MMM | Issue 5
Hi all,
Well, we've officially kicked of our "Faith and Doubt" series on Sunday. For those of you who don't know, this series in which we're looking at the most common objections people have to the Christian faith as well reasons for believing. By the feedback I've received so far, there's lots of interest out there.
As promised, here's the link to yesterday's message: "Faith and Doubt: Introduction". If you know somebody that you'd like to invite into our "Faith and Doubt" conversation, please forward this e-mail to them. (BTW, we apologize for the poor quality of this week's audio recording. We had some technical glitches.)
If you're the one being invited, please consider joining us. This should be an interesting ride. Each week, we'll post Sunday's message on our website (usually on Monday) which you can download or listen to on-line. You're also more than welcome to attend one of our Sunday morning services at 9:30 and 10:45 AM at G.H. Luck Elementary school in Rivebend/Terwillegar. You can find directions on our website.
I'd also like to encourage everyone to send me whatever questions or objections to Christianity you might have. I can't promise to answer every e-mail personally, but I will use the substance of what you send me as a jumping off point for the messages in the series. My e-mail is theriver@shaw.ca.
Let me also follow up one of the things I said in yesterday's message; namely, that one of the major challenges we face now a days is not that we think SO much that we have rendered faith obsolete, but that we don't think nearly enough. As a result, we can find ourselves blown by whatever popular philosophical wind happens to be blowing.
As I reflected on this, I think this is true for both believers and sceptics. As such, in this series, I'd like to propose that both believers and sceptics look at doubt in a radically new way.
To believers I want to say that faith without doubt is like a human body without antibodies in it. If you never ask any of the tough questions facing Christianity, you leave yourself vulnerable to the experience of tragedy or the probing questions of a smart sceptic. As a result, you can find your faith collapsing overnight if you have failed over the years to listen to your doubts. So let me encourage you to do some genuine searching and reflecting during this series. Don't mail it in!
To the sceptic, I want to encourage you to look for a type of faith hidden in your reasoning. All doubts, however sceptical and cynical they seem, are really a set of alternatives beliefs. You cannot doubt Belief A except from a position of faith in Belief B. For example, some people say, "I don't believe in Christianity because I can't accept the existence of moral absolutes. Everyone should determine moral truth for him- or herself." Is that a statement they can prove to someone who doesn't share it? No, it is a leap of faith, a deep belief that individual rights operate not only in the political realm but also in the moral. There is no empirical proof for such a position.
My point is that the only way to doubt Christianity rightly and fairly is to discern the alternate belief under each of your doubts and then to ask yourself what reasons you have for believing it. It would be inconsistent to require more justification for Christian belief than you do for your own, but that is what frequently happens. In fairness, you must doubt your doubts.
Let me end with this. May the God you may or may not believe in bless you and guide over the next weeks of this series.
Peace,
Pastor Bruce
Well, we've officially kicked of our "Faith and Doubt" series on Sunday. For those of you who don't know, this series in which we're looking at the most common objections people have to the Christian faith as well reasons for believing. By the feedback I've received so far, there's lots of interest out there.
As promised, here's the link to yesterday's message: "Faith and Doubt: Introduction". If you know somebody that you'd like to invite into our "Faith and Doubt" conversation, please forward this e-mail to them. (BTW, we apologize for the poor quality of this week's audio recording. We had some technical glitches.)
If you're the one being invited, please consider joining us. This should be an interesting ride. Each week, we'll post Sunday's message on our website (usually on Monday) which you can download or listen to on-line. You're also more than welcome to attend one of our Sunday morning services at 9:30 and 10:45 AM at G.H. Luck Elementary school in Rivebend/Terwillegar. You can find directions on our website.
I'd also like to encourage everyone to send me whatever questions or objections to Christianity you might have. I can't promise to answer every e-mail personally, but I will use the substance of what you send me as a jumping off point for the messages in the series. My e-mail is theriver@shaw.ca.
Let me also follow up one of the things I said in yesterday's message; namely, that one of the major challenges we face now a days is not that we think SO much that we have rendered faith obsolete, but that we don't think nearly enough. As a result, we can find ourselves blown by whatever popular philosophical wind happens to be blowing.
As I reflected on this, I think this is true for both believers and sceptics. As such, in this series, I'd like to propose that both believers and sceptics look at doubt in a radically new way.
To believers I want to say that faith without doubt is like a human body without antibodies in it. If you never ask any of the tough questions facing Christianity, you leave yourself vulnerable to the experience of tragedy or the probing questions of a smart sceptic. As a result, you can find your faith collapsing overnight if you have failed over the years to listen to your doubts. So let me encourage you to do some genuine searching and reflecting during this series. Don't mail it in!
To the sceptic, I want to encourage you to look for a type of faith hidden in your reasoning. All doubts, however sceptical and cynical they seem, are really a set of alternatives beliefs. You cannot doubt Belief A except from a position of faith in Belief B. For example, some people say, "I don't believe in Christianity because I can't accept the existence of moral absolutes. Everyone should determine moral truth for him- or herself." Is that a statement they can prove to someone who doesn't share it? No, it is a leap of faith, a deep belief that individual rights operate not only in the political realm but also in the moral. There is no empirical proof for such a position.
My point is that the only way to doubt Christianity rightly and fairly is to discern the alternate belief under each of your doubts and then to ask yourself what reasons you have for believing it. It would be inconsistent to require more justification for Christian belief than you do for your own, but that is what frequently happens. In fairness, you must doubt your doubts.
Let me end with this. May the God you may or may not believe in bless you and guide over the next weeks of this series.
Peace,
Pastor Bruce
posted by Pastor Bruce @ 12:22 PM
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