Tuesday, April 28, 2009
darkness warshed over the dude
It makes me sad that this person said these things about Dave Bazan and his journey in his faith and said that his current way of thinking is "just stupid; and what's more, it's not true." And it makes me sad that this person said that Trent Reznor is not a Christian in any way, shape or form. We don't know people's hearts.
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6 comments:
Faith is a tenuous thing with it is all in our hands... Some people have no need for God - they have their airtight faith clinched with the idea of God, the bible and a Jesus who WAS (rather than IS) - there is no room or need for a crucified, risen and living God who is active in the world when we can handle salvation for ourselves (and others) so well on our own.
But holiness is not having perfect faith, it is deep honesty. And God is not working in someone's life just because they "believe" God is - and God does not stop working in people's lives because they let go of beliefs. In fact, sometimes that makes room for God to reveal Godself as God chooses and not as we choose...
One day we all stand before God in need of grace, which is bound to be a real shocker for those who spent their life trying to do for themselves what Christ has already done (and judging how well others have done it, too). But for others, grace will be a real gift, because it's no surprise we can't do it ourselves, and because we have a God who exists not right belief but in those places of godforsakenness. I would rather live honest in my unbelief, than dishonest in my belief.
Peter Rollins has a great blog post on un/belief: http://peterrollins.net/blog/?p=182.
Yeah, I think deep honesty is the most important thing. I think it's also the most difficult thing because it's painful. It means we have to admit that maybe we don't know everything.
The notion of perfect faith is weird, because what does 'perfect faith' look like? I think that faith is messy and gray and not black-and-white, and I think that's the reason people want to explain it away and say that someone who has doubts is outright wrong. It's scary to look inside ourselves and think that maybe what we believe and find logical could possibly not be true.
So true. But also hopeful to admit that most likely we ARE wrong, at least on a lot of things, and that it doesn't matter because God has got it under control...
As painful as it is, I also think at some level, there is enormous relief admitting we don't know everything. And then also great joy in finding that doubts, and even letting go of faith, actually strengthen faith, because in darkness and weakness God comes closer...
Hopefully those who read this blog can see that I did not say that David Bazan's way of thinking was "stupid." I was commenting on a certain mindset, which may or may not be Bazan's. However, it is stupid to think one can be objective and act without any assumptions at all. If that's the case, I stand by my comments. (Which is not at all the same as calling David Bazan stupid; he's clearly not.)
Tim
Hi Elijah,
yeah, it really looks like you were saying Bazan's mindset is stupid. You said that what he was doing with his thought process is "just stupid and cannot be true." So I guess whoever reads it can decide that for themselves.
And before that you said "I would have thought that Bazan was a fairly intelligent guy, but this sort of nonsense is ridiculously naïve."
It just makes me sad, that's all.
Wow. I'm uncomfortable with the idea of using the personal life of someone you don't know as an object lesson. I know David Bazan is a public figure, and I know he's made public statements on the matter, but he's also a PERSON, and I know I for one would be deeply hurt to have my faith -- to say nothing of the rearing of my children -- dissected on a blog.
Whatever philosophical point the author wanted to drive home, making this post personal made this post come off as an "I'm right/you're wrong" to David. I'm not implying that was the intention, but that's definitely how it sounded to me, and to say something like that about a child of God's matter of faith is at best reductive and at worst dangerous.
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