here is the beginning and rough draft of chapter 2 of the book. chapter 1 contains a lot of narrative and mythology and i don't feel to confident to share it yet...but...here is where chapter 2 stands right now...
During the spring semester 2001 at Indiana Wesleyan University, two classes impacted my life with a collision of Quantum Mechanics and Wesleyan Holiness. I describe the experience as beautiful, and my wife roles her eyes at me. I would to if I were her. All of us are geeks for something, and the bringing together of these two disciplines gave me a capital G for all things geeky in my life.
A new class had been introduced to the catalog at IWU that year: The Impacts of Science on Faith and Society. The name was poetry to my ears (remember the geek thing I just mentioned). The class size was not huge, but the departments represented from the University were diverse. Willing people from psychology to theology to science were all gathered to discuss how science had impacted our culture, not just at a tangible level, but also the deep ethical and moral levels. The new advances in science, and how the results of their truths had impacted how we as human beings actually see the world. The doctrines of pluralism, and dualism were having a greater effect on the masses than communism or capitalism were. Dr. Willem P. Van De Mere quickly became one of my heroes as he was willing to take the time to answer some of my questions about the things that I was afraid I was the only one thinking about. The movie Contact, written by Atheist Astronomer Carl Sagan impacted my life very much. It dealt with cosmic issues and questions that were well beyond my sphere of thinking, and Dr Van De Mere organized a viewing of the movie at his house that I was able to attend with several top students from the science department. It was incredible.
On the theology side of things, there was the class on Holiness. Now, before I go much further, let me remind you that this is a Wesleyan University. This is not Calvin or Hope or Notre Dame. This is Indiana Wesleyan University. John Wesley is the founder of Methodism and a pioneer in systematically approaching what it means to be Holy. As juniors in the ministry program at a school that bares John Wesley’s name, you would think that we were actually going to be understanding what holiness was, how to get it and package it, and deliver it in a box. There was a problem though. Our professor, Clarence ‘Bud’ Bence had done such a superior job at teaching us the history and background of our holiness roots, that one thing was abundantly clear: the group of folks that had ‘reached’ some level of holiness (as far as making it into the history books is concerned) were a diverse group of men and women. So diverse in fact, that it was difficult to find anything systematic. It had me thinking of the evil ‘r’ word: relative. No, not the evil people that you spend Thanksgiving with. I am talking about ‘relative’ in the sense of ‘not absolute’. These were taboo thoughts I was having. I mean, after all, God’s word is true...how could anything be relative. And to put John Wesley in the arena of relativism? I wonder if they would even accept me into the Christian Ministry program.
Of course, it didn’t help much, that over in the science building in the ‘Impacts of Science on Faith and Society Class’, Dr. Van De Mere was teaching us about what creation looks like at the atomic level of protons and electrons and neutrons. The word ‘relative’ was creeping up there as well. I was convinced that rapture needed to take place at any minute...ok not really. But, it was getting torturous near the end of the semester, when it was becoming abundantly clear that we were not going to figure out how to neatly package up the doctrine of Holiness (and still maintain integrity) and deliver it to our congregations. We were not even going to be able to be who we were trained to be. This is disaster.
And then something beautiful happened...(don’t forget that geek thing I talked about earlier)...
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