Actually, reading Schaefer was my first real introduction to Christian thought outside the narrow confines of denomination, and he had a lot of good things to say that I carry with me still, though later it seems he got sidetracked in political activism. He also went through a dark period of doubt and emerged through the other side, as I recall.
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This was a very interesting story but my favorite is the following…
Yeah! Not because this is always true, because it isn’t. But because it is true enough! It is about the same on either side frankly. There are VERY intelligent and thoughtful people in BOTH camps. But the numbers of atheists who are buying into some very irrational rhetoric is growing fast!
I, of course, had a childhood as different from Ron’s as can be. I was raised in an environment so critical of the Christian establishment that I have frequently demonstrated to atheists that I can criticize Christianity even better than they can. And yet I have now not only found considerable value in the Bible and Christianity but I am orthodox to what seems a remarkable degree to me at least (even if I am definitely on the liberal evolution believing side of things).
The threats Ron experienced from his wife are familiar to me, for I have experience something similar and caved just like he did. Though such things do make me pretty angry – but hey, at least in that case, love wins, right?
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It’s not losing to value a relationship over winning a debate. Happy wife, happy life, right?
I think the more conservative a woman’s upbringing and current view of womanhood, the harder it would be to deal with a husband whose faith unraveled. With all the teaching about how wives need to be supportive and follow the leadership of their husbands and how the fate of the children’s spiritual and emotional well-being depends on having a godly spiritual head of the family, something like Ron described would probably threaten his wife’s core identity as a good Christian wife and mother. All of the sudden, she finds herself “unequally yolked” and without the spiritual leader she has probably been told her whole life she needs.
Not that any of that justifies not giving a spouse space to process their stuff in their own time. Praying that all of you will be able to give the grace your partners need and that you’ll receive lots back in return.
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I’m sure this was just your wife’s own pain talking, but I can imagine how hurtful that would be for you. We all just want to be unconditionally loved and accepted. It seems like the whole “I never signed up for this” is just more of that false promise of certainty that disappoints so many Christians. Like if you marry the right person, you can be certain what you are signing up for. No one knows what they are signing up for when they get married. Most people don’t sign up for depression, or addictions, or eating disorders, or infertility or dealing with kids with disabilities or behavior problems when they get married either, but I’ll bet most of us get something we didn’t sign up for.
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Thanks for sharing your story, Ron. I’m sorry you’ve had such a rocky road but because of the opportunity it affords for you to make your faith more truly your own, I suspect you won’t end up regretting it. Sometimes risk and even suffering is necessary for learning.
I have no idea what a reasonable rate of answerable questions would be, but then I don’t start out with the expectation that all questions are answerable. It has to be okay not to know what you don’t know.
Except culturally, I don’t claim to be a Christian, but in the absence of good evidence to the contrary I have no negative judgement against those who decide to believe in God on faith.
More often, God belief is passed along culturally with people being brought up to believe what their parents believed. But as someone who did not successfully receive that transmission, I nonetheless became interested in why it arose and what part it may have played in our development as a species. I think there are good reasons for why God belief has persisted so long and nearly everywhere. And I think it can still play an important role for finding meaning and contentment in life.
As someone who has decided there is no God described in any culture which exists just as it has been described, I nonetheless believe there is more to us than just our own deliberate best efforts. So I have a place in my cosmology of self for a God, and I try to be open to this mysterious something. But I have to tell you I am sometimes jealous of the ease with which believers invest in their literal Gods. It is hard to have a relationship with a mystery, and sometimes I feel like Helen Keller except dimmer and more clumsy. Yet I still choose to believe it is worth the effort. So I also rely on faith. Ultimately we all must unless we finally manage to fool even ourselves with our boastful confidence.
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Thanks for sharing so honestly and thoughtfully, Mark.
I grew up Roman Catholic, but in my early university years that faith died out, leaving a husk of confused agnosticism. One night as I walked back to my dorm, a sudden realization came to me: the grand plans of Chris Falter’s future, glorious career of renown were not worth living for. What, then? Another vision: this time, Jesus on the cross. There it was: an example of self-sacrificial love! That was the legacy I wanted to leave!
So I prayed: “Jesus, if you’re real, come into my life and make me like you.” I can’t say my life has been doubt-free or struggle-free since, but I have no regrets–except for those times when I have been selfish.
Interestingly, the movement from YEC to ID to CASE (Christian accepting the science of evolution) started almost a decade later, and took about 25 years.
Best,
Chris
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That reminds me of Chris Rice’s song, "Smell the Color 9"
I would take no for an answer
Just to know I heard you speak
And I’m wondering why I’ve never
Seen the signs they claim they see
A lotta special revelations
Meant for everybody but me
Maybe I don’t truly know You
Or maybe I just simply believe…
Sometimes finding You is just like trying to
Smell the color nine
Nine’s not a color
And even if it were, you can’t smell a color
That’s my point exactly
this song was an encouragement to me in med school and beyond–to find someone else struggled with faith.
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It’s been a year for me, and I still struggle at times. It has gotten significantly easier though. Keep studying, and keep praying!
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This rings true like nothing else. We have fundamentalism and new atheism.
