Post by Deleted on Jul 23, 2012 22:05:15 GMT
Here's a portion of my "testimony", for what it's worth, with some particular thoughts on the place of Scripture in my life:
Written in 2004:
This was intended to be the preface to a book I was working on about my perspectives on Scripture, but I think it serves as a good beginning in introducing my world. This is kind of a mix of my early faith experiences and my experience with the Bible. There are a lot of other facets of my walk with God that are notoriously absent here, so I hope I can fill in some of the blanks with additional posts. I think all of us writing about these things is going to be quite helpful to all of us.
The Story:
My Journey of Faith Into the Ultimate Narrative
by Joshua Coles
“God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn’t... He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down.” C.S. Lewis
No one ever warned me that Scripture could be dangerous to my faith. Affirming, yes. Strengthening, yes. Exciting even. But perplexing, never. Studying the Bible would be like building one gigantic bridge, piece by piece, until it spanned a vast gulf of doubt and ignorance. The workers, the blueprint, the entire project was infallible. There would be beautiful, symmetrical progress. No dead ends- no starting over- just daily progress with faith getting stronger all the while.
I did have the sense that it would be an adventure, however. Since childhood the Bible held a heartfelt allurement. Miracle stories, warfare, prophecy, apocalypse- these fed the imagination as far back as I can remember. Yet somehow one of the basic facets of any good adventure- doubt- was hard to expect in an encounter with God’s Holy Word.
I have always had the mind of a skeptic. I guess I attribute it to my grandfather- probably the only serious doubter in the family. Sometimes I view this quality as the bane of my existence, at other times I see it as a unique gift of mine. But that is getting ahead of the story. Suffice to say, from an early age I was both hopeful believer and dogged questioner.
And when the ‘fullness of the times’ came and I was old enough to ‘eat curds and honey’ and know right from wrong, I came to Christ as I knew I should. There was repentance, there was desire, there was baptism. And then the doubt set in.
I am sometimes envious of the apparent simplicity of other Christians’ “Road to Damascus” type testimonies. Blinding flashes of light- rebellious pasts (most likely full of sexual exploits and maybe drugs)- and radical, sweeping changes. All uphill from there- doubts diminish, the presence of the Spirit ever growing stronger. “No sense of menace, no feeling of dread… and angels tuck you in at night” describes one musician wryly. Of course, upon closer research, these fairy tale conclusions don’t really happen. It didn’t even happen to Paul, the archetype of the story, so we know it must be an illusion. But don’t most of us Christians-from-birth have that steady-progress-toward-holiness Model buried in our psyche? It must have come from well intentioned but misguided hours of mediocre Sunday school education.
Yet it was that same Sunday school education that drilled into us the Stories. Now, I capitalize the word because to me it is crucial. It really is the Story that has saved my faith so far. I will go on to explain the highs and lows of my experience with the Bible and the Christian life as a whole, but for now I will simply state that the Story has always been my real anchor.
Obviously my own experience didn’t fit the Christian bed-time story model. My deepest wrestling with sin and doubt came after receiving the blessed sacrament of baptism. So, in effect, I became more of a scoundrel and lost more faith than I had had by being “born of water”. At the time it was exacerbating. But I have learned since that all good baptisms have the same effect. When was it that Paul really did analyze his life fully and in his conscious mind understand that he was indeed a “wretched man”? When was it that John the Baptist (who went around baptising others) had his worst doubts? Only after a 'baptism' encounter with Christ. And Scripture explains why: “But everything exposed by the light becomes visible...” Ephesians 5:13. But that doesn’t fit the steady- progress-toward-holiness Model.
I have tried to pinpoint what began the first rush of doubt into my clean-slate, freshly baptized Christian life. I think it was John Denver.
Yes, I know, John Denver. In spite of all the sappiness, the moptop haircut and goofy album cover poses, at an early age I was inspired to wanderlust by tunes such as “Rocky Mountain High”. I remember vividly driving through the Canadian Rockies with my family, “Cold Nights in Canada” blaring and the call of the wild thumping my heartstrings. There was and still remains a core of something solid in the music of that melancholic troubadour- something that awakened desire in me.
I was in a reminiscing mood, listening to my dad’s old record albums one day and I rediscovered Denver. The old feelings came back but they began to grow a seed of doubt that may be hard for anyone else to follow. Part of it was- here was a singer who seemed by external appearances a good guy. He wasn’t inciting his listeners to anything promiscuous. He was singing about noble things. And yet, he apparently rejected orthodox Christianity. I started to think of the implications. Good people were going to hell in a handbasket according to my belief system.
