Greetings, friends! It has been a little while since I posted here. I want to provide a few updates and discuss the future of Living by the Logos. First and foremost, I have to say that I am okay. The last time I took a significant break from posting here, I was experiencing a mental health crisis. This is not the case this time. Thank you to all still reading after this long time.
So, where have I been? In August, I began working on my Master of Theological Studies at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology here in Georgia. I am completing this degree full-time, in addition to working full-time; therefore, for the next two years, my posts may be spaced apart significantly. I want to devote as much time to this blog as I can; unfortunately, it is incredibly hard for me to find the time to do so.
School has been wonderful! I am getting a nice mixture of all the theological areas I focus on: ecclesiology, Koine Greek, New Testament, and ethics. It is such an enriching experience to learn from a variety of differing theological approaches. As I have mentioned extensively, during my undergraduate program at Liberty University, all classes and professors upheld a high fundamentalist/evangelical perspective. And I was not allowed to think differently.
Candler, however, is quite diverse. Although I feel like the only agnostic in the school, I see a great mixture of differing denominations, conservative and liberal students (and theologians), and individuals of other Abrahamic religions. And the exposure to differing beliefs alone has taught me a lot, which I intend to address in this post.
Fundamentalism: A Thorn in Everyone’s Side
A quick recap: I was raised in a Southern Baptist family, attended church twice a week, was homeschooled, and understood the Bible to be entirely perfect and inerrant. According to nearly every pastor I had as a Christian, to deny the Bible’s inerrancy is to deny God and the Christian faith altogether. This could not be any further from the truth. You can be a Christian without believing this lie that the Bible is a perfect gift from God.
Fundamentalism teaches that unless you wholeheartedly follow “every jot and tittle” of our modern English Bibles, you are not a Christian. Except for the law, which no longer applies to us (the fundamentalist view, which is wrong). More and more, I am noticing an inherent danger in fundamentalism that is a breeding ground for hatred and division.
This disease of fundamentalism has caused significant suffering within and apart from the Christian church. Why does the church not seek to end suffering? What is an ethical way to repair the damage caused by organized religion, particularly Christianity? And perhaps most important for me, what does the Bible really say about this? These questions are never-ending.
However, I still firmly believe that there is one answer to each of the questions I posed. It is one word that Christians love to say but do not like to practice. That word is love. Love is the only thing that can end suffering. Love is what Jesus saw as the answer to suffering. And yet, here we are two thousand years later; Christians love to quote what Jesus said about love, but they are afraid to practice it.
Fundamentalism is a poison. In my personal experience, it caused me a world of suffering, which I am still recovering from as an agnostic. Only when we push past this fairy-tale concept of a perfect, inerrant collection of books will we begin to realize that there is not one right way. That statement alone is severely controversial, but it needs to be said. It may be acceptable to say that your way is right, but to say that a Muslim, pagan, agnostic, or Buddhist will burn for eternity because they are wrong… that is wrong! On many levels! And the historical Jesus would be ashamed of “his” church. It is past time to move beyond this.
Looking Ahead
This post has been very brief but also quite dense. It is hard to synthesize everything I have learned into a short blog post. Unfortunately, I do not know when I will be able to return to posting regularly. But I want you to know I have not forgotten about Living by the Logos; I am simply overwhelmed with work and school, and my free time is sometimes nonexistent. I am extremely grateful to those of you who have continued to visit and reach out to me. Your support truly means the world to me.
I hope to write here again soon, although I do not know when that might be. In the meantime, please continue to read and share these articles. I hope to keep Living by the Logos up for quite a while; your support is the only way this can happen. I may publish some microblogs here and there, it is just difficult to find any free time.
I hope to write to you soon!
Sincerely,
Luke