The Evangelical Heart
Rachel Held Evans posted recently about The Scandal of the Evangelical Heart. Citing a comment by John Piper (“It’s right for God to slaughter women and children anytime he pleases. God gives life and he takes life. Everybody who dies, dies because God wills that they die.”) she notes that when we approach the Bible in the ways that we traditionally have, we risk becoming something less than human in our responses to suffering. And we risk worshipping a God that is heartless and cruel and capricious. She calls for us to follow Jesus with both our “head and heart” rather than setting aside empathy and emotion as we approach theology.
May we be a people who do not harden our hearts when encounter things that ought to break our heart.
From the blog post:
I’m not sure he and I will ever understand one another, but I’ve decided to quit apologizing for my questions. It’s not enough for me to maintain my intellectual integrity as a Christian; I also want to maintain my emotional integrity as a Christian. And I don’t need answers to all of my questions to do that. I need only the courage to be honest about my questions and doubts, and the patience to keep exploring and trusting in spite of them.