Theological Controversy

My faith journey began with a conviction that the Bible was a book from God. In the last thirty years I have never seriously doubted the truth of that conviction, but questions about the origin of the Bible and how it should be interpreted have been more difficult to answer. Related to those questions was the problem of the many Christian denominations.

Our family had been going to a Presbyterian church since I was in fourth grade, but my High School friends went to a Bible church. My friends stressed the importance of the doctrine that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and without error (inerrant), so I asked the Christian Education director at my Presbyterian church if "we" believed the Bible was inspired. His answer was that it depended on what I meant by inspired. He said that the events of the Bible were inspired, but not every word was inspired because there were obviously errors in the Bible. My teenage mind quickly came to the conclusion that this disagreement was at the root of the denominational problem, and I decided the inerrancy side was correct. I thought that if I stayed with churches that believed the Bible, I would have all of the right answers.

Such a strategy served me well through most of my Freshman year at A&M. In the Spring semester, I took a discipleship course from Dwight, the college minister at Grace Bible Church. We studied Paul's second letter to Timothy in depth, and I was getting a lot out of it. I had a friend, Brett, who was taking an advanced discipleship class from Dwight that Spring, and as the semester progressed, Brett and his friend Mike were getting into arguments about some of the things Dwight was teaching. I dismissed their argument as nitpicking over trivialities, and did not get involved. The year ended, and we went our separate ways to Houston and Dallas.

When we came back to school after summer was over, Brett and Mike had resolved their differences, and agreed that Dwight's teaching was wrong and dangerous. The issue had to do with the relationship of faith and works in salvation, and the fact that they had come to agreement against Dwight caught my attention. Dwight was going to teach an advanced discipleship course that semester that would study the epistle of James. I knew that James dealt with the theme of faith and works, so I decided taking that course would be a great way to get to the bottom of this question.

What I thought would be the relevant passage did not begin until chapter 2, verse 14. Since we were covering the epistle verse-by-verse, I expected the issue would come up later in the course. However, I did not have that long to wait. We hit verse 12 of chapter 1, and the problem came to the surface. It reads, "Blessed is the man who endures trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him." Dwight taught that the "crown of life" was an extra reward given by God to Christians who endure trial. He made a point that James was not speaking of salvation because salvation is obtained by faith alone, and does not require enduring any trials.

Dwight was working on a degree at Dallas Theological Seminary during the summers, and he was a proponent of the teaching of one of the professors, Zane Hodges. This teaching was an attempt to make the most of the Reformation doctrine of salvation by faith alone. A difficulty with salvation by faith alone is that the New Testament makes a lot of demands that can appear to be related to salvation. Hodges dealt with this difficulty by making a distinction between salvation, which leads to heaven, and discipleship, which results in rewards. Salvation was by faith alone, and caused a person to be forgiven of their sins, saved from punishment in hell, and gives him the gift of eternal life in heaven. After a person was saved by faith, they could optionally become a disciple, which involved commitment, endurance, good works, and much of the other directive teaching of the New Testament. To the extent that a believer practiced discipleship, they would receive additional rewards in heaven.

So, Dwight concluded that the "crown of life" in James 1:12 was one of these additional rewards because it was connected with enduring trials, which he considered additional to saving faith. I had two problems with his interpretation. First of all, I thought it very possible that "crown of life" could be a poetic way of describing eternal life. Second was that James said this crown was promised by God "to those who love him." It seemed to me that love of God should be connected with being a Christian. I pointed this out to Dwight, and he flatly rejected it. He said that there were many times he did not love God. Did that mean he lost his salvation at those times? I did not have an answer, but Dwight seemed wrong to me, and I saw why my friends thought his teaching was dangerous.

