I respect people who struggle with issues of faith. Maybe because that’s been the defining characteristic of my life. <\/p>\n
Facebook used to ask “What are you religious views?” My answer was “wrong.” <\/p>\n
A friend asked me why I said that. It’s rather simple. I’ve been on so many sides of so many issues in my life, the only thing that could possibly explain it all is to say that I had to be wrong most of the time. <\/p>\n
So if you struggle with issues of faith, I get it. I’ve either been there, or very close. <\/p>\n
What bugs me is when people try to reduce the issues to bumper-sticker-level caricatures. For example, when people think that belief is the easy way, a crutch, or a resignation of reason. <\/p>\n
Nothing could be further from the truth. <\/p>\n
The person who gives in to temptation knows nothing about temptation. The person who resists it to the point of bloodshed knows what temptation is all about. <\/p>\n
In the same way, the person who glibly, easily decides to reject faith knows nothing about faith. <\/p>\n
Allison Kraus reminded me of this in her rendition of “Down to the River to Pray.” <\/p>\n
As I went down in the river to pray
\nStudying about that good ol’ way<\/p><\/blockquote>\nWhat strikes me about that old lyric is the word “studying.”<\/p>\n
Not accepting. Not inheriting. Not reciting.<\/p>\n
Studying.<\/p>\n
The people I’ve known who take faith seriously are rarely the people who arrived at easy answers. More often they are people who spent years wrestling with questions, doubts, contradictions, temptations, and objections.<\/p>\n
Unbelievers caricature belief as some sort of easy path. It’s not easy. It’s never easy. And if they paid attention, they would see that. <\/p>\n
Watch Sergeant York struggle with fighting in a war. Read about C.S. Lewis struggling his way through mythology. Listen to Alvin Plantinga wrestling with “basic beliefs.” <\/p>\n
It’s a struggle all the way — for the simple (York) and the scholar (Lewis and Plantinga). <\/p>\n
People who caricature belief as some sort of “easy answer” show that they haven’t thought enough about the subject. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I respect people who struggle with issues of faith. Maybe because that’s been the defining characteristic of my life. Facebook used to ask “What are you religious views?” My answer was “wrong.” A friend asked me why I said that. It’s rather simple. I’ve been on so many sides of so many issues in my … Continue reading ““Studying about that good old way””<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3628"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3630,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3628\/revisions\/3630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}