In our quest to know ALL things we wind up with doctrines, creeds, and certainties that leave little room for faith. Richard Rohr put it this way, “The fundamentalist mind is a mind that likes answers and explanations so much, that it remains willfully ignorant about how history arrived at those explanations.”
There must be a balance, a healthy middle ground!
When one goes too far to one side of the other error always comes home for dinner. One can wind up either overly righteous or overly skeptical and cynical. There will always be a degree of uncertainty and confusion and that’s why it’s called FAITH!. In no way do we settle the confusion by pretending to have absolute and certain answers. Unfortunately, the laymen have looked to a priestly class that was always prepared to say that they KNEW.
Ministers and pastors have felt a NEED to KNOW all the answers, but who does?
Angry overreactions against those who differ in beliefs isn’t the image, nor the mind of Christ. There will always be the “dark night of the soul”, those liminal spaces wherein we wonder IF (fill in the blanks). I’m not advocating a “know nothing” approach to the God, Jesus, or the Bible; however, to think that anyone (even the Pope) can figure it all out is to walk in vanity and delusion.
I am a WORD person. Christianity is a WORD religion. The three monotheistic religions each insists on absolute truth claims in “forms of words”, whereas Jesus’ truth claim was in His person (John 14:6) and His presence (John 6:35). We are (all of us) the incarnation of the risen Jesus.
The rhema word though is the balance. Faith comes by HEARING and HEARING by the (spoken, heard, listen to) word of God. Jesus have given us His risen presence but too many want to rely only on the certitude that their denomination has taught them and thus we have tens of thousands of denominations claiming only they have the truth.
Embrace the word and follow the Spirit and a healthy faith will be formed in your life. There must be a balance in the inner and outer authority.
“Embrace the word and follow the Spirit and a healthy faith will be formed in your life. There must be a balance in the inner and outer authority.”
Deep, true and powerful ;Good Post!!!
Thanks for the reminder. Often I get caught up in the “knowing”.