I quit the discipleship class, and at the suggestion of a friend, took up my own personal study of John's first epistle. I don't remember who suggested it, but it was the perfect thing for me to study at that time in relation to this question. The epistle is full of "if" statements which I pieced together to get a big picture of what John was talking about. For example, the first one is "If we say we have fellowship with him [God] while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth; but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin" (1:6-7). In the first "if" statement, John says fellowship with God is incompatible with walking in darkness. Is fellowship with God salvation or discipleship? It's hard to know looking at the one statement, but the second "if" statement is connected, and it equates walking in the light with fellowship with one another and being cleansed from all sin. Being cleansed from sin would definitely be connected with salvation. By looking at many more of these "if" statements in 1 John, I pieced together a picture of the Christian life in which the concepts that Dwight called salvation and discipleship were intimately intertwined. According to 1 John, it was impossible to be saved and not be a disciple. The danger of Dwight's teaching was that someone might choose to not take the discipleship option and think they were saved, but be deceived.

I went into such detail on this controversy for two reasons. The first was it showed me that just believing in the truth of the Bible was not sufficient for unity of belief. Two people could sincerely believe the Bible and interpret it differently, even on important issues of how someone is saved. The second is that I would continue to struggle with this issue for the next seventeen years until I discovered the Eastern Orthodox perspective on this question. The Orthodox and Catholic doctrines of salvation, which I believe are two sides of the same coin, make sense of everything the Bible teaches on salvation, whereas the various Protestant doctrines I explored in the intervening years would each fit with certain Bible verses, but would have problems with others.

Welcome to Aggieland

I was very excited to be going to Texas A&M. I was excited about living "on my own" in a dorm, making new friends, and studying Engineering. I felt like this was the beginning of my adult life, and there was a world of excitement and opportunity ahead of me.

However, I had this new faith that I wanted to nurture, and I was well aware that college was a place where people often lost their faith. Therefore, I resolved to go to church my first Sunday in College Station, and start a weekly habit. Since my friends who had led me to Christ went to a Bible Church, and I had enjoyed visiting their church, I looked in the phone book for a Bible Church in College Station. I found Grace Bible Church, which was not too far away. I found out the times for Sunday School and the Worship Service, and made my plans.

On Sunday morning, I started out early walking to my car, which was parked far away in the Freshman parking lot. I had been on campus for several days, and had not used my car since it was so far away. When I reached my 1974 Chevy Vega, I found it had two flat tires. Now one flat tire I could have changed and been only a little late to Sunday School, but not with two. I saw this as a test, and I resolved to not be overcome by this obstacle, so I began walking to the church. I think it took about 45 minutes for me to get there, and I arrived as Sunday School was almost over.

I snuck into a crowded classroom where every seat was taken, and many were standing along the wall at the back when I recognized a face. Danny, who had graduated from my high school a year earlier, saw me also and welcomed me. After class he invited me to join him at the worship service, and we sat together. I liked Grace Bible Church; it had a similar intellectual feel that had experienced at Mesquite Bible Church, and there were lots of college students there. The college minister, Dwight, was a very good teacher and was very popular with the students.

Having overcome the obstacles to going to church my first Sunday, I got my two tires fixed, and was ready to go back to Grace the next Sunday. I lived on the fourth floor of my dorm, and as I was going down the stairs, Bible in hand, I met another student going down stairs carrying a Bible. We talked and found out we were both going to Grace, and since he, Ted, had an upperclassman parking permit, he offered to give me a ride.

Through Ted, I met several other students who were active in their faith, and soon I was in a network of friends who encouraged me to grow deeper in my faith, whether through formal meetings such as Sunday worship, Thursday night college fellowship, and a dorm Bible study, or just through eating together and hanging out together. 

I had been concerned about losing my new Christian faith at a secular university, but instead I found an incubator in which it could grow and develop. My Freshman year was primarily a time of learning and just soaking things in. In my Sophomore year, however, I would encounter some challenges.

God’s Word is an Inexhaustible Spring of Life

I am taking a break to share a quote I read today from St. Ephrem of Syria, who lived in the 4th century. Even though I just discovered this quote, it describes what I began to experience as a young adult as I began to study the Bible. I remember having discussions with friends in college about how we would come back to a passage that we had read in the past, and see new things we hadn't previously noticed. I can testify now 30 years later that my experience of the Bible continues to be as a spring of life that never runs dry.

