I know this title may seem slightly dull, and the length of the post may prove somewhat intimidating for all of us busy types. My hope is that it will at the very least be thought provoking. If we don’t engage our minds from time to time, we might as well be robots. So, here’s where I’m coming from. I’m taking a religion course this semester entitled Christian Doctrine. I think that it’s supposed to represent an unbiased position of doctrine in the Christian community as a whole, but this is clearly not the case. Obviously, Gonzaga is going to represent a Catholic Christian view through the course’s content and chosen instructor. This has proven to be the case. In fact, the text is entitled Understanding Catholicism. Anyway, my intention is in no way to disrespect the Catholic faith. I think that we, even as Protestants today, have much to learn from the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church has a rich history and anyone exploring the Christian faith would find it beneficial to explore Catholicism. In fact, anyone practicing the Christian faith would be hard-pressed not to find value in some of the words of the Church’s own saints. It’s important to recognize that Protestant Christianity came out of the Catholic Church; without such, what many of us practice today, would not be in existence. It’s also important to realize that Luther’s original intention was to reform the Church, not to create a new sect. History tells us that he began to question certain Catholic practices such as the selling of indulgences. His questions encountered so much opposition, as opposed to reformation, that he ended up breaking off from the original Church, initiating the creation of Protestant Christianity. And as I understand it, the Catholic Church didn’t just dig their heels into the ground in response to Luther’s reformation, but instead, out of the reform came an emphasis on education. The Catholic’s realized that education is fundamental to one’s development and thus created the Society of Jesus, or Jesuit institution and now have 28 universities in the U.S., one of which is Gonzaga. For those of you who may read this and don’t know me, I am a Protestant Christian and, frankly, quite proud of our roots. However, I hope that my position articulates the value that is found in what each side represents.
I know that was a lot to write to get where we’re at now, and hopefully you haven’t given up reading because this is what I really want to propose. In this class, we just wrote a paper answering the question: “How does the biblical view of creation differ from the scientific view?” Now I know, the first thing that comes to your mind is Creationism vs. Evolutionism. And we could get into a whole debate about that. But that’s not what I’m getting at. What the professor represents, and he is a Father in the Society of Jesus and thus a very knowledgeable man, is the idea of Creation over the idea of Creationism. Now, he’s represented a few ideas that I’m not exactly on board with, but this was one that I thought interesting and, to be honest, has bothered me for the past couple days. It’s the idea of not taking a literal interpretation of Genesis (the Creation side); that is believing that God is the ultimate creator of all things, but not believing that God, for instance, really created the earth in the 6 days. So, if you’re up to it, feel free to comment your stance, opinion, thoughts, ideas, insights. I wanted to sort of provide a forum for everyone to say what they think, no matter what it is. To clarify, it’s not necessary to convince me or anybody else of your belief’s, let’s only provide logical, thought provoking ideas that you think prove one side over the other. For example, my professor’s stance made me question mine and think what I believe through, but only in so far as it reaffirmed my beliefs. And I think that this is what any good debate does; it makes you realize why you believe what you believe.
