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‘I Love Faith, but Have None’
This year marks my 35th in New York. It seems a century ago I spent half a day in line at the Lockport DMV to get my driver’s license. I was afraid of virtually everyone I encountered. All were pagans, determined to whip the faith out of me, Richard Dawkins style. At least that is what I had been told. Alas, and with good memories to show, the reality has been far more redemptive.
It is true, many New Yorkers are hard-core secularists. Reminiscent of H.L. Mencken and Bertrand Russell, they seem genuinely shocked there are still creationists alive on the other side of the Hudson. Most embrace the deconstruction of postmodernism with intellectual gusto. I am often shocked how little is known about matters of faith. These were among the first to be educated in a “values neutral” society.
But secular as they are, most New Yorkers are not antagonistic to spirituality. Not even before 9/11. Their deep longings can be fairly summarized in a quote from poet Anne Sexton: “I love faith, but have none.”
Just because you have become convinced that 10 billion years is enough for the present complexity of life to have developed by chance, it does not mean there will be no spiritual longing. Many New Yorkers want you to believe they live by the Latin dictum, Summa Summarum, “I do not care at all.” But prick their skin and they bleed, just like you do. They long for more than the impersonal, plus time, plus chance.
My tutorial in New York living quickly instructed me that trying to feed a side of beef to a starving man is counterproductive. He has to watch you eat first, one bite at a time. Then he might taste the community, to test its love. Most New Yorkers are converted to community before they are converted to Christ. After that first bite, slowly, almost imperceptibly, an appetite develops for more delicate tastes. First the Gospels, then the stories of suffering in the Old Testament, then the life of the fledgling church.
Those are the lucky ones. I have many more friends who have stood outside the doors for decades, feeling the warm light from within, but rooted where they stand. They truly and deeply admire what they see in people of faith, but the leap is too far.
I no longer fear the skeptic. I know he cannot take away my faith. Only I can do that. No, I have found most skeptics to be good-hearted souls who wish someone thoughtful had gotten to them earlier, before the concrete of their disbelief had set. But then again, even concrete has its breaking point.
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