http://afcmin.org/ateam/13/of-sure-words-and-last-words Helping plans come together, one post at a time Sun, 03 May 2015 14:00:57 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.9 http://afcmin.org/ateam/13/of-sure-words-and-last-words/comment-page-1#comment-3 Mon, 04 Apr 2005 04:38:45 +0000 http://afcmin.org/ateam/?p=13#comment-3 by Bill Ekhardt at 08:54AM (PST) on Feb 24, 2005
Roger, I appreciate these words. I affirm this, but there is more that diminishes my trust in our access to truth. I believe our context does affect how we understand truth. I won't state that very strongly, I suspect you would agree that our context at least affects the way we see truth.
What is more significant for me, though, is my lack of trust in any particular paradigm. I believe the paradigm which we receive and organize our truth affects how we perceive things. I doubt our mental organizational systems. This is not to say that they completely bar us from being sure of something. It just causes me to state my beliefs with some humility. Not only is my understanding not the last word, I don't know in how many ways it is incomplete, placing too much emphasis on one particular part of scripture or faith, or lacking in balance.
For example, even as faithfully as I desire to be to avoid a sinful accomodation to culture, I remain concerned that future generations will look at me and ask, how could they not see that they had baptized x broken part of thier culture, just as I look back as ask, how could they not see that slavery was broken. I come from a tradition with the dubious history related to slavery. The northerners said the womens societies in our denomination catered the KKK rallies. I think they were attempting to be faithful, I just thing they were operating on premises that colored the way they saw scripture.
Again, my point is not that I can't be sure that Jesus Christ is Lord, or that he has saved me from my sins. My point is that even that this formulation is the product of a particular evangelical framework encountering the revelation of scripture. I do not trust our frameworks. I think they serve us, but I believe we are blind to their weaknesses until we adopt a new framework from which to consider the last.
Re: Of Sure Words and Last Words
by Murdock at 10:44PM (PST) on Mar 2, 2005
Bill,
I

]]>