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 - Endorsed - Indifferent - Contested
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| The Nashville Statement
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Name:Daniel
Home: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
About Me: I used to believe that evolution was reasonable, that homosexuality was genetic, and that people became Christians because they couldn't deal with the 'reality' that this life was all there was. I used to believe, that if there was a heaven - I could get there by being good - and I used to think I was more or less a good person. I was wrong on all counts. One day I finally had my eyes opened and I saw that I was not going to go to heaven, but that I was certainly going to suffer the wrath of God for all my sin. I saw myself as a treasonous rebel at heart - I hated God for creating me just to send me to Hell - and I was wretched beyond my own comprehension. Into this spiritual vacuum Jesus Christ came and he opened my understanding - delivering me from God's wrath into God's grace. I was "saved" as an adult, and now my life is hid in Christ. I am by no means sinless, but by God's grace I am a repenting believer - a born again Christian.
My complete profile...
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Daniel's posts are almost always pastoral and God centered. I appreciate and am challenged by them frequently. He has a great sense of humor as well.
- Marc Heinrich
His posts are either funny or challenging. He is very friendly and nice.
- Rose Cole
[He has] good posts, both the serious like this one, and the humorous like yesterday. [He is] the reason that I have restrained myself from making Canadian jokes in my posts.
- C-Train
This post contains nothing that is of any use to me. What were you thinking? Anyway, it's probably the best I've read all day.
- David Kjos
Daniel, nicely done and much more original than Frank the Turk.
- Jonathan Moorhead
There are some people who are smart, deep, or funny. There are not very many people that are all 3. Daniel is one of those people. His opinion, insight and humor have kept me coming back to his blog since I first visited earlier this year.
- Carla Rolfe
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email
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| Sincerity |
There are billions of religious people in the world who are sincere. I suspect that nowadays you pretty much have to be sincere if you are going to believe in any religion, otherwise why would anyone choose to endure the many and various secular prejudices aimed against any kind of faith (though Christianity in particular gets the worst shake)?
I don't want to confuse sincerity with zeal, for zeal doesn't require sincerity, nor does sincerity require zeal. By sincerity I simply mean that one is satisfied that as much as they know how, they are being honest in what they believe; that is, they believe what they do because they are satisfied that what they believe is really true.
I made the distinction between zeal and sincerity because it is sincerity that typically drives zeal in some people. If a man is truly convinced that he is correct in what he believes, it may seem reasonable to him to presume that anyone who still disagrees with him after he has fully explained himself [1] probably hasn't really understood him, or [2] isn't able to understand him because because he or she is either not spiritual (unsaved) or not spiritual enough (too immature).
It is sincerity then, that puffs a man up with pride so that he is willing to believe that anyone who disagrees with his opinion must either be unsaved, or simply lacks the intellect or spiritual maturity to understood it yet.
The humble man allows a possibility that the puffed up man does not - he allows for the possibility that he may be mistaken in what he understands.
Where sincerity mixed with humility produces a teachable spirit, sincerity mixed with pride produces an unteachable spirit.
Strangely enough, those who are unteachable because of pride, fail to see both their pride and their unteachable spirit - having convinced themselves that sincerity has saved them from both.Labels: sincerity |
posted by Daniel @
8:41 AM
 
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| 7 Comments: |
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Agreed. But at some point there has to be truth, and something firm upon which we must stand - else all is the unknowable mush the postmoderns would like to have us to believe.
Where's the line?
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Funny, this is the second time today I've read "sincerity" and "zeal" in the same context. The other was in Nineteen Eighty-Four, which has nothing to do with your post.
I do wonder about the sincerity of the "billions of religious people in the world," since so many of them consider their truth to be one truth among many.
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David, in a cosmic coincidence, that's also the second time I heard someone mention Nineteen Eighty-Four today, which also has nothing to do with your comment.
Well, not really, but I liked the book, and the album was okay.
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Oh, wow man, this is the second time I've commented on this blog today. Karma!
I do hope you mean the movie soundtrack rather than the Eurythmics album.
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The Van Halen Album, not the Eurthymics - though I do recall the sweet dreams album to my shame.
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I had forgotten the Van Halen album. Hopefully, I can forget it again.
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Exactly.
- Jennifer