I found it interesting spending time with my instructor Michael Scott Moore at Fuller Theological Seminary. He is a brilliant man who is a graduate from Princeton Theological Seminary, and went on the complete his PhD at Drew University. He ran into problems getting accepted into Princeton to do his PhD, which were the quotas. That fact that Dr. Moore is a male and a WASP did not work to his advantage. Such is the world in which we live.
That being said, it was enjoyable to spend time with him and my fellow students. We had a couple of courses together at the extension site in Tucson and would enjoy lunch, talking about missionary endeavors and the advancing kingdom of Christ around the world. I found it interest that we could so easily disagree with each other. We had a mutual respect for one another, and although we did not see eye to eye on a lot of issues, at least we were able to carry on a respectable dialog. Somehow, even if others did not share my vantage point of some issues, I felt a sense of affirmation in knowing they at least tried to understand where I was coming from, and form intelligent responses to my arguments.
I have since found it much harder to carry on those types of conversations. No doubt being at Fuller was a unique opportunity to interact with other leaders from a wide range of expressions in our Christian faith. However, I am concerned about some of the things that I encounter working with my more conservative friends. It seems that if a doctrine or even an opinion is stated that does fall into agreement with someone’s presupposition, they get riled up rather quickly. It may be anxiety, irritation, or in some cases flat out anger, but the response is never pretty.
My point of concern is two-fold; one, what does it say about us if we cannot even discuss viewpoints that others have that do not coincide with our own? Two, does it matter how the rest of the church, and the world view us? Perhaps our point of view is that as long as our core doctrine is aligned properly nothing else matters and God will fight for us. Although I admire my friends who want to live holy and sanctified in this era of human history, I am not convinced such a posture is conducive to effective missiological efforts. The way I explained it to some of my students is that we are in the world but not of the world. We do live sanctified unto the Living God because we are not of the world. However, he has left us in the world for a purpose, and that is to advance the kingdom. We need to engage the culture, speaking the truth in love, if we are going to make disciples of all nations.
