Q & R: losing faith is a drag
A reader writes …
Q: Thank you for writing this book A New Kind of Christianity. You are fortunate that you did not lose your faith–I lost mine and have struggled to recreate some sort of faith. Life is a real drag without faith. . .
Anyway, I am interested in the questions you pose on p. 35 about whether the Bible explicitly teaches the diagram of the Christian story you show on p. 34. Maybe the operative words are “explicitly teaches.” Genesis does tell a story that sounds like a “fall” and “condemnation.” Also the Hebrew Bible discusses “Sheol.” I am curious why you think otherwise.
However, I agree that … the [six-line] diagram view of Christianity [you critique] a pretty worthless endeavor.
R: I remember a friend of mine who lost his faith in grad school once said to me, “How are you keeping your faith? You’re reading all the same philosophy that I’m reading.” I said, “Sometimes it’s not easy,” to which he replied, “Well, it’s not easy losing your faith either.” So many people are caught in this tension …
A lot of people who suffer the most are those who let fundamentalists define the faith, and then find that fundamentalist faith unacceptable. That definition generally begins with the biblical narrative as an imperialist/colonizing soul-sort affair. I wish I had succeeded better in convincing you in those first few chapters of the book that this reading is actually very weak in the text itself; true, it has been deeply ingrained in us … but I think if we approached Genesis as somewhat “innocent readers” (meaning not previously ingrained in the imperialist/colonizing reading of the text), the kind of reading I propose would make so much more sense than the dominant alternative. You might try giving the Narrative Question chapters a re-read or two, plus the Future Question – where I propose an alternative diagram.
Here’s a song I wrote a while back on losing faith … I think there’s a kind of loss of faith that can clear the way for a new and richer kind of faith. That’s my prayer for you.