“How can a good God punish ‘good’ people in hell for eternity just because they don’t ‘accept’ Jesus” is a good question for any Christian, despite the overabundance of the word “good”. Solid answers to the question can be found, but still, the question should cause us all some cognitive dissonance- especially considering even God is pained by the damnation of any soul (2 Peter 3:9).
Deeper than that question, though, was the apparent fact that something other than God had awakened desire in me. I was too young and it was too difficult to find God in John Denver at the time. If Denver wasn’t a Christian, then of course his inspiration couldn’t be God, right? In any case, the whole issue opened up the floodgates. For the next few months all of the classic questions came to rear their ugly heads- “How can Christianity claim to be the one true religion?”, “How do we even know if the Bible is trustworthy?”, “Can’t all my religious experiences be explained away as wishful thinking?”, and the list goes on. And so I delved into books. Of the reading of apologetic books there is no end. It was one of those times when you don’t read because you simply want to, you read because you must. You read to keep your head (and faith) above water.
I learned a tremendous amount and was introduced to ideas and authors that have had a lasting and profound influence upon me to this day. Chief among them was C.S. Lewis, whose book Mere Christianity felt like a life-boat on a stormy sea. The next few months brought a thorough examination of my beliefs, sifting through evidence, and linking chains of logic. And the conclusion was impressive to me. There did appear to be something to this Christianity thing. But a deeper doubt persisted- it was the doubt of my experiences. It was a “God, if you are there, then how can I ever know You?”. And I despaired because I wanted the feelings of someone who had faith but I did not want to manufacture them.
It was a song by another 1970’s crooner that broke the impasse. This time it was Don Francisco, a Jesus Movement folk singer. While listening to his song Beautiful To Me which retells the story (wait- that should be Story) of the prostitute who anoints Jesus’ feet in front of a crowd of onlookers completely aghast. And I caught a fresh glance of the God Who can be known, just as Augustine saw so long ago when he wrote, “And far off I heard your voice saying ‘I am the God who IS’. Not an abstract concept or invisible deity, but God in the flesh- God who at once created the universe and also let a sleeper slop her tears on his dusty feet. That moment was the beginning of something.
I view that time as something of an epiphany for me.
Sometimes I like to call it my “baptism with fire”. I’m not really sure I have even investigated the theological implications of that statement, but “baptism with fire” sounds like a good enough descriptor to me. My memory may have dramatized the event somewhat, but it was a turning point. And it ushered in the celebrated “golden age” of my young Christianity.
Whether you claim to be a follower of Christ or even a hostile skeptic, you know what I mean by “golden age”. There’s a verse in the Bible that I think in its own way the describes the stage: “To one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life” (2 Corinthians 2:16). Although I am ripping the verse out of context, it does aptly describe the honeymoon stage of the Christian life.
The “golden age” is that stage in the Christian life characterized by an intense combination of concrete conviction and overwhelming charisma. That is why both the follower and the skeptic know what I am speaking of, because often for better or for worse, it is the young and exuberant Christian that makes himself known to the world. It can be either intensely refreshing or downright annoying or a little of both. Think of Bob Dylan’s Slow Train Coming (or better yet, Saved). Compare it to a Freshman class. Consider adolescence in general. Remember your honeymoon and you will know the paradox I am explaining.
You’ve either experienced it or you’ve been on the receiving end of it. It is a time of tremendous excitement, growth in leaps and bounds, experience of the miraculous, and unfortunately more than it’s share of Bible thumping and prudery. It’s the best and the worst of the Puritans (who I love despite any political incorrectness). It’s the spiritual jump start that God gives most of his children to get them off the ground. It’s like fertilizer for a newly planted seed.
The next few years were passionate and relatively free of doubts. The Scriptures opened up to me as a book of Promise, and endless source of inspiration. Who could come away from reading the Bible with dissatisfaction? There was so much truth that I had never seen before. It was like scales had been removed from my eyes.
Apologetics had bolstered my intellectual belief and experience was fueling my trust in God. I had a certain boldness coupled with innocence that was a powerful combination. If I could have, I would have chosen to remain in that state. But that isn’t how things are. And I think I have enough hindsight to see that that isn’t how things should be. “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child, but when I became a man I put childish ways behind me”.
