Ross' journey
Well, I don’t want to hold up the conversation here, so I guess it’s my turn. I grew up in a Christian family. We went to the small Baptist church where my dad went when he was growing up. He was a deacon and the song leader (we didn’t have enough folks to have a “music minister”) and my mom taught Sunday School and headed up VBS every summer. The first time I ever really remember understanding the gospel message was right before my sixth birthday, and I accepted Christ without hesitation. I knew that God loved me, that I was a sinner, and that Christ died for my sins. So I was happy to accept Jesus into my heart.
But one thing about me growing up was I always had questions. I remember talking to my pastor, wondering how people were saved before Jesus came to earth. I also remember being blown away by the concept of God having always existed…Then I moved on in to the second grade. Seriously, I’ve always had a lot of questions about my faith, but the questions weren’t usually answered sufficiently by those who I would ask, or often I would just hold my questions in fearing that there would be no adequate answer.
I went to a Baptist college planning to become a history teacher, or perhaps a professor if I had the gumption to stick with the education process. Being at a Christian institute of higher learning, I for the first time encountered others who knew a whole lot more about, well, EVERYTHING, but especially the things of God—apologetics, doctrine, etc. It was here where my love for apologetics and philosophy took shape. I wanted to know if what I had always been told was really the case, so I read whatever I could get my hands on and discussed with anyone who was interested in similar things.
For a time in college I had a crisis in belief when I encountered some hard core Reformed theology (for those who don’t know, I’m the non-Reformed Baptist that Drew mentioned in the first post). I actually almost reached a point where I outright rejected the Christian faith because of this struggle, but God showed me, through my study of the Church Fathers and contemporary theologians and apologetics like Geisler, Craig, and Moreland, that this perspective was not the only rationally consistent way that Christians have understood their faith* I say that not to start controversy, but to explain where I’ve been and where God has brought me. Since then, while not embracing RT, I have come to a better understanding of the position and have a greater appreciation for it.
Anyway…. I felt around my senior year of college that God was leading me to the realm of academia in some form or another. I mean, most people don’t have the desire to read Philosophy of Religion textbooks for fun, so I figure that I should serve the Lord with the passions that he has given me. My perfect ministry position would be to teach apologetics/ philosophy at a Christian college somewhere, and also help the local church in equipping members to become defenders of their faith to a world that is progressively loosing any trace of the Judeo-Christian worldview.
So now I’m here at Southeastern preparing for whatever God has for me in the future. Hmm… I guess that about sums me up!
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* I know this may be disputed :-)
But one thing about me growing up was I always had questions. I remember talking to my pastor, wondering how people were saved before Jesus came to earth. I also remember being blown away by the concept of God having always existed…Then I moved on in to the second grade. Seriously, I’ve always had a lot of questions about my faith, but the questions weren’t usually answered sufficiently by those who I would ask, or often I would just hold my questions in fearing that there would be no adequate answer.
I went to a Baptist college planning to become a history teacher, or perhaps a professor if I had the gumption to stick with the education process. Being at a Christian institute of higher learning, I for the first time encountered others who knew a whole lot more about, well, EVERYTHING, but especially the things of God—apologetics, doctrine, etc. It was here where my love for apologetics and philosophy took shape. I wanted to know if what I had always been told was really the case, so I read whatever I could get my hands on and discussed with anyone who was interested in similar things.
For a time in college I had a crisis in belief when I encountered some hard core Reformed theology (for those who don’t know, I’m the non-Reformed Baptist that Drew mentioned in the first post). I actually almost reached a point where I outright rejected the Christian faith because of this struggle, but God showed me, through my study of the Church Fathers and contemporary theologians and apologetics like Geisler, Craig, and Moreland, that this perspective was not the only rationally consistent way that Christians have understood their faith* I say that not to start controversy, but to explain where I’ve been and where God has brought me. Since then, while not embracing RT, I have come to a better understanding of the position and have a greater appreciation for it.
Anyway…. I felt around my senior year of college that God was leading me to the realm of academia in some form or another. I mean, most people don’t have the desire to read Philosophy of Religion textbooks for fun, so I figure that I should serve the Lord with the passions that he has given me. My perfect ministry position would be to teach apologetics/ philosophy at a Christian college somewhere, and also help the local church in equipping members to become defenders of their faith to a world that is progressively loosing any trace of the Judeo-Christian worldview.
So now I’m here at Southeastern preparing for whatever God has for me in the future. Hmm… I guess that about sums me up!
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* I know this may be disputed :-)
posted by Ross at 5:35 PM
7 Comments:
Nice asterik. After seeing that end line, I was expecting a Turabian-style format.
That was not intended for sarcasm, by the way. After reading it, it sounds like of jerkish. This is a good group - I'm excited. What shall the first topic be? NOT the atonement...please.
Nice post, Ross. I love you, my dear "Arminian"* brother.
*I like asterisks too. I know you're not a pure Arminian. Those guys are heretics!
Arminian and heretic in the same sentence....no...by the way, thanks for sharing Ross, Drew, and Charlie
Great to see others in the blogsphere who do not adhere to the Calvinist system.
God Bless
Matthew
Charlie,
I'm thinking that one of the difficulties with the medium of blogging is the difficulty of trying to delineate between a comment made jokingly and a serious comment. So perhaps we can write in parenthesis (sarcastically) or use smiley faces or something to avoid confusion.
I'm fine with waiting on discussions of the atonement until next week :-)
Attention gentlemen: I hereby move that we suspend any discussion pertaining said scope of the atonement indefinitely. I fear that this may strike at the heart of what we seek to accomplish with this blog: unity amongst diversity. It's the same as posting a post about baptism. Just a thought. Do I have a second?
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