Grace Boldly

Scot,

Your observations on suspending or bracketing faith are heavy - but important. Perhaps this practice impacts more of us (not just religion writers) more than we would care to realize or acknowledge. Interesting ...

yes, I agree with Diane. I think that it may be a good thing to deconstruct one's religion ... and encounter the personal living Truth in Jesus more deeply.

I just finished reading McDermott's book, "God's Rivals" after reading you overviews in this blog. I found his perspective helped me to appreciate the "seeds of the logos" that are scattered in other religions without having to cast them in black or white or "good or bad" categories.

RJS: I have really appreciated Scot's review of books in this forum ... it is like a graduate degree in religion and theology for me. I read through the series on McDermott and then ordered the book, and also read the review of Tiessen in here, and I am about 1/3 of the way through it.

I had been arguing with some of my ministry friends for a form of soft, ‘C.S. Lewis-style’ inclusivism for while and they were suspecting me of heresy in not enthusiastically endorsing what Tiessen calls an ‘ecclesiocentric’ view of salvation. It has been very helpful to read through both books and find support for a broader (and still Christ-centered) approach for salvation in the early Greek fathers and in many current theologians. I find that it helps me in my outreach to secular people on the university campus to not make assumptions that they are lost, but rather to respectfully look for the “seeds of the logos” in their own minds and heart and to encourage the measure of faith that they already have, while encouraging them to consider Christ more deeply.

Religion newswriters ... are required to tell stories of various faiths, suspending judgment often, to get into the skin of what others think and believe. I often wonder how religion writers can believe.

I can see how you might think that spending so much time around other religions could make Christian exclusivism hard. Beyond that, though, I don't see why it would be a problem. I've studied Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Shinto, and Confucianism and didn't find it caused me any problems in my beliefs. In some ways, considering other religions can strengthen yours because it causes you to think about about your own faith more than you might otherwise.

As for reporters, when non-religious people write about religion, it shows. It's almost like they're describing the nesting behavior of the red-bellied sapsucker or some such; it's obviously so foreign to them. Religious people are more sympathetic to the idea of devout religious practice, even when they don't share a particular belief.

I see this in everyday life, too. I'm far more sympathetic to my coworkers who are Hindu vegetarians or are observing Ramadan etc, even though I think those religions are false, than my multicultural Christmas-and-Easter-Christian coworkers.

Scot,

I find that I suspend or bracket faith quite often - and I agree that this has an effect on faith. Do you think the impact is positive or negative?

Can you adhere to the Jesus Creed without bracketing your faith?

I wonder if it is possible to "bracket" the Christian religion without bracketing the person of Jesus?

Because I studied Catholicism in the 1960s in Brazil and Colombia, i think I developed a tendency to bracket both Catholicism and my own evangelicaiism ... and my contact with a diverse group of graduate students with a diverse set of religious faiths has caused me to try to be 'objective' and to see their views through their eyes (again, McDermott helped me on this)

but I don't think I have attempted to 'bracket' my committment to follow and trust Christ ... he is still my foundation and the center of gravity for my life.

It just seems that bracketing or suspending one's faith is somewhat antithetical to the idea of walking with God and loving Him "with all our.....". It also seems to downplay of idea of being a new creation, missional, and incarnational.
Will the Holy Spirit still lead us in appreciating and understanding the views and faith of others, without us intentionally putting our faith on hold/setting our relationship to God aside?
Do we stop "abiding" in Christ when we "suspend" our faith?

I think it depends on how we view "faith". If it's like a commodity, or a "thing" we somehow "get", then there is the possibility we can "lose" it or "think apart from it". But if we view it more as Trust, or a "condition" into which we enter, then I think we can still bracket some things, anyhow, without thinking apart from our faith, trusting Jesus even more than our cogitations :) and remain safely in him. Trust does not have to be suspended at all. I think this is how Paul, for example, had to do it to make sense of Jesus and his work within the Jewish framework.

I would wonder, Scot, if this kind of "bracketing" without suspension of trust is a feature of the experience of many of the converts and their stories that you have studied?

Dana

Jennifer #17-
"In “Deconstructing Evangelicalism” Hart suggests that the refusal to ever bracket faith leads to anti-intellectualism."

I can see how that is possible, but it does not have to be inevitable.

Wouldn't it be more helpful to simply talk about faith in a God of love than "bracketing" one's faith--Christian love as dying to oneself in order to truly hear another's voice with respect and empathy (though eventually with discernment); the humility and vulnerability of Christ that allows another's perspective to challenge us (and perhaps surprises us with an encounter with a "seed of the Word"); faith from an encounter with Christ that draws us to follow after him with growing insight and transformation and moments of awe that somehow make our language of an ineffable God go limp.

I think that "bracketing" is probably one of those things which a Christian needs to be very careful and aware of. However, it's hard to see how one can enter into real, meaningful conversation with those of other beliefs or no beliefs without doing it. I was heartened to read something from John Eldridge a while back saying that he has a sign near his bed that says, "God is real." He says he put it there because he forgets in his sleep that God is real and needs to be reminded of that fact each morning. In my experience, when we spend too much time bracketing off our faith in order to engage in conversation with others, we do have a tendency to forget. I think that, as Mr. Eldredge's sign shows, it takes deliberate acts of awareness on our part to counter-act that tendency.

One of the other things which I have struggled against is not sliding into a mushy embrace of all faith and lose sight of the exclusive claims of Christianity. I try to look for those signs of logos which are embedded in other religions and other people who are simply trying to live good lives without being Christian. However, it can be tempting to take those signs as repudiation of the exclusivity of Christianity without even realizing it. OTOH, struggling against that has forced me not only to be more thoughtful about my own faith, but to expand my understanding of the role my faith plays in the drama of humanity and how all these different beliefs and experiences fit into my understanding of God's plan for mankind. All in all, this has been a good thing, I think. Although there are no doubt some who would find my understanding heretical.

While I can see the very real problems of bracketing, I don't see how we can engage in a world where we are increasingly surrounded by friends, loved ones, family, coworkers, etc. who do not share our values, our beliefs, or even our language (in so far as our religion shapes our way of speaking) without bracketing. How can we love, engage and hopefully influence others if our faith is actually a barrier between us? Paul's words about becoming all things to all men come to mind. I wonder how he did it?

RJS,

It is a truism, but perhaps helpful to say that faith can only be bracketed if it is bracketable. You probably have other convictions that are less bracketable. Do you have any thoughts on what makes the difference when it comes to faith, and why the difference is greater for you than for many other people?