Lord, who can comprehend even one of your words? We lose more of it than we grasp, like those who drink from a living spring. For God’s word offers different facets according to the capacity of the listener, and the Lord has portrayed his message in many colors, so that whoever gazes upon it can see in it what suits him. Within it he has buried manifold treasures, so that each of us might grow rich in seeking them out.

The word of God is a tree of life that offers us blessed fruit from each of its branches. It is like that rock which was struck open in the wilderness, from which all were offered spiritual drink. As the Apostle says: They ate spiritual food and they drank spiritual drink.

And so whenever anyone discovers some part of the treasure, he should not think that he has exhausted God’s word. Instead he should feel that this is all that he was able to find of the wealth contained in it. Nor should he say that the word is weak and sterile or look down on it simply because this portion was all that he happened to find. But precisely because he could not capture it all he should give thanks for its riches.

Be glad then that you are overwhelmed, and do not be saddened because he has overcome you. A thirsty man is happy when he is drinking, and he is not depressed because he cannot exhaust the spring. So let this spring quench your thirst, and not your thirst the spring. For if you can satisfy your thirst without exhausting the spring, then when you thirst again you can drink from it once more; but if when your thirst is sated the spring is also dried up, then your victory would turn to your own harm.

Be thankful then for what you have received, and do not be saddened at all that such an abundance still remains. What you have received and attained is your present share, while what is left will be your heritage. For what you could not take at one time because of your weakness, you will be able to grasp at another if you only persevere. So do not foolishly try to drain in one draught what cannot be consumed all at once, and do not cease out of faintheartedness from what you will be able to absorb as time goes on.

Discovering the Bible

I took Physics in my Junior year in High School. Doug, Chad, and Mike were all in that class. (Toni, who 11 years later would be my wife, was also in that class. More about that story will come later.) I noticed that they would bring Bibles to school and talk about religion, but they were also very intelligent and did well in science. They made me think that it could be possible to be intelligent, rational, and religious at the same time. Their example combined with my growing disillusionment with the unfulfilled promises of modern progress made me think I should give religion a chance. I decided that I would conduct a systematic study of the major world religions to see if any of them made sense. I believed that my Christian heritage was just something I happened to be born into, so there was no reason to believe that Christianity should hold any priority over any other religion. Therefore I should give them all a chance before making any kind of commitment.

Of course, I couldn't just Google Hinduism and bring up a Wikipedia article in the comfort of my bedroom. Such research in that day would mean a lot of time in the library just to get started. I had not made any progress towards my goal when I found myself in some conversations with these guys about the Bible. What made an impression on me was when they showed me how Jesus fulfilled so many Old Testament prophecies that had been written centuries before he was born. In the process of seeing these prophecies and their fulfillment, I had a kind of epiphany such that I knew that the Bible had to be a supernatural book. I suddenly had confidence that the Bible was a message from God, and losing all interest in other religions, all I wanted to do was to know and understand what it said.

About this same time, Doug, Chad, and Mike took me to a Christian youth meeting where they gave a simple gospel presentation that focused on the fact that Jesus Christ took all of our sins upon himself on the cross. We needed to trust in his work on the cross in order to receive forgiveness of our sins and eternal salvation. I wasn't sure if I had done that before or not, so I made a renewed effort at faith in Christ.

I began to immerse myself in anything Bible or Christian related. I wanted to make sure I had the right kind of Bible, so I ended up buying several. I would try to watch Christian television shows, but even in my enthusiasm, I couldn't take most of them. I did start to get into prophecy related teaching that predicted that Jesus was returning soon. I got into Christian music, including Michael Omartian, Keith Green, John Michael and Terry Talbot, 2nd Chapter of Acts and Daniel Amos. When I found out that there was a series of fantasy books with a Christian theme called The Chronicles of Narnia, I immediately started reading them. The Narnia books were very helpful because they worked on my imagination. As I stated before, growing up I had not found the person of Jesus to be very appealing. Now I believed that he was the Son of God and our Savior, but I still had trouble looking up to him as a person. However, in Narnia, Jesus was in the form of the lion Aslan. The way that C. S. Lewis portrayed Aslan was very appealing to me, and over time I was able to transfer the way I felt about Aslan to my conception of Jesus.

