Today, I finally confessed my theological beliefs to my father.
I know. It doesn't sound like that big of a deal, but it was.
My family is Wesleyan. Wesleyan to the core. When I was 12, my family attended a United Methodist church, the close cousin of our blessed Wesleyans. My grandmother stopped calling. Our relatives decided that until we got our act together, there would be no family Christmas. No birthday cards. No contact.
So, imagine the effect that admitting I am a Calvinist complementarian.
I told my father today that I did not believe what the Wesleyan church taught. I was hoping to sheepishly admit this in the middle of a business e-mail about internships and summer jobs. I was hoping that he would skim over the e-mail, forgetting altogether the details about my beliefs.
Of course, my father didn't miss it. He asked me to elaborate. To point out each doctrine that I disagreed with. This should come as no surprise from the man who read to us from the doctrinal statement of the church as a part of our evening devotionals.
After confessing my differences, he retorted back with his witty questions about if I were to die having commited murder.
It wasn't that I couldn't handle the question. It wasn't even that he asked. It was the reality that my father did not understand grace.
You see, if I am saved by grace from the hands of God then it doesn't matter what I do in my sinful nature. God doesn't love me because of what I do but because of who Christ is. He sees Christ when he looks at me, not my worthless hodge podge of sin.
I am saved by grace through faith not by works. And I will hold that until I die, with or without my family's approval.
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