Faith That Is Afraid of Others Is No Faith At All

Luke’s Step Three leads us to wonder how faith might look like mystery and all that can’t be understood without the dissonance of hypocrisy. Thomas Merton’s words about faith here show us that the greatest problem with Christianity is not those who “no longer believe” but those who “believe” but have warped the faith and tradition until it is everything Jesus came to dismantle.

Thomas Merton, Seeds

“The religious problem of the twentieth century is not understandable if we regard it only as a problem of Unbelievers and of atheists. It is also and perhaps chiefly a problem of Believers. The faith that has grown cold is not only the faith that the Unbeliever has lost but the faith that the Believer has kept. This faith has too often become rigid, or complex, sentimental, foolish, or impertinent. It has lost itself in imaginings and unrealities, dispersed itself in pontifical and organizational routines, or evaporated in activism and loose talk.

The most hopeful sign of religious renewal is the authentic sincerity and openness with which some Believers are beginning to recognize this. At the very moment when it would seem that they had to gather for a fanatical last-ditch stand, these Believers are dropping their defensiveness, their defiance and their mistrust. They are realizing that a faith that is afraid of other people is no faith at all.”