I continued to go to the same Presbyterian church our family had attended since I was 10. I got involved in the choir and was more interested in Sunday school and youth group, but my school friends went to a Bible Church, and I believed that they were closer to the Biblical truth. I visited their church whenever I got the chance.

As we neared graduation, we were all making plans for college. Mike was going to a Bible college, but I was going to Texas A&M. There was some concern that by going off to a big secular school, I would be endangering my new faith, so I prayed that God would protect me.

Entering the Digital Age

Sometime during my Freshman year in High School, I found a magazine on the dining table. The cover art suggested a science fiction theme, but the contents definitely had something to do with electronics. The title was very weird and confusing to me: Byte. The subtitle was not that helpful either: The Small Systems Journal. What kind of small systems are they talking about? As I tried to read the articles and analyze the ads, I began to realize that this magazine was about small computers. Up to that moment, my concept of a computer was something that cost millions of dollars and filled several rooms. When I was six, my dad had taken me to work on a Saturday, and let me go with him into the data processing center, full of cabinets roaring with forced cooling air, reel-to-reel tape drives, washing-machine looking disk units, punched card readers, all controlled from a large panel of switches and blinking lights. This Byte magazine had pictures of machines costing around a thousand dollars that could fit on a table. It now appeared to possible for someone to actually have a computer in their home.

This was mind-blowing for me; science-fiction was becoming reality. I pored over the magazine trying to understand what these machines were, what they could do, and dreamed about how I could possibly get one. It turned out that a friend of my dad's had given him the magazine, and more issues started to arrive. Some of the articles reviewed hardware or showed how to build circuits, but other articles talked about programs. Some of these programs were in machine and assembly language and were completely incomprehensible to me, but some were in a language called BASIC, and I could figure out some of what they did. Not long after that, the first computer store in Dallas opened up. My dad took me there and I got to see some of these machines in person. Some of them had boxes with switches and lights on the front, others just had a power and reset button. Some had keyboards and little TV monitors connected to them. I could press the keys and see the letters appear on the screen. On one of our visits there, I tried typing in a little program...

10 PRINT "GREG"

20 GOTO 10

RUN

... and my name went racing up the screen. What a thrill!

Thoughts of computers filled my mind. A company called Commodore came out with a computer called the PET which you could buy for $600, and it included everything you needed to write BASIC programs. My goal was to save up enough money to buy a PET, which seemed achievable with a lot of work. I did not consider the dream machine, the Apple II, which at over $1000 seemed unobtainable. In the meantime, I heard that my High School had a course called Computer Math that taught BASIC programming, so I signed up to take it my Sophomore year. I didn't think it would be a very good course, but at least I would get to program a computer.

That summer, my dad surprised me and delighted me to no end by bringing home an Apple II with 16K of RAM! I probably spent every spare hour I had that summer on the computer, typing in programs out of magazines, playing little games, and coming up with my own programs.

When it came time for me to take the Computer Math class, I had already learned on my own most what would be taught in the class. There was one other kid in the class, Chad, who also knew a lot about computers, and we became friends. Chad and I did well in the class, but Chad had stories of a kid named Mike who had taken the class earlier and was quite a computer wiz. Later that year, our teacher took Mike, Chad, and myself up to North Texas State University (now UNT) for a programming contest. This was my first time to spend any time with Mike, and although he was kind of strange, he was clearly very smart, and I admired him. We did not win the contest, but we had a good time. On the drive back, Chad and Mike put a tape in the car stereo, and a very strange song began to play. It seemed to have a religious theme, but it was not like any religious song I had ever heard. I couldn't tell if it was serious, or making fun of religion. I now know it was Larry Norman singing Moses in the Wilderness, and this song was a kind of sign of things to come.

