Last week I ran across this article, an interview with Tim Keller, in Christianity Today. This week in my blog I decided to look at the questions he was asked, pull a quote from his answers, and share some thoughts.

Q: Are the doubts that believers face the same as the doubts that unbelievers face?

A: I do think a lot of Christians — because they don't understand the grace narrative — get out into the world and find it very tough to navigate. I think it's because they don't understand the gospel, not because they can't answer all the theological questions.

This comment really summarizes two of my posts last week on the first and second levels of religions, and how at a certain level, all religions are the same (which is what most Americans see according to the recent Pew study), but, at a second level, Christianity is radically different. That second level is the gospel and if people don't get they Gospel, then the uniqueness of Christianity is lost and, honestly, we're no different than anyone else.

Of course, the real challenge with this is that the Gospel is completely contrary to our sinful human nature, because our natural desire is to contribute something to the faith equation, be it good works, choosing God, or whatever else. In the end, because we add these pieces on to what God does, we end up with an understanding of the Gospel that is lacking and, as a result, we regularly find ourselves in places of doubt.

For the Christian then, the key to overcoming doubt and finding ourselves capable of navigating the world, is to come to understand the fullness of the Gospel. For me, the book that really helped in this struggle was Martin Luther's, "Bondage of the Will" (you can read it for free here).

So, how much Gospel is in your understanding of the Gospel?

I've been known to be rather hard on Christians for a wide variety of reasons and, while I hold to many of those reasons and think there's many lessons for us to learn if we going to be able to connect with people who aren't just like us, the past few months serving at Christ Lutheran here in Denver have been a wonderful reminder of just how wonderful God's people can be.

There have been cards that show up in my mailbox or on the pastor's desk from a wide range of people, continual words of encouragement and thanks, offers to bring dinners up when Anita had her accident, babysitting, tickets to DU hockey games, and then, this week, the gift of a scooter that a family didn't need anymore, but thought would be perfect for us to use getting around downtown.

But it's not the stuff side of all this that's blowing me away, it the thought that goes into it. Seeing the scooter in the garage and thinking, "Hey, the Burnham's only have one car, they could use this!" or people going out of their way to drop off a card or a meal. It just leaves me in awe of how wonderful God's people can be, and I can't help but think that, if those outside the Church saw this side of the Church, it would go far in changing people's perceptions.

While I've never paid much attention to Garrison Keillor, whenever I heard of him in the past, I always assumed that he was sort of your traditional Lutheran type. Most likely this is because what I heard of him was always coming off the lips of old Lutherans expressing their love for a man who makes even the staunchest of old Lutheran, our traditions, our singing, and all the other cliches sound fun.

Then I was given one of Keillor's columns (by an old Lutheran) a couple of weeks ago. The old Lutheran in question decided to share after a Bible study discussion about my tech side. He'd read it the day before and was reminded of it during the conversation. When he gave it to me, I wasn't sure what to expect. When he pointed out the bit that made him think of me, I was even more uncertain of where this was going. It read:

Everybody in my coffee shop seemed to be in their 20s, locked into laptops, clicking and dragging, jumping to new links, sending IMs while text-messaging with the left hand, and the sheer volume of communication was impressive to behold ... I imagine them walking around with GPS chips that notify them when a friend is in the vicinity, and their GPSes guide them to each other in clipped electronic lady voices and they sit down side by side in a coffee shop and text-message each other while clicking their e-mail and hopping and skipping around Facebook to see who has posted pictures of their weekend.

With that limited information I wasn't really sure where to go with the article, after all, many of the people I encounter in the church world are fearful and therefore hostile to this emerging culture that is obviously disconnected from real people because they spend so much time online. Given my old Lutheran stereotype of Keillor, I couldn't help but think that this was just another version of the rant I'd heard so many times before. Then I read the whole article and found these words:

The young are towing a barnful of credit-card debt and they mumble and talk that weird stuttery talk of y'know like so anyway like awesome or whatever, and they don't know how to do arithmetic by hand or use a dictionary, but they have a great attitude. They're OK about themselves. They're really into their friends. Wassup? That's wassup. They're totally connected. Like a colony of ants. I sat in their vicinity for a few days and tapped at my novel and got into a halcyon mood and then duty called and I came back to the miasma. I am good and depressed again, but hey, I'm OK with it.

I have to say, it was impressive to hear somebody speak of a generation that they don't totally understand and, rather than ripping into them for not being "like us", taking a moment to say, "There's plenty I don't get, but here's something good."

Of course, the excitement was somewhat dampened when I looked up more info on Keillor and discovered that he's an ex-Lutheran and a democrat who's endorsed Obama, but that doesn't change the generation gap, only the stereotype.

I'm spending a lot of time on flickr these days. You see, with the Fishbowl, we have new content seven days a week and, with each piece of content, there is at least one image. While some authors provide them, most don't, so that means I have to go on a flickr quest to find something that works (link her for a bit on how we do this and hold to copyright laws).

So, yesterday I was looking at results from a search and I found this image from TLA8:

The title given to the photograph is, "believe those who seek the truth. doubt those who find it."

I think the quote provides a beautiful illustration as to what most people mean when they talk about things, like truth, being relative. While the standard Christian attitude is that these people don't believe in truth at all, and therefore they set up an erroneous strawman enemy that they can beat the tar out of, the real doubt is in any one person or groups ability to have an absolute understanding of truth. In other words, most people see truth as being something that is too big for us to be able to wrap up in a nice little box. Thus, trust people who seek to understand something far bigger than themselves, but doubt those who claim they have mastered the absolute.

I think there is wisdom here for Christians, after all, God is other and, while he has revealed what he wants us to know about himself in the Bible, there are many things that remain hidden (Deuteronomy 29:29).

Today, Christians begin the season of Lent with the celebration (is celebration the right word) of Ash Wednesday. This season of the church year is designed as one of repentance where we reflect on why we needed Jesus to go to the cross for us.

This week on SAP we discussed taking advantage of seasons like Advent and Lent to prepare us for Christmas and Easter. One of the most common tools that Christians use for preparation is a devotional series. This year, I wrote a series for Lutheran Hour Ministries that was supposed to take an edgier or alternative look at the Lenten season.

Wanting to push things beyond the standard print medium, we have posted the devotions online in a blog style site with some social networking features in the background. This site will, come Easter, roll over into the Fishbowl. You can check them out at writingsfromthewilderness.com.