The Death of My Evangelical Computer

First off- a little history lesson: I am a smidgen evangelical, mostly Reformed Christian. Among other things, this means I resonate with Luther, Calvin and others, who, 500 years ago, stood up to the Catholic Church and said, "no, people- we aren't saved by paying off our sins (the purchase of indulgences was quite popular back then, the richer you were, the more you could sin- a good gig if you were wealthy)." Rather, as Scripture says, we are saved by grace, through faith.

Reformed Christians, then, put a lot of weight down on that grace, given to us at the cross. This is fleshed out differently than our evangelical siblings in faith, who place a heavy weight on a "personal decision," a "come to Jesus" moment. Those are the people that have altar calls. That memorize four spiritual "laws" and knock on doors. That go "bring Jesus" to the "unevangelized" in our cities and around the world, without authentic relationships or context. For them, that singular moment takes the cake. "When were you saved?" is a question that evangelicals ask. And God forbid you die without "accepting Jesus as your personal savior," though you'd be hard-pressed to find that kind of language in the Bible...

Reformed Christians, however, put more weight on God's sovereignty; it's not about when I accepted Christ, but about living into the identity, the freedom that we can have because of and in Christ. I wasn't saved on Feb. 20, 1994 when I heard the gospel, I was saved 2000 years ago on a cross at calvary, I just happened to realize it in 1994, and then only by God's revelation. And I am continually learning what that means and the rest of my life will be discovering how to "become what I am."

All this to say, my computer died yesterday. It has been "dying" for a while now, but I was hoping it would make it through the summer- call me stubborn, but I freaking wanted to finish my Master's with it. Alas, it was not to be. I had just installed Biblical software in the morning, which was the last thing it could take. Carlos came home and when I told him what had happened, he joked that my computer was waiting to accept Jesus on it's deathbed and then it was at peace and ready to go.
If you were a theology student like me, you'd appreciate the irony there. So RIP, my iBook G3. You've lived a good, long life. Now MacBook here I come!!!