March 12, 2023
So, why write about all this? Why not just chuck it and be done? There are several reasons:
- I haven’t said I don’t believe in Christianity but that I don’t know how to believe in it—I am agnostic, not antagonistic. Scripture may well be inspired and authoritative, if not inerrant—I just need to find a new basis for believing that.
- I believe there is a God at minimum, because I can’t conceive of a universe without a first cause or creation without a Creator.
- From what I see in the world, I believe God is most likely good—could altruism exist in a world created by an evil deity? Possible but not probable.
- I want to be like Jesus.
- Christianity is still the language I know—it’s the only coherent way I know to talk about transcendence—and I’m not giving that up, even as my understanding changes drastically.
- While I’ve seen Christians behave very badly, I’ve also seen Christians do enormous good. It’s not that I believe Christians are all bad, just that the Christian exceptionalism that believes the Church is somehow immune to human failings is full of shit.
Let’s look at the ancient words of a mentor to a young pastor:
2 Timothy 2:15 (New Testament: A Translation)
Hasten to present yourself proven to God, a worker unashamed, cutting the word of truth straight.
I don’t take this as Paul’s exhortation to Timothy to be really good at apologetics. I think Paul is encouraging Timothy to do good work and to be intellectually honest—no shortcuts or laziness, no manipulation of his flock. If I’m going to believe anything about the transcendent and eternal, I’m going to make an effort do my best work. I don’t want to mislead myself or anyone else with sloppy thinking or halfhearted actions.
Or this, where Paul sends his guidance to a community he cares for and loves:
Philippians 2:12-13 (New Testament: A Translation)
Thus, my beloved ones, just as you have always been obedient (not as if only in my presence, but a great deal more so in my absence), work out your own salvation in reverence and trembling, for it is God who is making active within you both the willing and the working of that which is dearly desirable.
One’s approach to the divine shouldn’t be flippant or slapdash. It needs to be done carefully and with reverence for the person and subject you are approaching, and we can hope that God will honor that by giving us the will and the ability to become more holy ourselves each day.
