Assessing the Faith

To start off this endeavor, I'd like to share a post by a blogger new to me, John Shore. He writes this confrontational piece called "Ten Ways Christians Tend to Fail at Being Christian." While not a wholesale endorsement, there are some very pressing talking points here. One that's sure to stir the pot a bit:

"Christians need to more readily admit that the religious experience -- no matter how riveting and real it is to the person experiencing it -- remains a subjective phenomenon, and talk about it that way"

This could really rile up some feathers. When one starts using the word subjective, many Christians are up in arms. And not without good reason; today we hear a lot of "What's true for me may not be true for you," and other generic pleasantries. But if we believe that God is the quintessential Truth, creator of all reality and a verifiable person in history in Christ, it seems like a slap in the face to say that God could be subjective.

That's not necessarily the intention, however. Consider Søren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher & theological writer. He often wrote on the theme of subjectivity in faith, by which he meant the interaction that goes on in the individual. That does not mean that a person is making God up, or that God only exists in one's imagination. The workings of a person's heart do not change the external realities of the world. But Jesus was not concerned primarily with the external signs of religion-like ritually clean hands. He cared about the heart; the individual, & subjective, faith of individual people. Anyone who's been a Christian for even a short time knows that you cannot make that same decision for others. Invariably we experience the peace & purpose of faith and wish to share if with those we love when we see others looking for a similar fulfillment. When we are convinced that Jesus is in fact Lord, it's only right to want to reconcile others to him. There are plenty of ways to show Christ to others, but there's no way to highjack someone's heart.