Friday, December 26, 2008

Not Part of the Club Anymore 

One of my favorite blogs to read is Douglas Wilson's "Blog and Mablog."  I like Doug's blog because it is thought provoking in a practical way.  So much of what he says is not merely something to intellectualize over, but it has a practical impact on how I think or how I act.   I sometimes peruse the other blogs on his sidebar when I have a few minutes.  Several years ago I was in the thick of reformed circles and discussion groups and liked following some of the various controversies and argumentation that surrounded them.  Today I find I have little taste for any of it and it doesn't seem to matter if it is reformed,  Baptist,  Anabaptist, or whatever the particular denominational stripe or group may be.  So much of it appears to me to be hot air and it wearies me.

I can't change what happened to me in my last church.  And I lack the motivation to change the way I feel about it too.  Instead I just want to be a follower of Christ, not of any particular denomination or group (though I am attending a local congregation), and I am making it more of my business to just concentrate on the actual following of Christ as opposed to taking doctrinal stands on one side or the other of any particular divide.  

That doesn't mean that I consider doctrine unimportant.  However, it should be something that informs our practice instead of a vehicle for intellectual jousting.  How many angels dance on the head of a pin has no practical implications for how I live my life.  Nor does infralapsarianism versus supralapsarianism or the ordo salutis.

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