Monday, February 11, 2008

Deep Thinking Can Bring Unity?

I have a friend who is a brilliant Political Science major. One day, as he was describing his conservativism to me, he inspired my response of "You're so conservative, that you're a liberal!"

This friend's conservative views lead him to many of the same conclusions as his liberal counterparts, but for different reasons.

For instance, he was suspicious of the motivations for some of our war efforts. He is critical of the corporate influences on politicians and elected officials. However, he is no pacifist or socialist. It seemed to me that his deep conservative principals led him to some conclusions that would be shared by liberals.

I see the same thing in theology. Most Christians don't know theology at this deep level, but theologians understand that there is a cleavage between Calvinism and Armenianism amongst Protestants.

One of these rifts occurs on the issue of salvation. Calvinists believe that a believer can't lose his/her salvation, while Armenianists believe that they can.

However, I have noticed that a person that the Armenianist can describe to have once been a Christian but has since lost his/her faith, will be described by the Calvinist as having never been saved in the first place.

While both sides disagree theologically about the person's past state, they both AGREE about their present state! While both parties disagree in theology and therefore in theory, they agree in practice to treat the person as a nonbeliever!

This has got me to wondering. Could it be that many, if not most of our divisions could be dissolved if only everyone thought deeper about the issues? Could it be that shallow thinking causes more disunity than deep thinking?

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