Friday, November 11, 2005
Legalism, etc.
Thanks to the useful Sitemeter service, I've discovered that Right & Blond forgot to create a trackback link to my recent posts. Therefore, I'll be helpful and add this link back to his discussion of my posts. :-)
My detailed comments to him will have to wait for a little while, but in the meantime, I'd like to encourage him to double-check his usage of the word "legalism." Since leaving Charismaticism, I've come to believe that my salvation is 100% of grace and 0% of my own works. In fact, I don't even believe that I exercised my own initiative to trust Christ to begin with. Since legalism refers to the teaching that we are justified in whole or part by keeping the Law, my post-charismatic stance is the very opposite of legalism. Perhaps you are mistaking my espousal for Sola Scriptura (the sufficiency of Scripture) for legalism.
Just one more comment: although I've lately chosen to focus on the "experience" aspect of my exodus from Charismaticism, that aspect is far from the sole reason why I've made such a vast theological change. Since human communication by nature is made up of bits and pieces of conversation, it's easy to think that when you've heard all that a person has said so far that you've heard their whole argument, but in many cases including this one, you'd be quite mistaken. Although the WoF doctrine and the bad fruit of my experiences were surely catalysts in my exodus from Charismaticism, it was the Scriptures rather than experience that informed my conversion to Reformed Christianity. I will, Lord willing, have more to say about this aspect of my journey at a later time. Thanks to Right & Blond for prodding me to do so! :-)
My detailed comments to him will have to wait for a little while, but in the meantime, I'd like to encourage him to double-check his usage of the word "legalism." Since leaving Charismaticism, I've come to believe that my salvation is 100% of grace and 0% of my own works. In fact, I don't even believe that I exercised my own initiative to trust Christ to begin with. Since legalism refers to the teaching that we are justified in whole or part by keeping the Law, my post-charismatic stance is the very opposite of legalism. Perhaps you are mistaking my espousal for Sola Scriptura (the sufficiency of Scripture) for legalism.
Just one more comment: although I've lately chosen to focus on the "experience" aspect of my exodus from Charismaticism, that aspect is far from the sole reason why I've made such a vast theological change. Since human communication by nature is made up of bits and pieces of conversation, it's easy to think that when you've heard all that a person has said so far that you've heard their whole argument, but in many cases including this one, you'd be quite mistaken. Although the WoF doctrine and the bad fruit of my experiences were surely catalysts in my exodus from Charismaticism, it was the Scriptures rather than experience that informed my conversion to Reformed Christianity. I will, Lord willing, have more to say about this aspect of my journey at a later time. Thanks to Right & Blond for prodding me to do so! :-)
