The last one creates conflict for me. I find it difficult to think that living a "good" life requires living recklessly first. Why do I need to exist selfishly before I can live selflessly?
As I wrestle this concept, it strikes me as explicitly humanist. It feels like experience becomes the savior and that one can do anything once one has done everything. Is there any intersection with this worldview and Christ?
This worldview seems to believe we can only know we need a savior by living without one. While this might feel true, how do we come to an understanding of needing a savior if one doesn't already exist. It seems completely necessary that the Savior is already there and available. (And He is.)
One other thought that leads to the conclusion of humanism: is the opposite construction of this worldview true? Does living with a Savior (or religion) lead to an understanding that one doesn't need any? My real fear is that this is the trap of believing this way; eventually, we are good on our own and don't need any help.
I believe the beauty of the Gospel is that any/all of our experiences are void unless we are living in Christ. My experience might inform me, but the freedom of "real" living comes with experiencing something beyond the world as I (or my experiences) limit it.
2 comments:
Or what about the notion that our real example of what it is to be human, Jesus Christ was righteousness...born as a person with sin but did not sin. Does this mean he did not have full human experience or could not really experience righteousness? Surely this is not the case!
word, Val.
This line of thinking tends to invalidate all conversion experiences that don't start out as prodigal ones.
We are going to go through Paul in our youth group (I think we will start with Galatians, but not sure yet), and so we just went through Acts 9 this week, and talked about how often we are envious of conversion stories like Paul's. Often time conferences feed into this enviousness by parading folks up who were drug dealers or killers who found Christ. It is meant to glorify God, but it often makes us then lament our own "meager" conversions, or even makes teens doubt the veracity of their conversion because they haven't had a road to Damascus moment yet.
That's a dangerous attitude, and we are a bit to cavalier with it.
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