Day 259 (Theological Norm)

I discovered recently what my theological norm is. A theological norm is what a person uses as a basis for everything that they believe when it comes to God, faith, the afterlife, spirituality, what-have-you. Many people use their personal experience as their theological norm. A lot of people use the figure of Jesus as revealed in the Scriptures.

I'm not exactly sure when my theological norm developed, because now that I have discovered what it is, I realize that I have been using the same theological norm for quite some time. I like to call my theological norm, "The Omni's"

The omni's are the traits that I believe that God has, and these are pretty standard when it comes to traditional Christian thought.

I believe that God is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, omni-benevolent and eternal. If these words look strange to you, let me break it down. I believe that God is all-knowing, all-powerful, everywhere, all good and has existed and will exist for all time. If any statement about God adheres to all of these categories, then I can accept it. If the statement does not, then I reject it. That is how a theological norm functions.

Considering the fact that we have spent so much of our theology class discussing the theological norms of different theologians that we have been looking at, it's surprising to me that I didn't stop to think about what my theological norm was. In fact, I discovered mine quite by accident while talking theology with one of my classmates.

So, have you thought about your theological norm???

Day 234 (Theology Reading)

I just realized how much reading I have to do for Theology tomorrow. Eeek!

Not much happened today. Did some reading, cleaned my room, cooked some chicken, made a starter box of Magic cards for Katie Buck. You know, the usual.

Now, back to reading!

Day 192 (Exegesis Theology)

It's almost 1 am. Just finished Exegesis. Now moving on to Theology.

Gay Guy in Seminary: Day 23 (Star King School for the Ministry)

I took my very first classes today as a seminary student, and I'm hoping I'm not going to be overwhelmed by it all. Four classes today: Old Testament, Hebrew, Improv and The Sacred and the Substance, otherwise known as "Drugs & Jesus."

I think the class that scares me most is Hebrew, the one that will challenge me the most is Drugs & Jesus and the one I'm looking forward to the most is Improv.

Hebrew is scary because they don't use the Roman alphabet, like we do in English or like in Spanish, French or German. On top of that, words are written from right to left and there are no vowels. I've never been good with languages, so this doesn't bode well. However, this is the first time I will be trying to learn a language with a study group, so you never know...

Drugs & Jesus is scary in its own way. I think while it challenges me, it's going to be a lot of fun and will definitely help me to grow in my faith, even if it's only from having to defend my position all of the time. The class is at Star King School for the Ministry, which is the Unitarian Universalist Seminary. The above picture is of the school; it's always reminded me of a barrel of wine. Luckily, I'm taking the class with 7 other SFTS students (the class only has a total of eighteen students) so I'm hoping I'll have at least a little support for my viewpoints. The instructor was quite tickled to discover how many of us there were. Being raised in a conservative Presbyterian environment has done little to prepare me for this course. I'm just hoping I can figure out rather quickly how to confidently share my beliefs with people who are so theologically liberal.

Improv was just a lot of fun. I can't wait to go again! We played a couple of fun games in order to get a feel for the class and see a little bit of what Improv is like. I've never done anything like this before, but I'm hoping we get to put on some kind of show once we're more comfortable with it.

Old Testament is going to be a bear with all of the reading and tests we have to do, but that's why I'm here.

Spirituality is tomorrow and Church History is on Thursday. I get my first taste of Intro to Ministry on Monday. Kind of a crazy load, but I'm pretty sure with no work to get in the way, I can totally pull this off! XD