Little by little newer, pithier doubts crept back in. And my voracious desire to study the Word of God started to uncover difficulties that the casual reader overlooks. Some of the old answers weren’t looking so good. The experiential side of faith suffered it’s setbacks as well.
At the end of the honeymoon of belief there is always a crisis of faith. It may come as one pivotal moment or as a more subtle erosion. Just as JRR Tolkien’s memorable character Bilbo hesitated in the tunnel leading to the dragon Smaug’s lair, so too, we all face a great test. To turn back, remaining in the nominal glory and safety of past experiences and comfort zones, or to go on into the unknown where we must turn invisible and talk to dragons and all manner of uncomfortable stuff. I guess sometimes we don’t get a choice. We can’t go back to the innocence, we must go forward. We either keep hoping or we despair.
There may be several of these crises, if the life of Abraham is any indication... or Moses’ life for that matter... or just about any character the Bible takes the time to describe for more than one chapter! The difficulties increase in intensity, thereby destroying the myth that faith gets easier and easier as time goes by. To be sure, in all my questioning I have found nuggets of truth that I cling to fiercely when doubts assail. I would have never found these nuggets unless I had been digging with desperation. One purpose of this book is to relay those beacons of faith to you, the reader. Of course, reading is never enough. You must dig for your own, or dig to prove to yourself whether there really is anything to mine.
Contained in Holy Scripture are wonders of immense grandeur that bring doubt to doubts. But also within these pages I have found conundrums and perplexities that make me feel like banging my head against the wall would be a pleasant experience in comparison. I want to write about those things as well if only because they don’t get written about very often. We Christians go shopping for books that affirm our hopes, all the while wondering if anyone shares our doubts. But if the Scriptures are what they claim to be (a whole topic of its own which we will have to get to later) then we should expect them to be complex. We know that reality- the world around us- is both wonderful and terrible. We should not be surprised to feel the same about the Bible. If we say there aren’t many easy answers in life, then we should expect the same to be true of these leather-bound swords we carry.
In this Book I have found both storms and anchors. Let’s compare notes. Perhaps we can help each other toward faith in the process, as unsteady as that progress may be.
Read more:www.aletheia.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=josh&action=display&thread=321#ixzz21UBN1nUq
Written in 2004:
This was intended to be the preface to a book I was working on about my perspectives on Scripture, but I think it serves as a good beginning in introducing my world. This is kind of a mix of my early faith experiences and my experience with the Bible. There are a lot of other facets of my walk with God that are notoriously absent here, so I hope I can fill in some of the blanks with additional posts. I think all of us writing about these things is going to be quite helpful to all of us.
The Story:
My Journey of Faith Into the Ultimate Narrative
by Joshua Coles
“God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn’t... He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down.” C.S. Lewis
No one ever warned me that Scripture could be dangerous to my faith. Affirming, yes. Strengthening, yes. Exciting even. But perplexing, never. Studying the Bible would be like building one gigantic bridge, piece by piece, until it spanned a vast gulf of doubt and ignorance. The workers, the blueprint, the entire project was infallible. There would be beautiful, symmetrical progress. No dead ends- no starting over- just daily progress with faith getting stronger all the while.
I did have the sense that it would be an adventure, however. Since childhood the Bible held a heartfelt allurement. Miracle stories, warfare, prophecy, apocalypse- these fed the imagination as far back as I can remember. Yet somehow one of the basic facets of any good adventure- doubt- was hard to expect in an encounter with God’s Holy Word.
I have always had the mind of a skeptic. I guess I attribute it to my grandfather- probably the only serious doubter in the family. Sometimes I view this quality as the bane of my existence, at other times I see it as a unique gift of mine. But that is getting ahead of the story. Suffice to say, from an early age I was both hopeful believer and dogged questioner.
And when the ‘fullness of the times’ came and I was old enough to ‘eat curds and honey’ and know right from wrong, I came to Christ as I knew I should. There was repentance, there was desire, there was baptism. And then the doubt set in.
I am sometimes envious of the apparent simplicity of other Christians’ “Road to Damascus” type testimonies. Blinding flashes of light- rebellious pasts (most likely full of sexual exploits and maybe drugs)- and radical, sweeping changes. All uphill from there- doubts diminish, the presence of the Spirit ever growing stronger. “No sense of menace, no feeling of dread… and angels tuck you in at night” describes one musician wryly. Of course, upon closer research, these fairy tale conclusions don’t really happen. It didn’t even happen to Paul, the archetype of the story, so we know it must be an illusion. But don’t most of us Christians-from-birth have that steady-progress-toward-holiness Model buried in our psyche? It must have come from well intentioned but misguided hours of mediocre Sunday school education.
