Between Two Worlds

The Newsweek/Washington Post online faith forum has an article today by our friend Tullian Tchividjian. He begins by documenting some encouraging trends he sees among younger evangelicals, and connects this trend to the faith and virtue of his grandmother:

An interviewer recently asked me what trends I see among younger Christians today that encourage me. I remarked that one of the things which I find tremendously encouraging is the groundswell of interest in theology among young adults. What’s unique, however, about this movement is that it has not only a strong intellectual dimension to it, but a strong emotional dimension to it as well. These young adults are not simply thinking deeply about God, they are feeling deeply for God. They are properly blending precept and passion, depth and delight, gravity and gladness, truth and love. They understand well the connection between thinking and feeling as it concerns our knowledge of God—and how indispensable God-centered emotion is in our relationship to God. Jonathan Edwards used to say that people not only need to hear about the holiness and majesty of God, but even more importantly, they need to sense his holiness, they need to feel his majesty. These young adults are “getting it,” and I couldn’t be happier.

One example of someone who understood this better than anyone I know was my grandmother, Ruth Bell Graham, who recently passed away at the age of 87. Her capacity to blend thinking and feeling regarding her relationship to God remains unsurpassed, in my biased opinion.

Read the rest, which is an excerpt from his new book, Do I Know God? which has just been published.