I received Sufjan’s long-awaited Songs For Christmas box set in my mailbox this weekend, and after listening to a selection of songs, I’m just in a Christmas-song-listening mood. It almost feels like a violation of my own unwritten Code of Christmas Ethics, since it’s not even Thanksgiving yet, but some of these recordings bring back some pretty poignant memories, either of a specific event, or just of a particular Christmas season in general. The OtR I’m listening to right now, for example, takes me back to the Christmas season of 2003. Zoë was just six months old. I was recovering from some probably-deserved and probably-ultimately-good-for-everyone-involved heartbreak . . . the melancholy of Linford’s piano, the hauntingness of Karin’s voice, and the joy and hope in the lyrics made for such an appropriate combination for my listening during that season of life. Good for the soul.
(By the way, the Sufjan set is fantastic. Stream it here and take a listen.)
The past couple of weeks have been interesting. On one hand, I’ve been called (either explicitly, or by implication) a misogynist, a gnat-strainer/camel-swallower, a whiner, and a “hard-ass”. On the other, I’ve been told by friends who disagree with me on a few or a lot of things that they have a lot of respect for my faith, and that it’s “strong” yet “gentle” without being obnoxious. And this is only on the intarweb. (Truth is, I probably am more of a hard-ass with weak faith than someone whose faith is strong yet gentle.)
So recently, I’ve seen a few friends — both “IRL” and online — go through some serious paradigm shifts in regards to Jesus and what they think about him, from having their eyes really opened to Christ’s commands to help the helpless, to wondering whether or not they believe the Bible in its entirety, to “de-converting” altogether. These are folks who have at least somewhat similar backgrounds to my own . . . raised in evangelical churches and/or got “serious” and excited about Christ in high school/college years. It’s made me wonder why I haven’t really experienced any such shakeup. I don’t — and never really have — struggled with unbelief (not in a cognitive sense, anyway). I try to take Jesus’ words about the poor seriously (and think that churches should, too) without letting the Gospel fall by the wayside. I still believe that Scripture is as true and authoritative as anything can be, though my understanding has matured somewhat. The closest thing I’ve had to such a shift would probably be when I said “hmm, well I guess I’m a Calvinist now” after some confusion and subsequent study a few years back.
I sometimes wonder . . . with the honesty that my friends are affording themselves in saying things like “I don’t know about the Bible, but I can’t help but love Jesus” or “I don’t think I’m a Christian anymore” . . . I wonder if I’ve missed the boat. I wonder if I’ve failed to think critically enough about my faith and beliefs. I’d say that I’m a more critical thinker about such things than most folks who’d call themselves “evangelicals” (as I do), but I could easily be deceiving myself. I wonder if I’m in fact being dishonest with myself and am plugging my spiritual ears and singing “LA LA LA LA” to drown out the voices of my doubts (which may or may not even be there). I wonder if my steadfastness in belief, albeit weak at times, is a result of God genuinely preserving and protecting me from unbelief. (That’s what I think most of the time, but then I occasionally even wonder if that belief is a result of the aforementioned plugging of the ears.)
Help my unbelief. My help must come from Thee.