Yet it was that same Sunday school education that drilled into us the Stories. Now, I capitalize the word because to me it is crucial. It really is the Story that has saved my faith so far. I will go on to explain the highs and lows of my experience with the Bible and the Christian life as a whole, but for now I will simply state that the Story has always been my real anchor.
Obviously my own experience didn’t fit the Christian bed-time story model. My deepest wrestling with sin and doubt came after receiving the blessed sacrament of baptism. So, in effect, I became more of a scoundrel and lost more faith than I had had by being “born of water”. At the time it was exacerbating. But I have learned since that all good baptisms have the same effect. When was it that Paul really did analyze his life fully and in his conscious mind understand that he was indeed a “wretched man”? When was it that John the Baptist (who went around baptising others) had his worst doubts? Only after a 'baptism' encounter with Christ. And Scripture explains why: “But everything exposed by the light becomes visible...” Ephesians 5:13. But that doesn’t fit the steady- progress-toward-holiness Model.
I have tried to pinpoint what began the first rush of doubt into my clean-slate, freshly baptized Christian life. I think it was John Denver.
Yes, I know, John Denver. In spite of all the sappiness, the moptop haircut and goofy album cover poses, at an early age I was inspired to wanderlust by tunes such as “Rocky Mountain High”. I remember vividly driving through the Canadian Rockies with my family, “Cold Nights in Canada” blaring and the call of the wild thumping my heartstrings. There was and still remains a core of something solid in the music of that melancholic troubadour- something that awakened desire in me.
I was in a reminiscing mood, listening to my dad’s old record albums one day and I rediscovered Denver. The old feelings came back but they began to grow a seed of doubt that may be hard for anyone else to follow. Part of it was- here was a singer who seemed by external appearances a good guy. He wasn’t inciting his listeners to anything promiscuous. He was singing about noble things. And yet, he apparently rejected orthodox Christianity. I started to think of the implications. Good people were going to hell in a handbasket according to my belief system.
“How can a good God punish ‘good’ people in hell for eternity just because they don’t ‘accept’ Jesus” is a good question for any Christian, despite the overabundance of the word “good”. Solid answers to the question can be found, but still, the question should cause us all some cognitive dissonance- especially considering even God is pained by the damnation of any soul (2 Peter 3:9).
Deeper than that question, though, was the apparent fact that something other than God had awakened desire in me. I was too young and it was too difficult to find God in John Denver at the time. If Denver wasn’t a Christian, then of course his inspiration couldn’t be God, right? In any case, the whole issue opened up the floodgates. For the next few months all of the classic questions came to rear their ugly heads- “How can Christianity claim to be the one true religion?”, “How do we even know if the Bible is trustworthy?”, “Can’t all my religious experiences be explained away as wishful thinking?”, and the list goes on. And so I delved into books. Of the reading of apologetic books there is no end. It was one of those times when you don’t read because you simply want to, you read because you must. You read to keep your head (and faith) above water.
I learned a tremendous amount and was introduced to ideas and authors that have had a lasting and profound influence upon me to this day. Chief among them was C.S. Lewis, whose book Mere Christianity felt like a life-boat on a stormy sea. The next few months brought a thorough examination of my beliefs, sifting through evidence, and linking chains of logic. And the conclusion was impressive to me. There did appear to be something to this Christianity thing. But a deeper doubt persisted- it was the doubt of my experiences. It was a “God, if you are there, then how can I ever know You?”. And I despaired because I wanted the feelings of someone who had faith but I did not want to manufacture them.
It was a song by another 1970’s crooner that broke the impasse. This time it was Don Francisco, a Jesus Movement folk singer. While listening to his song Beautiful To Me which retells the story (wait- that should be Story) of the prostitute who anoints Jesus’ feet in front of a crowd of onlookers completely aghast. And I caught a fresh glance of the God Who can be known, just as Augustine saw so long ago when he wrote, “And far off I heard your voice saying ‘I am the God who IS’. Not an abstract concept or invisible deity, but God in the flesh- God who at once created the universe and also let a sleeper slop her tears on his dusty feet. That moment was the beginning of something.
