The Bliss of Ignorance

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Ignorance
Credit: Daniel Horacio Agostini
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I've had a small amount of formal theological training. Based upon that small bit of training, I've accomplished quite a lot of self-training in theology. I've read many of the major writers, particularly in New Testament studies: Jarvell, Bultmann, Dunn, Wright, Witherington III, Hays, and L.T. Johnson all immediately come to mind. I found the revisionist historians and the form critics who preceded them to be of particular interest. My views of God, Jesus, and the Bible have changed significantly over the last several years. I suppose these studies are a result of my desire to have faith, to reach some understanding and contentedness in life. I think, for the most part, theological study has helped me. I've learned a lot about Christianity, the world, and myself.

Of course, as is often the case, that which blesses also curses. I have come to admire those people who are blindly numb to the theological concerns in life, to the textual concerns facing the Bible. I mean those people who can have faith, go to church, and then not be bothered by either of these things. Go to church, go home, watch the game, go to sleep, and go to work. I mean those people who resent you for trying to offer an alternative understanding than that of the American evangelical Bible/God. Yeah, those guys who spout idiotically on religious channels and offer moral absolutes from legislatures across the nation. How blissful they must have it. I had it.

Once.

I can't say that it's better now. I feel free to wrestle with the text and with my own theology, and that's freeing. But aside from that, I can't really say that there's a difference, a thing that matters. The only thing that's different is that now I am bothered most of the time. I have trouble practicing contentedness.   I have a problem with patience and generosity of spirit.

I can't say that it's better now. 


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