Approaches to Faith
Many thanks for those who responded last week to my comments about pursuing a way of articulating faith. The holidays, some church matters, and another writing project have gotten in the way but I want to acknowledge the varied comments and muse a little about the matter.
Some have suggested the strength of relationship as the testimony of truth. Others have pointed out the need for articulating faith in some reasoned way. I find it fascinating and certainly a warning to recognize that are a number of ways to the Christian faith.
Just reading this evening an article in the November 21 issue of the New Yorker on C. S. Lewis. The author, Adam Gopnik, takes a darker look at Lewis--at least darker than what you might get in Sunday School. But Gopnik does correctly point out that Lewis' conversion to Christianity was unconventional.
Lewis was drawn to the mythic qualities of life and literature. His hesitation to embracing Christianity was Lewis' conviction that we would have to leave behind myth to embrace faith. It took his buddy J.R.R. Tolkien to point out that all of life is mythic in quality and scope and that Christian faith particpates in myth as well. The turning point was Lewis embracing Christianity as myth that happens to be true.
Most folks, then and now, would likely have a problem trying to find their way to Christianity through such a literary approach. But it does point out that the Christian faith speaks in many different ways (Lewis would undoubtedly note that it is because of the mythic dimensions of the Christian faith).
So how do you articulate the faith to another person? Is it through steadfast relationships, reasoned arguement, historical verification, philosophical reflection, seeing God in nature? Or could it be that all of these things can be conduits by which the truth of the Eternal God makes its way into the need of the human heart?
Carson Reed
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In a history of worship class in seminary I recall a student asking, "Do you really believe God would respond to a person praying to a relic?" (Such as a piece of the cross or St. Andrew's shin bone) I'll never forget the teacher's response: "If the incarnation means anything it means that God understands the deepest needs of our hearts and responds to them."
I know it is different for each one of us but for me if it were not for the reality of myth and mystery I do not see how I could have faith at all.
Thoreau said, "Only that day dawns to which we are awake." Throughout scripture
God shows up where he is not expected which seems to me to highlight for us today the message of Advent: Wake up! Pay attention! Be alert! You do not know when and I would add in what form the master of the house will return!