I view that time as something of an epiphany for me.
Sometimes I like to call it my “baptism with fire”. I’m not really sure I have even investigated the theological implications of that statement, but “baptism with fire” sounds like a good enough descriptor to me. My memory may have dramatized the event somewhat, but it was a turning point. And it ushered in the celebrated “golden age” of my young Christianity.
Whether you claim to be a follower of Christ or even a hostile skeptic, you know what I mean by “golden age”. There’s a verse in the Bible that I think in its own way the describes the stage: “To one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life” (2 Corinthians 2:16). Although I am ripping the verse out of context, it does aptly describe the honeymoon stage of the Christian life.
The “golden age” is that stage in the Christian life characterized by an intense combination of concrete conviction and overwhelming charisma. That is why both the follower and the skeptic know what I am speaking of, because often for better or for worse, it is the young and exuberant Christian that makes himself known to the world. It can be either intensely refreshing or downright annoying or a little of both. Think of Bob Dylan’s Slow Train Coming (or better yet, Saved). Compare it to a Freshman class. Consider adolescence in general. Remember your honeymoon and you will know the paradox I am explaining.
You’ve either experienced it or you’ve been on the receiving end of it. It is a time of tremendous excitement, growth in leaps and bounds, experience of the miraculous, and unfortunately more than it’s share of Bible thumping and prudery. It’s the best and the worst of the Puritans (who I love despite any political incorrectness). It’s the spiritual jump start that God gives most of his children to get them off the ground. It’s like fertilizer for a newly planted seed.
The next few years were passionate and relatively free of doubts. The Scriptures opened up to me as a book of Promise, and endless source of inspiration. Who could come away from reading the Bible with dissatisfaction? There was so much truth that I had never seen before. It was like scales had been removed from my eyes.
Apologetics had bolstered my intellectual belief and experience was fueling my trust in God. I had a certain boldness coupled with innocence that was a powerful combination. If I could have, I would have chosen to remain in that state. But that isn’t how things are. And I think I have enough hindsight to see that that isn’t how things should be. “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child, but when I became a man I put childish ways behind me”.
Little by little newer, pithier doubts crept back in. And my voracious desire to study the Word of God started to uncover difficulties that the casual reader overlooks. Some of the old answers weren’t looking so good. The experiential side of faith suffered it’s setbacks as well.
At the end of the honeymoon of belief there is always a crisis of faith. It may come as one pivotal moment or as a more subtle erosion. Just as JRR Tolkien’s memorable character Bilbo hesitated in the tunnel leading to the dragon Smaug’s lair, so too, we all face a great test. To turn back, remaining in the nominal glory and safety of past experiences and comfort zones, or to go on into the unknown where we must turn invisible and talk to dragons and all manner of uncomfortable stuff. I guess sometimes we don’t get a choice. We can’t go back to the innocence, we must go forward. We either keep hoping or we despair.
There may be several of these crises, if the life of Abraham is any indication... or Moses’ life for that matter... or just about any character the Bible takes the time to describe for more than one chapter! The difficulties increase in intensity, thereby destroying the myth that faith gets easier and easier as time goes by. To be sure, in all my questioning I have found nuggets of truth that I cling to fiercely when doubts assail. I would have never found these nuggets unless I had been digging with desperation. One purpose of this book is to relay those beacons of faith to you, the reader. Of course, reading is never enough. You must dig for your own, or dig to prove to yourself whether there really is anything to mine.
Contained in Holy Scripture are wonders of immense grandeur that bring doubt to doubts. But also within these pages I have found conundrums and perplexities that make me feel like banging my head against the wall would be a pleasant experience in comparison. I want to write about those things as well if only because they don’t get written about very often. We Christians go shopping for books that affirm our hopes, all the while wondering if anyone shares our doubts. But if the Scriptures are what they claim to be (a whole topic of its own which we will have to get to later) then we should expect them to be complex. We know that reality- the world around us- is both wonderful and terrible. We should not be surprised to feel the same about the Bible. If we say there aren’t many easy answers in life, then we should expect the same to be true of these leather-bound swords we carry.
In this Book I have found both storms and anchors. Let’s compare notes. Perhaps we can help each other toward faith in the process, as unsteady as that progress may be.
Read more:www.aletheia.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=josh&action=display&thread=321#ixzz21UBN1nUq
