascal's wager was brilliant. It made perfect sense to me. You should obviously see that in the risk/reward analysis, it is way better to believe in Christianity. However, after some years, Pascal's Wager left me with a very bad taste in my mouth. As I thought about it more and as I listened to atheists speak more (rather than just listening to my Christian community), I recognized several problems I had with Pascal's Wager, at least as most Christians were using it.  

1) It emphasized intellectual assent without consideration of Lordship theology and assent of actions.
​2) It didn't narrow one's choice down to Christianity, as there are other religions which have eternal judgment as a possibility from which one would want to escape.
3) It emphasized potential risk while dismissing (or not accounting for) probability. For example, a large bird could drop a heavy stone on my head from hundreds of feet and kill me, yet I don't, and won't, walk around with a helmet knowing there is a huge consequence should the event occur. The probability of its occurrence is practically zero. Falling out of bed is another example, as it kills about 450 people in the U.S. each year and injures close to 2 million, yet most of us take minimal precautions. 

Photo by  Matteo Fantuzzi  on  Scopio​

​If God is good, and if God created a world which he identified as good, then how did evil come to be? In our minds the moral universe is a closed system. If the input is perfect and there is no other force outside of the input, then the result should not be of a different character.

I recently wrestled with the question of how perfect moral agents (i.e. Adam and Eve) could sin. I have also taken a look at various theodicies as to why God may allow evil. But after a recent conversation with a friend, I realized that there is still a glaring aspect of the problem of evil which I haven't addressed. I may have thought through the moral motivations of Adam and Eve to sin or the motivations for God allowing evil, but how is evil philosophically possible in the first place? In this article I want to go beyond the exploration of the human and divine nature, and instead look at a proposed explanation for the metaphysical possibility of evil in a world whose source is morally perfect.

The following sample of resources are some of the pieces which I've read or created while thinking through the issue of politics. I attempted to use a broad selection of authors, from conservative Christians to the secular, so you can get different angles. Regardless of where you land, my hope is that you'll begin to see the world through the eyes of the gospel first, and politics second (or tenth).

In all the turmoil, disagreement, and tension I see amongst Christians today, two words keep coming to my mind: obligation and preference. These two ideas are ultimately what most of our issues seem to boil down to. One group of Christians views some issue as a moral obligation, while the other group views the same issue as a moral preference. Should we take down the confederate flag in consideration of others, or should others respect our freedom to interpret and use symbols as we desire? Should we support an evil political party and/or candidate in order to accomplish a greater good, or are we able to abstain from the system? Should we tear down statues which represent great oppression to many, or should those opposed accept the good and ignore the evil in our monuments, realizing that all heroes are flawed? Should we wear masks out in public in an attempt to protect others from a virus, or should others recognize that the rescinding of freedoms for safety is a more dangerous ill? The issues are endless, but the crux of the problem is almost always the same. There is a discrepancy in how different groups think about moral obligations towards others versus personal freedoms we should be able to pursue and enjoy if we so choose. 

This very dichotomy came up a few weeks ago when I had an interesting conversation about race with a few guys from church. I respect these guys very much, though we definitely disagree on various racial and political issues. As we got to talking about race, one of the men said, "I don't think there's anything wrong with white people going to a white church and black people going to a black church. We all have different preferences in music and worship style, so why would we try to force something that's going to create a church style which nobody will be happy with?" While I intuitively disagreed with the argument, I didn't at that time know how to push back. The individual viewed church diversity as a preference, whereas it seemed more akin to a moral obligation to me. After a few weeks of thought, the following is what I wish I would have been able to explore in our conversation. ​

​​Social justice has been on my mind a lot lately, as I'm sure it's been on the minds of many. For some, especially those who are older or from very conservative backgrounds, their ears just perked up. This idea of "social justice" still has connotations carried over from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the gospel of Jesus Christ was distilled down merely to its justice component. In the social gospel, Jesus's life was rightly put on a pedestal as an example for our own lives, but it wrongfully deposed the work of his death and resurrection. Jesus's life became largely an example for us in our world - a motivational speech to move us out to be nice and do good. This social gospel devoid of the divine is not the social justice I'm talking about.

It is amazing how my view of myself has changed so drastically in the past six years or so. It began when I started working on our diaconate, it progressed as I saw my political idolatry and consequentialism, and now it is broken wide open as I see my lack of humility with brothers and sisters of color. I always identified with God in his anger at Israel's rebellion, I identified with the prophet Hosea rather than with his adulterous wife, and I identified with Jesus and the disciples who I imagined were shaking their heads at the rich young ruler (although that's not what the text says they did, but it's what I always did). But I have begun to see that I and my community are most often intended to identify with the wayward Israel in need of mercy, with the unfaithful prostitute, and with the rich young ruler in need of humility and transformation. The following, then, is a reimagining of the rich young ruler story as told in Luke 18, with me and my community standing in for the man who proved his unbelief through his inability to act in love.