Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Mark Harris Gets Squeamish; Peter Ould Mans Up

http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/5377/

[Stand Firm] 29 Aug 2007--Of the insights I've gained over the past few years about this conflict between orthodox and liberal theology, I believe one of the most important is a glimpse into why it is that so many liberals recoil at the crucifixion, and do all sorts of logical and semantic gymnastics in an attempt to distance themselves from it. I think it comes from two realizations: One, to admit that they are dependent on someone else's sacrifice is to admit that they are powerless to help themselves. This doesn't jibe with the post-modernist thought that undergirds their worldview, and threatens the arrangements they have with their egos and intellects. Two, it reminds them that they are not made of the stuff that would make such a sacrifice. We are not all Latimers and Ridleys and Cranmers, much less Christs, but there are among us those who could make sacrifices that require great courage, and by and large they are not found among those who reject the utility of the sacrifice, or the plain fact of a world in which its utility is needed. A bloody cross is at once a beautiful but very ugly thing, and there are broadly two types of people: Those who can gaze upon it, and those who must avert their eyes.

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