In evangelical Christian streams, the Chuck Smith’s, Sr. and Jr., and respected fellows. The front page of the L.A. Times, according to Don William’s, is filled with the following story.
Here is an interesting experience they are having – the younger Smith is embracing more Catholic and Orthodox ideas in his more ambiguous postmodern journey, and his father is moving the other way.
I exert no concrete opinion here; I just felt its a telling sign of the times for what is a poweful response to the frailties and fluctuations of faith in Jesus in our generation (at least in North American protestantism).
Key Quote From Theologian Don Williams (Note: the whole context is more reflective than prescriptive): “…This absence of the freedom and operative gifts of the Spirit clearly created a vacuum in his son’s heart and turned him “eastward” to Orthodox spirituality and “westward” to Roman Catholic mysticism. When we surrender the adventure of living in the Spirit and seek to domesticate him, if we don’t pay a price, our children will. Understanding eastern and western spirituality may be helpful to us, but spiritual disciplines must never become a substitute for the dynamic of the Spirit’s power and presence in our communities and our ministries.”
