More Cranach on Lost
The debate continues in the comments over at Cranach’s Found on Lost. As Dr. Veith noted in this post, Cranach is somewhat atypical in the blogosphere in that discussions tend to be civil, very literate, and ongoing — it’s not all that common for comment threads to go on for more than a few days, and that’s what happens over at Cranach. It’s very cool…
Of particular interest to me in the discussion/comments thread was the final paragraph of a comment by Rev. Bill Cwirla (proprietor of the outstanding Rev. Cwirla’s Blogosphere):
I’ll even dare to speak personally. (Yes, Lutherans have personal testimonials too!). I was baptized when I was five weeks old, was nurtured in the Liturgy, catechized by my parents and pastor, etc. As a result, I do not have a single conscious moment in my life when I did not know and trust Jesus Christ as my Savior. That’s why I can’t relate to “Amazing Grace” when it sings “I once was lost but now I’m found.” I have to believe from the Scriptures that I once was lost, but I have no such memory or experience. I’ve always been found in Jesus.
Folks, let me tell you something — I wish I had written this paragraph, because it states quite wonderfully how I have always felt when confronted with the Methobapticostal view of “accepting” Jesus. Sure, it infuriates me theologically, but perhaps a more important/insightful is the realization that I just don’t get it because I have no frame of reference for it. And thus, I have no need to try and impose some sort of intellectually rational framework upon it (e.g., “making a decision for Christ”). Now if I could just not have to endure hearing Amazing Grace & Blessed Assurance at church any more… 
-ghp
Cranach on Lost
There’s an interesting posting & discussion going on over at the Cranach blog. Granted, this is not an uncommon occurrence, but in this case it happens to be centered on one of my favorite TV shows (non-realitytv division), ABC’s Lost.
More specifically, it’s dealing with the fairly reasonable treatment that Christianity is getting with the recent (2nd season) addition of the ‘Mr. Eko’ character, who is, for all intents and purposes (i.e., setting the quibbling over specifics that we’ve learned form his backstory aside for the moment) a Roman Catholic priest. For the most part, the Christian faith is getting a reasonably decent shake from the writers, although I would certainly like to take them to task for some of the baptismal theology that they put forth in last week’s episode. In all, though, I was very happy that in the end Baptism was given such a respectful & generally accurate treatment — i.e., the theology put forth was one of Baptismal Regeneration.
A development that I’m not quite as comfortable with is (and this will only matter to those of you who actually watch the show…) how they are changing the tenor of Locke’s “faith” as a result of Eko’s emergence. Over at Cranach, some commenters are chalking that up to Locke being emblematic of a more postmodern Oprah-like “faith-in-faith”, something with which I think I can agree. But, as Locke has always been the voice of “faith” vs. Jack’s voice of “reason”, I’ve found the recent, shall we say, refinement in his character to be more than a little jarring — especially in the dismissive attitude he had towards evil & Baptism in the last episode.
The show is good, and the discussion over at Cranach is good — check ‘em both out.
-ghp
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