tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4532950680800829808.post5437820796922165220..comments2023-10-22T07:50:10.536-04:00Comments on Eclectic Faith: A Brief Interruption: What is simple faith?C. M. Keel, Srhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08203835062280979868noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4532950680800829808.post-36352402540128050732010-08-24T12:20:32.070-04:002010-08-24T12:20:32.070-04:00Simon, thank you for your feedback, and your objec...Simon, thank you for your feedback, and your objections are duly noted. I see these affirmations as irreducible starting points. I also agree that faith has become ambiguous, and that personal interpretation has taken precedent over tradition. However, faith is dynamic, and as such, is subject to interpretation and change, if need be. <br /><br />With this said, I think my affirmations affirm the reality of Christ and his influence upon the past, the present, and the future. Our particular faith traditions flesh these ideas out, and I admit that I am closer to your position than you might imagine. Nonetheless, these simple affirmations are wonderful starting points for an ensuing discussion of what faith in these principles means today, in the 21st century. <br /><br />Once again, thank you for reading and your comments!C. M. Keel, Srhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08203835062280979868noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4532950680800829808.post-86861410710686452252010-08-24T08:47:47.320-04:002010-08-24T08:47:47.320-04:00I know I don't know you at all, but hey, it...I know I don't know you at all, but hey, it's a blog, and people blog in part to get reactions from one other. So I'm sorry if it feels like a total stranger is having a go at you. That's not my intention.<br /><br />I did, however, want to say that, while I'm by no means a crazy-ass fundamentalist, the way you come at this affirmation of simple faith makes me a bit uncomfortable. I think the thing that makes me uncomfortable is that you're assuming a great deal of latitude in interpretation of the proto-creed, and to be frank, I don't think it's there.<br /><br />I know someone who was going through a divorce and was looking back on the promise "til death do us part." She told me that, of course, it meant til the death of <i>the marriage</i>. Did she mean that at the time when she said it at the altar, I wondered. It seemed a convenient way to claim that she meant precisely the opposite of what she had meant at the time. That, to me, was deception and rationalisation.<br /><br />When Christians from the very first days have said "Christ is risen" they actually meant <i>risen</i>. Not "alive in our tradition and our consciousness", but actually risen. Similarly, when they have said "Christ will come again", they actually meant <i>he will come again</i>, not "we will keep his memory alive."<br /><br />I think the reason I'm so exercised is that it feels like, for the sake of a kind of ecumenism, you are saying this affirmation with, as it were, your fingers crossed behind your back. "Yes, I believe with you that Christ is risen (but of course, not in anything like the base and naive way that <i>you</i> mean it)." <br /><br />And what a shallow kind of ecumenism that would be. I'd be much more comfortable with someone saying flat out "I don't believe that Christ will come again" than with someone who claims to me to believe it, but actually believes it in such a radically different way to the way that the words are normally used that there's very little connection between them. <br />Rules-lawyering your way out of faith responsibilities was something that Jesus took a pretty dim view of.<br /><br />Again, sorry to bail in as a stranger with some strong words, but you did invite discussion... :)Simon Cozenshttp://www.simon-cozens.org/blogs/simonnoreply@blogger.com