"Central to the Christian experience is the art of questioning God. Not belligerent, arrogant questions that have no respect for our maker, but naked, honest, vulnerable, raw questions, arising out of the awe that comes from engaging the living God.
This type of questioning frees us. Frees us from having to have it all figured out. Frees us from having answers to everything. Frees us from always having to be right. It allows us to have moments when we come to the end of our ability to comprehend. Moments when the silence is enough.
The great Abraham Joshua Heschel once said, "I did not ask for success, I asked for wonder.""
This rings so true to me as someone who often feels the need to have all the answers, or pretend to have them even when I don't. It's such a freeing thing to be able to sometimes say "I have no idea." There are some questions that I just don't know how to answer. And that's okay.
Labels: theology
At 2/06/2006 03:30:00 PM, 
Unknown
Mike, I love this book. Rob Bell did a great job putting a lot of important concepts into print. I am leading a community group that meets in my home (a small group ministry of the church I currently attend) through discussion of the book. We also plan on giving them away as a free gift to people who visit the website of the church my friend and I are in the process of launching.
Anyway, I also wanted to let you know that I am enjoying reading your annotated paper that Karen forwarded to me. It is well worded. I think my favorite quote so far is from one of your notes:
"The postmodern critique causes us to recognize that perfect knowledge is simply not possible to us as limited, finite creations . . . It has been this recognition of my own fallibility that has led me through the process of questioning those things that I thought I knew with certainty."
Very well put.
That was the first step in my real embrace of many of the issues Postmodernism has raised, realizing how influenced I was by modernism. New Kind of Christian kind of slapped me in the face with it, and Velvet Elvis has reinforced it. When it clicks that much of what you thought was "biblical" or "the way it should be" was actually the impact of modern philosophy and culture, you have to come to terms with it.
It is almost like falling through the back of the wardrobe into Narnia, or the first time your eyes shift to see the 3-D image in one of those pictures from the 80's. All of a sudden, there is a whole new world to be explored.
Here's to the journey!
I remind myself of that very thing every day. Especially when it comes to pretending......
Thanks Mike!
BTW - I'm still hoping to get out to the next core group meeting. :)