Elect_Exile
Puritan Board Freshman
First, I would like to express my profound gratitude for this board and all who contribute to it. Reading posts from the recent past as well as those over a decade ago is providing me with some much-needed counsel to enable, as best as possible, that my “plans [will NOT] fail” as I make a decision on a seminary.
Second, I am both a newcomer to this board as well as a relative newcomer to reformed theology, in the formal sense of the term. If you had asked me if I was reformed a year ago, I would have not been able to say yes even though I had a great many of the elements of reformed theology solidified in my thinking. I have walked with the Lord as long as I can remember, with the ever present, unceasing pursuit of God and His word which has been “like a fire shut up in my bones.” About 10 years ago (age 25) I set out on a quest to rediscover the big themes of Scripture which, in the wake of Dispensational disillusionment, seemed like an impossible task. If anyone here has ever come out of that world, then you will know that is only by God’s grace that you are able to do so, so firm is the grip of indoctrination of what it teaches about Israel vs. the church. I was even, at one time, a member of John Hagee’s non-profit Christians United for Israel….yeah… Oh the irony. I do want to be charitable to my dispensational brethren, but I admit that this has been difficult. God forgive me. I do sometimes refer to it as Dispen-Sen-sationalism. Is that being uncharitable? I just cannot bear to see the authority and finished work of Christ undermined and defamed as it so blatantly is with this teaching. In any event, I had been adrift, more or less, in a sea of confusion and misunderstanding in the wake of dispensationalism about the overarching themes of Scripture. What began as a pulling upon the thread of the pre-trib rapture debate ended up unravelling way more than I bargained for and set me on a course to finally ground my thinking in sound and Christ-exalting ecclesiology, Christology, and eschatology.
Furthermore, as a member of the military and lifelong lover of America, part of my quest also involved extricating myself from wrong thinking about the Kingdom of God. I am grateful to a faithful brother and associate with the Navigators who, without even knowing, helped me do this. Praise God that His kingdom is not something that we have to establish on our own efforts on this side of heaven. I have exerted much needless mental energy and shed countless tears over the seeming loss of a “Christendom” that God never commissioned us to establish. I have had to repent.
I write all this to say that coming out of wrong theology is as dramatic, if not more so, than becoming a new creation in Christ. I didn’t grow up being taught Reformed theology per se or sit at the feet of Presbyterian minister. My loyalty, though, has always been to God’s Word, wherever it leads. And I can’t tell you how incredible it has been to find that God brought me, ever so slowly, to find in Reformed theology an understanding of Scripture that codifies all of the insights (more than just those mentioned) God had given me, little by little, along the way. It’s more affirming than I can say. To God be the glory!
To round out this mini-autobiography of an intro, I am giving WSCAL serious consideration. Unless there is some little gem I’m not currently aware of hiding somewhere, it appears that, sadly, of all the available seminaries on the West Coast, let alone on the entire western half of the country, WSCAL appears to be the last man standing for an accredited, conservative, and soundly Reformed graduate institution. Am I wrong?
-Luke
Second, I am both a newcomer to this board as well as a relative newcomer to reformed theology, in the formal sense of the term. If you had asked me if I was reformed a year ago, I would have not been able to say yes even though I had a great many of the elements of reformed theology solidified in my thinking. I have walked with the Lord as long as I can remember, with the ever present, unceasing pursuit of God and His word which has been “like a fire shut up in my bones.” About 10 years ago (age 25) I set out on a quest to rediscover the big themes of Scripture which, in the wake of Dispensational disillusionment, seemed like an impossible task. If anyone here has ever come out of that world, then you will know that is only by God’s grace that you are able to do so, so firm is the grip of indoctrination of what it teaches about Israel vs. the church. I was even, at one time, a member of John Hagee’s non-profit Christians United for Israel….yeah… Oh the irony. I do want to be charitable to my dispensational brethren, but I admit that this has been difficult. God forgive me. I do sometimes refer to it as Dispen-Sen-sationalism. Is that being uncharitable? I just cannot bear to see the authority and finished work of Christ undermined and defamed as it so blatantly is with this teaching. In any event, I had been adrift, more or less, in a sea of confusion and misunderstanding in the wake of dispensationalism about the overarching themes of Scripture. What began as a pulling upon the thread of the pre-trib rapture debate ended up unravelling way more than I bargained for and set me on a course to finally ground my thinking in sound and Christ-exalting ecclesiology, Christology, and eschatology.
Furthermore, as a member of the military and lifelong lover of America, part of my quest also involved extricating myself from wrong thinking about the Kingdom of God. I am grateful to a faithful brother and associate with the Navigators who, without even knowing, helped me do this. Praise God that His kingdom is not something that we have to establish on our own efforts on this side of heaven. I have exerted much needless mental energy and shed countless tears over the seeming loss of a “Christendom” that God never commissioned us to establish. I have had to repent.
I write all this to say that coming out of wrong theology is as dramatic, if not more so, than becoming a new creation in Christ. I didn’t grow up being taught Reformed theology per se or sit at the feet of Presbyterian minister. My loyalty, though, has always been to God’s Word, wherever it leads. And I can’t tell you how incredible it has been to find that God brought me, ever so slowly, to find in Reformed theology an understanding of Scripture that codifies all of the insights (more than just those mentioned) God had given me, little by little, along the way. It’s more affirming than I can say. To God be the glory!
To round out this mini-autobiography of an intro, I am giving WSCAL serious consideration. Unless there is some little gem I’m not currently aware of hiding somewhere, it appears that, sadly, of all the available seminaries on the West Coast, let alone on the entire western half of the country, WSCAL appears to be the last man standing for an accredited, conservative, and soundly Reformed graduate institution. Am I wrong?
-Luke