What up . . . I am Mark Allen de Young, a masters student at the Anderson University School of Theology. I created this blog mostly to feel like all of the work I have had to do in grad school hasn’t been a complete waste of time. More seriously, though, I wanted to create a place of free discourse on important theological and religious issues. For much of my academic life I have been running as fast and far away from my Christian church upbringing as possible; it seemed to me (as many so called Christians made it explicitly and abundantly clear to me) that I was going to hell anyway because as far as “Christians” were concerned, I was a complete and total heretic. Not being one to enjoy subjecting myself to myopic and unapologetic bigotry and intolerance, I accepted my informal excommunication gladly and enjoyed the freedom of pursuing my insatiable curiosity and academic interests without the fear that I might lose my faith (I had none left to lose)
It turns out that all of the other philosophies, cultures, and religions that I was taught to fear and avoid during my Christian upbringing were actually quite insightful, and inspired. It was during my devouring of the 84 chapters of the Daoist text, the Daodejing, that I experienced the only time in my life that I could with honesty describe as a religious conversion. What this experience did, far from exporting me ever further from my Christian roots, was reignite the seemingly tired and dead voice of the divine in the Holy Bible. Suddenly it began to make sense to me as this ancient Chinese text began to breathe new life into Christian theology.
After this, I decided to return to Christianity and to the Bible and continue exploring this crazy and most-heretical experience that I had. It seemed to me that if there was anything wrong with Christianity, it was not the fault of its God, or its Christ, or its Scriptures–it was the fault of Christians who had fallen embarrassingly short of the mark. If anything was to be done about this, it seemed to me that it had to occur within the Church, not outside it, and through a reclaiming of theology and Biblical wisdom brought to new life, just the way I had experienced it. I then enrolled in seminary to subject myself to the experience of the Christian Church once more, albeit with a renewed sense of its Truth and a new humility to accept Christians for who they are rather than paint them as intolerant hypocrites. The gamble has paid off a hundredfold, and now I have a renewed view of the community called “Christians” and a new appreciation for the honesty and sincerity of these people.
Am I a Christian? Well, I’ll leave that question unaddressed and let you make up your own mind, after reading my work, to decide whether it is orthodoxy or heresy. If you should judge me, however, (and I would caution you against it from a biblical perspective), do not judge me based on what Focus on the Family, or Christian radio, or James Dobson, or Joel Osteen, or your local pastor says; judge me based on what you claim that God says in the Holy Bible. If I have done injustice to the text, I will allow myself to stand corrected and banished a heretic; but if not, then I humbly challenge you to reexamine the word of God for yourself and live accordingly. On the flip side, if you think Christianity is irrelevant and childishly superstitious because they are all intolerant bigots and hypocrites, I challenge you to this: turn off TBN or the local Christian radio station, throw away all your “Christian” books and magazines, and do not allow yourself to be evangelized by people like Richard Dawkins, then read my writings and tell me if you still feel that way about Christianity at large. Most importantly, remember to dialogue rather than to debate; I will never refuse a conversation, even with someone whose views are diametrically opposed to my own.
Happy Reading!
-Mark Allen de Young
You should be so proud of this. It looks so scholarly, and so perfectly YOU. I love your opening letter, it is so inviting, and I am intrigued enough to want to read many of your papers. Maybe all of them, a large task for me. It’s so interesting to see the things that people run FROM and what they run TO. I think I have run from scholars to a more fundamentalism, from there I believe I ran to the land of nothing, and from there I have been running TO ………SEEKING, and it is in this space I am finding true peace. I applaud your honesty, and your story. I am trying hard in my life, to throw away the “labels” and look each person in the eye, and see them starting at that place. This is what you are calling us to do. I am strongly curious to open each link into a Mark World to see what he has to say. And I know I won’t be disappointed. What a great place to “house” your work. Blessed…you are.
All I can say is thank you for being bold enough to say what a lot of people are thinking, but are not yet bold enough to say. I truly don’t believe you to be a heretic and personally, I believe God smiles continuously on you.
peace & knowledge!
I appreciate your journey and encourage your further exploration, but calling Richard Dawkins an “ignorant bigot” in your invitation toward open conversation I feel is a vicious swipe at a man with a long and respected career in science and warning to those of non-belief about your bias toward that position.
Karen, I appreciate your comments. I agree that my wording is perhaps unjustly harsh and I can see that this may run counter to my purposes here; thanks for bringing it to my attention. I do have respect for Richard Dawkins as a scientist and as a brilliant writer of popular science for his ability to explain complicated theory clearly and succinctly. I have, however, noticed a turn in his writing away from his scientific genius toward unwarranted and unsubstantiated polemics against people of religious faith. Rather than do justice to the evidence he claims to champion, he merely sets up straw men and topples them ferociously. His tone in this respect has become increasingly bigoted and his caricature of religious faith is most certainly ignorant
I am glad to find your blog. Thank you that you so generously share your precious, hard-earned theological work with readers. I am a Korean living in New Zealand, doing theology, seeking to follow the way of Jesus, and also looking deep into my own ‘well,’ my tradition, and finding God’s grace there.
Be encouraged!
I wish that you change the name of the blog, for you are NOT a heretic at all. I want to quote some of your writings in my thesis and we do not cause any unnecessary misunderstanding. Anyway, that is my thought.