My New-Found, Free-Writing, Anti-Scholastic Freedom

Now, a scholar would know that the worst thing he or she could do for his or her career is to free-write late at night and then post it on the internet. To my once dream of being a biblical scholar, I say pooh. Here is my free-write, and here I take my stand on quite a number of issues that I was always too academically unwilling to stand a stand on before:

I believe in miracles and I believe in angels and demons. I believe there is actually a God who hears me and can help me in my weakness. I believe that Jesus Christ did come to this earth, and he was everything which he claimed to be, that is, the Son of God. I believe Mohammad actually came to this earth and was led by God to start a new religion. I believe that Joseph Smith came to this earth to create a new religion. I believe that no child is born except through the intricate crafting of God. I believe that there is nothing that happens without God commanding it to happen. I believe that maximalistically, the Book of Job accurately represents God’s sovereignty over humanity. I believe that God cares about each person in this world and is grieved when there are two people in disharmony. I believe that God has a more accurate view of shalom than humans do, knowing that although there are glimpses here and there, the only true and lasting peace comes from who God is and through the ordinances which he has given. Although many “sins” are actually natural expressions of human weakness (e.g. insecurity, fear of others), any perfect peace can only come when those human weaknesses are made strong again. That is to say that even if all “sins” stopped, there would not be peace. Brokenness and peace cannot coexist. When Christ comes again, he will bring peace as he promised. The lion will truly lie down with the lamb and there will be wholeness, that is, the right order of things. Although I am concerned primarily with what others think of me, God is concerned with the part of me that is broken, the part of me that needs to be fixed. Although I try to repair myself with love, thinking that I can love myself vicariously through someone else’s love for me, I have become deceived. I have worth because God has given me worth, because he intricately designed me and fashioned me in my mother’s womb. He gave me a name and told me that he was pleased with me. I believe that in order for us to overcome sins, we need to see the world as God sees the world. We have to know that abortion is wrong, because children should be born to a family that will care for them and nurture them. We have to know that lying is wrong, because self-promotion is less important than community. We need to know that fellowship lies at the center of God’s desire for this world and we can either enrich the community and the family, or we can rob the community and abandon the family. As a child who was abandoned, I realize that a fractured family carries around its neck (like a millstone) all of the brokenness that this very world carries. I believe that the only way to recover from this mess is to repent. It is to repent on your knees to God, display your repentance openly and allow God to make the change in you that He has wanted before you ever fell and broke yourself. You see, The Fall is only a representation of a life spent to promote yourself. Christianity is not a mathematical formula, and I am almost sure that a substitutionary atonement is not mathematical. God I am sorry that I am so slow to learn. I cannot apologize that I am so hurt and broken, because it was the hurt and brokenness in others that did it to me. It wasn’t you though. I am sorry that I am so slow to trust. So quick to project my love onto others, so slow to close my eyes and analyze the roots of the matter.