Those were all my paraphrased words in that last post - not a direct quote.
But as for the passage of Fisher’s that I had just read that gave me the idea (expressed in the 1st paragraph if that’s what you had in mind) … here one of them is (and here is some background so I don’t have to include even more of an already long extended quote). Pastor Fisher is preparing to travel to Nepal to help train some very needy pastors there, and yet he is having his own turmoils, doubts (and physical sickness) fueling his ‘dark night’ of struggles afflicting him the night of his departure. I’ll let him pick up the story from here (p. 144)
I lay in bed—miserable, sweating profusely, aching all over, running a 103-degree fever—and nasty thoughts started running through my head. In the past forty-eight hours, two planes had gone down in Nepal. (Due to the altitude, mountainous terrain, severe weather, and inexperienced pilots, Nepal is the most dangerous place in the world to fly.) My faith was fragile; I’d feared I would lose it at numerous points over the past year. I did not want to leave my wife and son. I did not feel like traveling to the other side of the world in service of a faith I had lost much faith in. And then the voice of my inner atheist (we’ve all got one) started rattling off every deep and dark doubt that lurks down in my soul. “Let’s level with each other, Austin. We both know that you don’t really know if any of this Christianity stuff is real. I won’t argue probability percentages with you, but what do you think the chances really are? Sixty/forty? You want to fly across the world for a wager like that? And not to be emotionally manipulative, but how many children have to die before you sober up and see that life is a cold, ugly tragedy? What must happen for you to accept the obvious fact that the universe could not care less what happens to anybody? And while we’re at it, what kind of father leaves his family to fly across the world in the name of a faith he is not and could not possibly be certain of?” With both my physical and theological immune systems down, I could not put up much of a fight. I was tired of fighting. And I wish I could tell you that at the end of this dark night of the soul, the voice of God came to the rescue, banishing my doubts and filling me with peace and assurance. Faith did not come to my rescue that night. I got up early the next morning and boarded my flight, but faith didn’t get me on that plane—love did.
Fischer, Austin. Faith in the Shadows (pp. 144-145). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.
And regarding the 2nd paragraph (if that’s what you had in mind), I had Fisher’s entire chapter 12 in mind (beginning on p. 147). I won’t do any more extended quotation … these quotes are all teasers and need the text on either side to express his more complete thoughts. So my summary of what I’m suggesting might be his “post-Pauline” idea from ch. 12 is this: that even if we were faced with the stark choice (inspired by Dostoevsky) of choosing between Christ and Truth, Fisher comes to the conclusion that he would have to choose Christ. I.e. Now that he has seen something of what Christ was about and the beauty of who Christ is to and for the world, Fisher declares that he would be a fool to walk away from such beauty … and for what? Some finally nihilistic truth? So in the “worst case scenario” (which Fisher says it can’t really come to that in any case - no proving stuff either way - but even if it did…) in that worst case scenario he would “rather be wrong about Christ, than right about anything else.”
I’m calling that Fisher’s “post-Pauline” idea because it is in stark contrast to Paul’s “If Christ has not been raised, then we are to be most pitied of all creatures.” So Paul is declaring that Christianity is not in any way a desirable road if it turns out to not be true, and it would seem that Paul places his commitment ultimately with truth, having the confidence that Christ then is (had better be) that truth. Paul was not finding ‘beauty’ in all his beatings and sufferings and humiliations, and understandably so. But Fisher, in contrast, is seeing something in Christ which is riveting his loyalty single-mindedly to His narrative - stark realities be damned, should they fail to match. Has Fisher then, surpassed Paul in this regard? He would probably not own that suggestion. But I think Fisher is living in a different time than Paul, and has had yet more exposure the the nihilisms inherent in modernism with its selective skepticisms than Paul could know of. After nearly twenty centuries of philosophical/religious navel gazing and agonizing over philosophies and texts, there is a certain amount of “get off your butts and do something” that has become more appropriate for so many now. Yes - belief is important, but we need to lose our attitudes of thinking that our highly modernist, highly cerebral belief must come first. There are times that love, in action, will lead us to the faith that can help sustain such love and action. And I think Paul would absolutely be on board with that. Paul is entitled to object that all his sufferings are, for him a highest expression of his conviction that this had all better be true! Nobody will begrudge Paul that given what he’s gone through. Nor should we neglect to think (given what Paul writes as a whole) that Paul wouldn’t absolutely agree with Fisher about the beauty of Christ, regardless of whatever our intellects or faith is able to make of the apologetics of our day. So I don’t really think Fisher has left Paul behind in the end. I’m just saying Fisher is on to something that seems to contrast with what Paul wrote in that one letter to the Corinthians.
