Not Sure by John Suk

Link to interview w author

I liked this book very much. It gave me so much to think about.

The book is written by John Suk, a pastor -- at the time he wrote it -- of the CRC. He had been the editor of The Banner for 10 years, then took a year's sabbatical and this book mainly came from his thoughts and discoveries during that sabbatical and after. In the foreword Nicholos Wolterstorff wrote:

This book is not about loss of faith...It's a story about changes in the author's Christian faith, from the undoubting and unwavering faith of a child, through a bout with wracking doubt, to the faith of a mature adult who is able to say about many of his former certainties that he is no longer sure.

He kind of intertwines a historical look at faith with his own faith journey. It's an easy book to read, but yet very deep and thought-provoking. One of my book clubs read it last month and the members felt the same. They said they could have talked about it for a lot longer than the hour or so we had in the meeting.

Here's a good quote talking about some of his main topics.

...exploring some contemporary misconceptions about faith that have not helped me in my own journey. These include the notion that faith is having a personal relationship with Jesus, that faith has cash value, and that faith is about obedience and doctrine.

When I read that line about faith not being about having a personal relationship with Jesus, my interest was piqued right away. That's always been a problem with me -- at least the way that some people claim they can talk to and hear Jesus as easily as other people in the world. They claim Jesus told them to do something, or spoke to them in some way or other.

I remember once when my mother were at some kind of chapel event and a woman said Jesus had told her to make a particular decision in a certain way, my mom afterward said she wished Jesus would talk to her that way once in a while. So even as a kid, I grew up with some skepticism of that kind of claim. On the other hand, as a kid I imagined a personal closeness to God, and still do that sometimes now -- imagining God holding me in his arms when I'm frightened, for example, or my guardian angel walking beside me.

The part where he discusses faith having a cash value is about what he calls "pragmatic faith," where one has faith in order to receive benefits -- maybe not actually saying it that way, but believing that, because you have faith you somehow have special protection from bad things, or access to miracles others don't have. I've kind of worked through that in my mind, feeling fairly content with knowing that we have no idea what will be around the corner in our lives, but we do know Jesus will be there beside us.

Now the part about faith not being "about obedience and doctrine." That was a new perspective to me. Suk wrote, "In fact, faith became not a matter of knowing the story and caritas [Latin-Christian love of humankind; charity]; it became a matter of critical understanding and acceptance of propositions." When I read that I kind of sat back thought, I guess I have been defining faith as a belief in certain things or doctrines. It's making me think now about what it means for faith NOT to be that. What does it mean for faith to be "knowing the story and caritas"?

The parallel, intertwined look at the history of Christianity, or religion, is also interesting. Suk talks about the sort of mystical way of believing that entire societies had before everyone could read or had access to books. In a way, they were living more with the faith that is knowing the story and living a certain way rather than subscribing to certain beliefs. He parallels that with the way he, and many of us, start out as children believing in that way. Doubt is almost not applicable in that environment.

Suk attributes a big change in religion to the invention of the printing press. Once nearly everyone could read and had access to books, and as people wrote more and more about religion and beliefs, faith started to change into being about believing certain doctrines or propositions.

There's much, much more in the book but this blog is already longer than most people will probably read anyway. I highly recommend the book. I've almost read it twice already and I hope to go back to it again. I want to think more about these things.