Monday, April 24, 2006

What’s my theological worldview?

I've taken this stupid test like three times and tried to post the results from the first time. All I managed to do was to "screw up" my page layout so I deleted the results and am herewith presenting my scores in a form the blog would accept. If I were more computer "literate", I probably wouldn't have had the problem but; "What the hey!"

I am 86% Neo-orthodox.

Wikipedia says in part:
“Neo-orthodoxy was developed in the aftermath of the First World War, primarily associated with the Swiss Protestant Karl Barth
and theologian Emil Brunner
. The neo-orthodox thinkers had strong disagreements between themselves and so neo-orthodoxy cannot be considered to be a unified system. Nevertheless, this type of theology has a number of distinctive traits: such as Revelation, Transcendence of God, Existentialism and Sin.

First, there is a strong emphasis on the revelation
of God by God as the source of Christian doctrine. Natural theology states that knowledge of God can be gained through a combination of observation of nature and human reason. Barth totally rejected natural theology. Brunner believed that natural theology still had an important role and this led to a sharp disagreement between the two men. Second, there is a stress on the transcendence of God. Barth believed that the emphasis on the immanence
of God had led human beings to imagine God to be ourselves writ large. He stressed the infinite qualitative distinction between the human and the divine.

Third, the neo-orthodox theologians made use of
existentialism and in particular Christian existentialism. Barth was strongly influenced by the writings of the 19th century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard was a critic of the liberal christian modernist effort to rationalise Christianity. Instead he maintained that Christianity is absurd and presents the individual with paradoxical choices. The decision to become a Christian is not a rational decision but a leap of faith. This was the foundation of Barth's theology of crisis. And finally, there was a stress on the sinful nature of humanity
.

(BTW: Am NOT a fan of Kierkegaard)

Neo-orthodoxy is distinct from both
liberal Protestantism and fundamentalism. This can be seen in Barth's understanding of the Bible. He rejected the fundamentalist claim that the Christian scriptures are inerrant. He rejected the modernist
liberal Christian claim of that time, that God could be known through human scholarship. He believed that the Bible was the key place where the Word of God can be revealed to human beings, and that an existential leap of faith is required by the individual to hear what God has to say.”

This sounds like Hooker's traditional Anglican faith to me so I guess I scored where a "good Episcopalian" needed to. Roman Catholic ran a real close second at 84% and since I'm more of a "high church" type that doesn't surprise me either. I scored in the 66-44 percentile for Evangelical Holiness/Weslyan, Emergent/Postmodern, Classical Liberal and Reformed Evangelical in that order. In the 37-25 percentile I was Modern Liberal and Charismatic Pentecostal and scored 0% (Zero) Fundamentalist (of which I take some pride).

If you’re so inclined, find the test at: http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=43870

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