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.
4 comments ↓
I have wondered some of the same things, actually. There have been times when I look at how I live my life and say, “Well, if we’re talking about faith through works, damn.” But really, that’s our sinful nature, and well, sola fide.
I don’t know that doubt is a sin temptation with which we’re all afflicted, and though we probably are, it would certainly be quite likely to varying degrees, y’know? After all, the Parable of the Sower seems to be pretty clear on this.
Rae,
Interesting questions. One trend in evangelical responses to the post-whatever shift seems to have been to sing the praises of “honest doubt”. Most of the time it is even equated with “humility”. Now certainly there is nothing wrong with honestly expressing doubts which we may have from time to time. This expression is even welcomed by God. But I do think there’s something wrong when we in the “ambiguously emerging” circles are made to feel that lack of serious doubt indicates a malfunction of faith. It’s one (of a few) places I cannot follow the emerging trends. Not that doubt is an “emergent” phenomena, obviously. But praising the virtues of doubt seems to be, for the most part. When I read scripture, and when I listen to Christ specifically, I hear us called continually to faith and to leave our doubts behind. Doesn’t mean it’s always easy. But it is our calling and our distinguishing characteristic as followers of Christ.
In addition, I should say we need to be very careful about marking the distinction between faith in Christ and the veracity of his Word and faith in our ability to pefectly understand his word. Emerging trends have tended to ignore this distinction. It’s an important one to make.
peace.
I enjoyed this post Rae…
Without being prideful, do you think that it’s just possible that their “shift” is really nothing more than sin and that they’ve taken the wrong path, for whatever reason? Maybe this “shift” is just a cry for attention? It does possess that attention-grabbing psuedo-spiritual Christianity-for-the-stage that faked speaking in tongues does. “Hey look at me, I’ve discovered or am feeling something unique in the history of Christianity! Look at me, me, me!” I’m not really impressed by this stuff, because it smacks of egocentricism and the old bull of man trying to unriddle the universe unaided — the pride of the philosopher.
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