Faith is a journey and facing doubts is part of the journey, according to Frank Schaeffer, a best-selling New York Times author and popular blogger for the Huffington Post.
Schaeffer will present a workshop “Articulating an Authentic Faith for People Who Don’t Like Religion (or Atheism)” on Saturday, sharing his journey from conservative evangelical beliefs to joining the Eastern Orthodox Church.
“I tell people my own doubts, my own story. People aren’t used to hearing people share doubts,” Schaeffer said Monday in a phone interview.
[blockquote]Schaeffer sees his current faith, not as an angry response to his background, but as distancing himself from dogma.[/blockquote]
The reporter wrote that, rather than Schaeffer saying it, so it’s impossible to know whether it actually reflects his thinking. But if so, it’s hard to see how he manages to stay in Orthodoxy, given its attachment to the necessity of dogma.
By the way, did you know that Schaeffer is
[blockquote]the son of influential conservative evangelicals and authors Francis and Edith Schaeffer. He partly grew up in Switzerland where his parents pioneered L’Abri Fellowship, a place for open discussion about what it means to be a Christian in the modern world. As a young adult, Schaeffer and his father (who died in 1984) were pioneers in the fundamentalist movement that birthed the Moral Majority and other conservative groups.[/blockquote]
Because, if you didn’t know that, he will tell you. Again, again and again.
Nothing to see here folks. Move along, move along.
Doubt is essential to faith. Doubt is the forge where the best steel is beaten into form. We all know that; certainly Augustine knew it. Doubt implies a willingness to believe; facing the heat makes this willingness a conviction. I do not want my soul in the hands of one who has never overcome doubt as I do not want my back covered by a man who has never conquered fear. Larry