Retracing the steps of my mind and heart

As I continue retracing where I have come from in my thinking, especially in my theological views, I realize that I began this process because I was recalling how much my views had changed over past 30 years. And, I wanted to be fair to viewpoints that I might have once held just as tenaciously as those I disagree with now hold such viewpoints. I didn't come from liberalism, but from conservatism, though I was raised with an ethical protest (in favor of mercy) against harsh conservatism. I was raised with a certain enlightened protest against liberalism, but I found myself in college coming to a personal, existentialist protest against liberalism and conservatism. In seminary, I was confronted with the core documents and traditions of Christianity, and began to experience different ways in which people made sense of these core documents and traditions and applied them to the living of life as individual, social and political beings.

In my next post, I want to tell a story or two to show my post-college, pre-seminary retrenchment in a neo-orthodox type of conservatism. This didn't last too long, but it was the last time I tried to be a conservative. So, maybe it is worth remembering.