The parts that make me uncomfortable

Some good advice from Don Carson in Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church:

I have learned that one way I can check myself to see if I am deeply willing to teach the whole counsel of God is by listing the passages and themes that make me so uncomfortable (granted my own cultural locatedness) that I avoid them, or constantly stress what the passages can’t mean so that I never get around to explaining and applying what they do mean. I must resolve this repeatedly and firmly, or I start to duck…So there is the perennial challenge: try a little harder to get over your own background, and commit yourself to trying, so far as you are able, to teaching the whole counsel of God, especially the parts you find least palatable.

Carson’s talking about avoiding the “immaturity of theological pendulum swings” and this is good advice. The thing is, every theological camp is somewhat guilty of this. I know I am. This is why I am so convinced that we can learn from others. You can see my blind spots a whole lot clearer than I can.