Swords and Sorcery

Although the presence of the Force in Star Wars opened my mind to the possibility of something like the supernatural, I did not immediately turn to traditional religion. The Force was manifested in Star Wars through mind control, telekinesis, and skill in fighting; these are not things you find in most traditional religions. However, I began to think about the legends of wizards and witches from the Middle Ages, and I wondered if there was some kind of reality behind those legends.

In those days, you could not walk into a book store and find books on witchcraft or Wicca. If such things had been available to me then, I might have been tempted to actually try it. However, all I got into was Fantasy genre fiction and the Dungeons and Dragons game. Although I read a few different Fantasy series, what made a huge impression on me was The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. I was amazed by the detail and the scope of the imaginary world that Tolkien created, but I think there were deeper things that affected me. I was drawn to the beauty, goodness, and heroism in these stories that was stronger than anything I had encountered before.

I think my new interest in Tolkien improved my relationship with my friend, Doug, who had become religious a couple of years earlier. He was a Tolkien fan, and now we had this in common. This relationship would grow in importance through the rest of High School, and lasts even to this day.

The Summer of 1977

In the summer of 1977, my family piled into our van and took a two week road trip to California. It was a great, once in a life-time experience. We got to see many amazing things as a family, and we had a great time.

While we were on the trip, this movie Chuck had told me about came out, and it was a sensation. I couldn't believe what I was hearing on the news that people were lining up for hours to see a Science Fiction movie. Of course, the movie was "Star Wars," and while we were in a drug store in San Francisco, I picked up a copy of the book to see what this thing was about. When we got back to Texas, we stopped at Chuck's house in Lubbock. By then I had read the book, and he had already seen the movie twice. He immediately took us out to see the movie, and I was blown away.

Star Wars was not traditional Science Fiction, though. It didn't speculate about our future, but took place "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away." George Lucas even admitted that space travel and technology were just part of the setting for a classic hero's journey story. In other words, Lucas what not really very interested in Science Fiction, but just wanted to create an exciting, fun movie. This is why Star Wars had a much broader appeal than other Science Fiction like Star Trek. Although I was aware that Star Wars was not pure Science Fiction, I was so taken by the movie that I didn't care. This was the first movie I strongly cared about, and to my 14 year old mind, it was the best movie that had ever been made. (When "Annie Hall," a movie I had never even heard of, won the 1977 Academy Award for Best Picture, I thought, "What is wrong with these people?! Don't they get how great Star Wars is?")

Another thing about Star Wars that was new to me was that in the midst of a technological setting with space ships, robots, aliens, and blasters, there was a mystical element: the Force. I did not know what to make of the Force. At first, it seemed to be like the psychic powers I had encountered in other Science Fiction, but it was different in that it had a moral element. There was a light side and a dark side to the Force. Also, it was not just a power of an individual, but it seemed to be a power outside of and beyond the individual that aided the individual who cooperated with it. One man, with the Force as his ally, could take on a huge technological power.

Looking back, I see Star Wars as having an important role in my spiritual journey. It opened my mind to the possibility that the scientific and spiritual worlds might not be incompatible. I considered the possibility that if there were something like the Force, then ancient religion might be a primitive attempt to understand human experience of this Force, but such thoughts did not immediate lead to an interest in religion. I had no evidence that any religious people I knew experienced anything like the Force. Instead, my interests took a different turn.

Dystopia

Before going on to the Summer of '77, I want to mention that not all of the science fiction I encountered painted a rosy picture of the future. Concerns of devastating nuclear war, overpopulation, destruction of nature, and dehumanizing technology were reflected in some of the stories I read. These negative visions of the future introduced doubts in my mind that scientific progress would necessarily lead to good. I came to realize that science and technology could be used for evil as well as good, but my hope was that improvements in education would help the future turn positive.