Both are incredibly confident in what they preach. And yet they are equally mistaken in huge areas.
Thanks for the amazing story!
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Thanks for your story, Ron. We’re very glad to hear that BioLogos could be a positive part of your journey.
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I haven’t heard that song in so long! I appreciated Chris Rice’s honesty, especially when many Christian musicians of the day didn’t seem interested in really exploring areas of doubt. Another one I remember is Nichole Nordeman, who had lyrics like this (from “To Know You”)
Thomas needed
Proof that You had really risen
Undefeated
When he placed his fingers
Where the nails once broke Your skin
Did his faith finally begin?
I’ve lied if I’ve denied
The common ground I’ve shared with him
And I, I really want to know You
I want to make each day
A different way that I can show You how
I really want to love You
Be patient with my doubt
I’m just trying to figure out Your will
And I really want to know You still
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Thank you, James. I would say that BioLogos has been very a positive part and a critical part. Your resources, videos, articles, podcasts, and forums have helped me recover my faith and that has helped me save my marriage. I cannot thank you and BioLogos enough. I so deeply appreciate your graciousness, education, information, and resources. I believe the organization is demonstrating John 13:35.
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Ron
Thanks for posting this beautiful and heartfelt story. I was raised in an atheist home, and spent most of my life as an atheist, slowly becoming agnostic. When I finally came to Christ (a long story) I had lots of trouble and struggle, because I thought I was the only scientist who had ever believed. I didnt know any others. Then I found Francis Collins book, The Language of God, and a year later discovered Biologos, and so many other Christian scientists, and others who held to a scientific worldview while following Jesus.
I still struggle, and sometimes a more YECish Christian will ask me “How do you interpret Romans,…” or similar questions. I have answers (from NT Wright and John Walton etc) but I don’t know if they’re right. What I do know is that our task is to take two sources of one truth, Scripture and Nature, and study them until we find how they together lead us on the true path to knowledge and wisdom. Welcome to the journey, Ron, you will find much support and friendship here (as you can see from the previous comments) and I am sure you will often sustain us, your fellow travelers on the path to understanding. Meanwhile, Jesus is walking with us, propping us up when we are tired or despairing, and we continue in the light of His love and grace.
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I like the reference to Francis Schaeffer: “the evangelical hero that no one reads.” I read everything he wrote, except for “Pollution and the Death of Man.” When it came out in 1970, I was a right-wing Republican who thought that environmental crises were made up by hippies and liberals. But when in 1989 I started a sort of Christian Audubon Society called the Christian Nature Federation, I felt I really had to look at what my hero wrote. It made me ashamed. Ashamed that I didn’t read it 20 years before–and mostly ashamed of ignoring or denying our obligation to be the stewards of creation. I hope that the past 30 years as a creation-care advocate is due penance for my earlier sin!
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And, sadly, penance is the right word. In the world of evangelicalism today to be a creation-care advocate is just cause for ostracization, if not execution. “Sir, do you recant your belief in human caused climate change?” I do not. “And do you still refuse to acknowledge Donald Trump as our savior?” I do. “Ready, aim, FIRE!”
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Thank you and, if I may borrow an idiom not my own, bless you for any and all efforts in that direction. Sadly I lack standing to make the same case to the groups which you do. May I add you to my list of hero’s?
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Thank you for the blessing! Two people who kept me, at a few points, from denying the faith were my godly father and C. S. Lewis. And, strangely, my feeble attempts to parse humanism/naturalism all the way back to the Big Bang. I could not even imagine billions of years of cosmic and planetary development without an intelligent and aware somebody somewhere steering things toward intelligence. I once put the unimaginable into a sort of free verse.
ORPHAN OF THE UNIVERSE
In the beginning was unconscious, senseless cause.
Then magnum crepitus:
Nothing exploded into something;
Immateriality burst into materiality;
Purposelessness caused a cosmos; and
Randomness feigned design.
For millions of eons after the beginning, something was here,
But nothing was aware that something was here.
There was no plan and no person in the universe—
Nowhere.
Then lifelessness created life;
Insentience awoke;
Obliviousness became consciousness;
Impersonality gained a face;
Asexuality engendered sexuality;
Ignorance developed knowledge;
Instinct evoked insight and thought;
Thought formed the word;
Nonsense found meaning;
Life begot love;
Amorality gained a conscience
And organized an ethic.
So this undesigned, complex bundle of matter became a designer.
This unplanned, carelessly erected builtling
Became a careful planner and builder.
This cosmic anomaly wrote poetry.
This uncreated creature created music and art,
And it weeps in wonder over the
Stunning beauty and mystery of its
Purposeless, meaningless environment.
Mankind: sad orphan of the universe,
Naturally selected survivor of chaos,
Aware that it’s a what with no answer
And a why with no because.
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Wow, what a poem. Thank you. Difficult.
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I would be honored to stand next to you. But … remember that blatant politics are verboten on this forum. Insinuation, on the other hand …
Guilty as charged. The strange thing is, my current agent began his career editing some of Schaeffer’s books in the 1970s. Should I fire him for that offense? haha
I think BioLogos has a series on “creation care” coming soon. Maybe @HRankin can give us an update.
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