Colson's Dark Night

I receive Christianty Today Direct, the magazine's service which sends daily updates of newly published articles via e-mail. The majority of articles are shallow fluff pieces, with the minority a heterogeneous mixture of insightful theological "stuff" and downright heresy. Today's update, an article penned by Chuck Colson, fits into the "insightful theological stuff" category to be saved in Outlook, rather than deleted. Colson's thesis is that modern evangelicalism does little theologically to answer the reality of suffering. He recommends that we must draw on the older traditions to give us insight to what it is to have faith in times of trial. He even goes as far as to recommend the Puritans and Charles Spurgeon, quoting Spurgeon on the subject of God's providence. He quotes some Catholic mystics as well, who, while doctrinally askew, may not be denied the reality of the suffering they endured and their thoroughly Biblical response.

Colson is absolutely correct in his assesment of modern evangelicalism. Whether it is the semi-Pelagianism permeating the simplistic minds of the anti-theolgica masses or the Open Theism dogma proposed by liberal scholars, many laymen are left wondering if God is cruel, if he is impotent, or if there is some secret sin still lurking in their lives. Reform Theology provides the only Scripturally accurate and logically coherent presuppostion available. I think this view is where Colson finally found refuge in his own dark night.

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Category: Theoblogia