I see love, (flowing through His self expression of Himself, theology. Our study of God should be based in seeing His love flow through the study and relationship.

I do not see the constructs of our personal theologies, personal beliefs flowing back toward God in love, I see His self expression of Himself as theology and the love flowing directionally toward man and not vise verse. Does love flow back the other direction, of course, but it is expressed in worship, adoration, praise, not necessarliy in our personal beliefs about theology.

Like I said, I see it as directional, not relational.

And Scott….again, my HTML illiteracy shows…how are you blockquoting? Am I missing a plugin?

The war within our denomination has changed over the years. It went from men wanting a more conservative view of the Bible to outright HATE for anyone who disagrees with me.

We started out as a bunch of guys who could barely agree on much of anything, but agreeing to be civil and accepting of various views within orthodox Bapotist circles. What was once our strength, our diversity and tolerance, has become our divide.

I must be old school enough to know that we wrestle not with flesh and blood. Sure, I disagree with many southern bapitsts and the way they epically tend to screw things up. I also know that theologically, I have no other home (denomination) unless I start a new home.

Somewhere along the way, we forgot about LOVE. Love is not a feeling, it is a person. Many have taken their eye off of freedom in Christ for the temporal security of dogma. Love flows through theology, not the other way around and that is what it has become, what a sad day. No wonder the world hates us, we are not lovely or lovable. We are now, no different than the world; so why would they want to be like something that they already are?

Sorry for taking off and rambling. I feel compassion for this girl. At the same time I hurt in my bones that the American church has become such a cesspool of discontent for unloveable malcontents to come to so that they can have a pity party and wonder why no one wants to come to church any more.

Anicdotal sotry for fun. The other night when I got back from preaching, I told my mother in law about a church who had trunk or treat on Sunday night. She said that was horrible, they let out church so people who would not come to church to hear the message would come to get candy. then she said, “to heck with them if that is how those people think.” It lit my fuse and I went off. I said, “Sure, to HELL with every one of them. Damn every one of them to hell because they are not like us. We should go kill every one of them because they are going to hell anyway, to hell with them.”

She began crying, I went way over the top but I wanted to make a point because that is what the church has bacome. Damn them all to hell if they are not just like us, damn them.

Community is tough. And messy. And many times we sacrifice ‘I’ for ‘We’. As a result, I don’t always get what ‘I’ want…but I can still step up and move from critic to contributor.

Good thought. The easiest thing in the world for me would to be a critic. Frankly, there’s so much in our denomination that needs criticizing it’s mind-boggling. It’s not an overstatement to say that I would vastly prefer in many ways to be elsewhere. Almost anywhere else. I don’t shy from it at all, but I’m still often embarassed to include the phrase “Southern Baptist” with a description of my identity, though it does often provide fodder for conversation.

Nevertheless, here I am and here it seems God wants me. And so I will continue to strive to contribute. I do love the students we work with. And I do take comfort in the idea (1 Cor. 15:58) that however feeble they may be, our work there is not in vain.