The Impact of "Intellectual Theology"

I like the way Josh put this. It's fairly true. I had to do a lot of reevaluating after I graduated...in fact, God had to painfully "re-open" my mind for Him to reveal Himself and His Truth to me. Due to the intellectualism of my education, there will always be a battle in my mind between the simple and the analytical-between faith and cynicism.

I am out of the BBC environment, and suddenly a lot of things are becoming clear. The unique circumstances surrounding this particular college's environment tend to have a crucible effect on students. On graduation day, there are three types of seniors.

First, the sort who have been faithfully eating whatever was spoon-fed into their vacuous minds their whole lives. These will be both the faithful followers and many of the spiritually significant leaders on the campus. They aren't all bad (some of them are but let's not stereotype too much), but they are characterized by blind acceptance of status quo. Some of them are honest people who just never had to struggle with hard questions. And they scare me just a little.

The other two types of seniors come out of the same background. They are probably from fundamental churches, but they've seen enough crap in church, enough insincerity, manipulation, politics, bigotry, and unkindness that they're asking some serious questions at different points in their college years. And trust me, if there are buttons to be pushed, BBC will push them. And come graduation day, a few students will be pushed right over the edge. I don't mean, "Let's not be fundamentalists" so much as "let's not have anything to do with Christianity, it's a hoax." (This usually isn't the result of great thinking as much as personal reaction to someone else's poor thinking. Ie, "I'm right because all of you are wrong.")

Fortunately, this isn't always the case. Just as often, students experience just enough love from faculty to overlook the mild insanity inherent in such an institution. Nothing muddies clear thinking so much as a grudge. If you want to think clear and face the real issues, you have to forgive the shortcomings of the institutions. (And I've had a lot of fuzzy thinking because of anger.) In my time here, I've had to do some personal crash courses on the canon, the trinity, epistemology, worldviews, and a good deal of soul-searching just to make it through. And I'm not going to lie, it's been tough. But I got through and what do you know, like some others, I'm still a Christian. And while I probably don't see myself as a strict fundamentalist, I'm not scared away from conservatives - they need forgiveness and grace as much as anybody. And they have their strengths.

I will say, letting go of some of BBC's hard-core ideas was the best thing I ever did. It isn't that I have in any way compromised doctrine and Truth, but I've realized that some of the things they push as important are not. And understanding that has allowed me to make choices in my life that have been greater than I could have imagined.