Time for a Great Cartoon! (safety)

Is it possible to be too safe? In our dangerous world, such a question sounds ludicrous. But for the follower of Jesus, there are priorities that are higher on God’s list than our personal safety.  And sometimes our efforts at total safely wall us in from what God wants us to do.

Mark Buchanan wrote a very helpful book a few years ago with the challenging title Your God Is Too Safe.  The book is subtitled “Rediscovering the Wonder of a God You Can’t Control.”

I had a student recently who thought I was picking on her and her poor English grammar.  I emailed her and told her I pick on all my grad students for their poor grammar and was not singling her out.  She emailed me back:  “Are you trying to hurt my feeling?”  (she meant “feelings”).

What makes us Christians think that God is never going to put us in situations where our “feeling” will be hurt?  Or our reputations?  Or our physical well-being?  Explain that kind of God to those heroes listed in the Foxes Book of Martyrs.

P.S. Mark has also written a book with the captivating title Your Church Is Too Safe.  Haven’t read it yet.

 

A THEOLOGY OF RISK!

I am one privileged puppy!  I get to teach seminary and graduate students — and I often feel that I learn more from them than they do from me.  I don’t feel that so keenly that I’m going to refund a percentage of their tuition, but you get the point.  I am deeply impressed with the quality of student we have here at Columbia International University Seminary and School of Ministry (our cheers at basketball games last longer than the games themselves:  “Give me a ‘C’!,” etc.).

One of the courses I’m privileged to teach this semester is entitled “Theological Methods and Issues.”  It is an upper-level course in which students study poor and best practices in doing theological research.  They also present two major papers in class which we evaluate, critique, and otherwise encourage each other to pursue possible publication.  [I’ll ask some of my students later if they will give me permission to publish some of their papers here in this blog].

One of my students presented a paper on “A Theology of Risk.”  He spoke about our “risk-averse” faith and how we look to insulate ourselves from all risks.  Referring to Mark Buchanan’s book Your God Is Too Safe, this student talked about some in our culture who are addicted to risk (one thinks of Extreme Sports junkies).  He referred to Greg Tung’s 365 days of doing something each day which “scared” him.

In our culture, especially in our Christian sub-culture, it looks like we are comfort-addicted.  Instead of longing for an adventure of faith, we cushion ourselves against hurt and hard work, acting as if we can just glide to glory.  (to be continued)

Questions:

1.  What risks are you taking in your walk of faith?

2.  How does a risk-averse life keep us from a life of trusting God?