The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby, has disclosed that he questions whether God exists.
Britain’s most senior churchman, who is effectively the leader of almost 80 million Anglicans worldwide, admitted that there are moments when he asks himself “Is there a God?” and “Where is God?
He also said that Christians cannot explain why suffering exists in the world but that the answer was faith.
His remarks came in an interview conducted as part of a service at Bristol Cathedral, during a visit to the diocese.
It seems to me there’s a big difference between what the headline suggests, and what the Archbishop actually said. I haven’t viewed the whole interview. Is it possible that the interviewer was goading him just a little bit? In the context or praying the Psalms, I don’t think his observations should come across to a Christian reader as headline news.
How does this tie in with Peter Berger’s preview of his own book, [i]The Many Altars of Modernity[/i], that was posted on T19 last Friday?
http://www.the-american-interest.com/berger/2014/09/10/the-new-evangelization-and-its-assumptions/
In an era when (quoting Pope John Paul II) “faith is no longer taken for granted,” Berger says that “for most people faith is a matter of [i]both[/i] religion and secularity.” It’s not as if we Christians choose to be secular. Rather, in a pluralistic environment we have to choose to believe as Christians, unlike people of other times for whom religious faith was buttressed by “plausibility structures” in the cultural environment.
(Am I using the term “plausibility structure” in the sense in which Lesslie Newbigin and others, maybe including Berger, have used it? I welcome correction from readers who are more familiar with the literature.)
Pax Christi!
Chuck+