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Melinda Meshad's avatar

Yes, faith can provide these things.. but let's think about it. How easy is it to live in a society that tells you that you don't matter because you are not successful, don't work hard enough, don't look a certain way.. don't have enough material goods? How easy is it for those whose family is fragmented? Family, and parenthood seems to be one of those things that gives meaning, regardless of faith. How easy is it when so many jobs that served others are gone, replaced by automation? How easy is it to find a church with folks that really will be committed to the others in their congregation besides having a cup of coffee after the service? So many of the natural things that have given us meaning, even without faith, have been chipped away. It is difficult to tell someone without these things that they will be replaced by having faith as they live out their lonely, disconnected lives. It is complicated...

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Chad Smith's avatar

Richard, I wonder if you would distinguish between what you describe here and, say, the dark night of John of the Cross, or perhaps other markers of a drawing-deeper into the love of God that may come with a kind of meaning-collapse?

I recently read Brian McLaren's Faith After Doubt, and he offers a model of faith development that describes the process you're discussing here. However, my view is that it's a model that specifically applies to those from a kind of fundamentalist origin of faith - and therefore not faith as such, or faith as it necessarily needs to be experienced. (McLaren alludes to this by wondering if there's a way to simply start at the later stages, but comes up short.) I think the emotional distress caused in this kind of doubt is both different in kind and in severity because its origin is so totalizing. Thoughts?

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