Faith and Skepticism

Today I'm pondering my last post and noticing that it was a lot different in tone from my previous posts, which were written two or more years ago. This is partly a matter of audience -- it was originally written to a Christian online forum of which I am a part, and I think I've directed other posts to a somewhat more diverse group of readers.

But I'm also thinking about how much I've "settled in" to my faith in the past several years. And that this isn't a bad thing.

When I decided to come back to Christianity after having had a bit of a tiff with the Christian God and His people, it was because I'd figured out I can't do spirituality any other way. I need the Christian story and I need my faith to be Jesus-centered and I need for Jesus to be the God-Man, who was interested enough in relationships with people that He'd come in a form we can understand.

So as much as I had come to admire aspects of Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Neo-Paganism and other faiths, I realized that I had to have Jesus as God or I'd be miserable.

I've said before that the faith of my youth had an enormous emphasis on prooving itself to skeptics. Since I grew up with a skeptic, it seemed very important to me to prove that Christianity was rational, factual and ultimately impervious to argument.

But when I came back to faith, I did so with the realization that I can't prove any of this stuff -- I just need it. So I more-or-less "special-ordered" my faith:

• God is Mystery (check)


• God is "everywhere present and fills all things" (check)


• God loves and is a befriending God (check)


• God came in the flesh to save us from death (check)


• Jesus, who is God Incarnate, died and then came back to life (check)


• We are never, at any time, without hope (check)

But a funny thing happened on the way to the altar. The first few years, I was more a skeptic-with-hope; now I seem not to need the skepticism anymore. And this is a strange realization -- that skepticism was as much a need for me as faith was. Skepticism was my safety-net, just in case I ended up being a fool. If, at the end of all things, my beliefs about Jesus turned out to be a fantasy, I wanted to be able to say, "Yeah, but I wasn't absolutely sure. I wasn't operating on blind faith. I STILL HAVE A BRAIN, ya know."

Of course, I wasn't sure who it was I'd be saying this to, because if the atheists are right, I won't exist anymore, anyway.

Am I simply more psychologically invested in my faith? Yes, definitely. But it's more than that. It's a kind of caution-to-the-wind thing -- a lack of concern over whether others find me foolish. And what happens now is that I encounter God more frequently, now that I don't hold back. There's a freedom in this -- in being able to light the candles in the chapel and not second-guess myself in the middle of the night, but to simply know that Christ is present with me. It is, I think, something like the stages of falling in love. At first, we are unsure of the beloved -- we don't know whether we can trust him, even though we are attracted and he seems attracted back. But after some time goes by, the relationship develops a surety. I've noticed this in 26 years of marriage. And I notice it in my faith.

So I find I am at a new phase now. One that fills me with wonder.

Why Study the Bible?

As soon as I write this title I am aware of its tract-like applications. My mind conjures up images of well-scrubbed, smiling people in sensible shoes. They want YOU to study the Bible because if you do, you will be a better person, which they very much want you to be. Their smiles turn down a little at the corners when they ponder that you do not study the Bible – that you can’t quote verses the way they can, that probably you are very Immoral as a result. They beckon to you from the picture and offer you a casserole.

When you open the tract, there is a cartoon of the Fires of Hell, in which you will be scorched for not reading the Bible. It is very sad that you will be roasting there and the people with the casserole want you to study the Bible so that you can avoid this. They do not want you taking their casserole to the Fires of Hell where it will become inedible.

Forgive me. I am afraid my baggage is showing. But I do love the Bible. I am a story writer and a story teller and a poet and it is partly for this reason that the Bible is beloved to me.

The other day I was talking about a Bible story with one of the teens who hangs out at our house. It was the story of Joseph and his brothers and though this particular teen attends church regularly, he didn’t know the story. The Bible can be intimidating when read in isolation. It’s an old book. But I told our friend the story – how Joseph’s brothers were jealous of him, (because Joseph was rather an arrogant jerk), so they threw him in a dry cistern and then sold him to some traders and told their dad he’d been eaten by a wild animal. How Joseph was framed by the wife of his employer (who was, um, “interested” in him) and thrown into prison for several years, but later became a powerful man in Egypt because of his ability to interpret dreams. How, when there was a famine many years later, Joseph’s brothers had to come to him (not knowing who he was) and beg grain from him. And how, after putting his brothers through the mill so to speak, Joseph finally told them who he was. And he wept so loudly that he could be heard from a great distance. And how he then invited his father and brothers to live in Egypt.

I love that story. I love its tension and its messed-up family and the humanness of Joseph and his flawed but simple faith in God. And when I was finished telling it, our friend was chuckling and rather intrigued that such gritty stuff would be in the Bible.

I think we need these stories. More and more our culture is losing them, not passing them on, even banning them from the public square (but that’s a whole other discussion). And I think it is a great loss. Not only do we end up with blank spots in any literary study if we don’t have a basic knowledge of the Bible, we also lose out on shared stories. (And no, I am not ignoring that there are other shared stories we could benefit from as well.)

Of course, if you know me, you understand that the Bible is more than ancient literature to me. It is a framework by which I attempt to understand a God who is beyond knowing. In the Gospels – the stories of Jesus – I begin to experience the character of God by reading what Jesus did and said when he walked the earth. And even though I have read those stories over and over, I hunger for them again – how Jesus healed the sick and walked on water and raised the dead and spoke with such gentleness to the disenfranchised and with such forcefulness to the self-righteous. I need to return to those stories because when I read them it changes how I act during the day – how I view things. It takes me out of myself long enough to see the beauty of those around me.

Orthodox Christians view all other people on the earth as icons of Christ. If we love Christ, and are reminded of that love daily, we are motivated to treat everyone we meet with dignity and caring (even the self-righteous, who were loved by Him in their blindness.) Reading the Bible is a reminder that I need – and lately, the only Bible reading I have been doing is Sunday mornings at church.

So, we are going to begin a first-Saturday Bible study this weekend at our place at 4:30. We’re going to start with the Gospel of St. Matthew – read a little, discuss it, find out what the early Fathers and Mothers of the Church had to say about it. Then we’ll have a Vespers service, which is an evening service of ancient prayers and psalms. After that, we’ll have a potluck.

Everyone is welcome – you needn’t attend our church or be Orthodox to participate. Contact me if you are interested and I’ll give you directions. Maybe I’ll even make a casserole.