I am tired of having opinions. Of having the pressure to have an opinion about everything. I feel guilty when I have to respond, "Actually, I don't really care" to something someone has said because they obviously feel very strongly about it. Well, I don't mean that in a callous way, but just having to admit that I have zero knowledge on a subject is sort of humbling for me. I feel a lot of pressure here to have an opinion on everything--war, women's role in the church, the infallibility of the Bible, drugs, alcohol, politics, different worship styles, what John Milton means in Paradise Lost, the list goes on and on. Some things I don't have an opinion on because I know nothing about them, others I just don't understand and don't have an answer for.
I am a paradox.
I am tired of not having opinions. Having an opinion on every subject means you know who you are and what you stand for. You can converse intelligently on anything anyone discusses because you believe in one side of it and feel strongly about that. I like the idea of having my life in neat little categories--War-peace is better, women's role in the church-shut up, sit down (I don't really think that, I'm just illustrating a point), the infallibility of the Bible-God wrote it, I believe it...etc.
I've been exposed to so many different points of view since I've been and some of them directly contradict what I've thought my whole life. I want a reason why I should believe what I've always been taught, and the reasons that have been provided for me? Honestly, they often aren't good enough. Not in the sense that they are inferior, but in the sense that they feel like "Because I said so"s. It frustrates me that people who believe so strongly about the way they are doing things can't even seem to provid valid reasons for some of what they do.
Last night, at the Interfaith Scholar Covention, one of the speakers said, "Well, you DO know that Daniel [of the Bible] probably didn't exist." My poor little shaky world was once again rocked. What do you mean, Daniel never existed? All the stories, all the examples that were so much more meaningful when you knew it happened to a real person are crushed, pulverized into little bits of confusion and ignorance.
Who knew that going to a Christian college could be so hard on your faith?
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1 comment:
I really know what you mean. I've been meaning to read a book on systematic theology by Wayne Grudem to help with this. I went to Biola's defending the faith lecture series when I was in college and it was imensely helpful. I still have the DVDs from that if you feel so inclined.
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