The B-I-B-L-E.

I am troubled by Russell Saltzman's essay from First Things a couple days ago. Reading his account filled me with concern for him, for his children and his parishioners. Mr Saltzman writes of how he does not feel religious or even aspire to piety; he notes that of his seven children only three attend church. Though he does not firmly state a conviction that his own rather sterile faith is at fault, he does muse for a moment on the possibility.

Obviously, no one of us can know his heart or that of any of his children, but he leads his essay with the anecdote of his third son attempting to read through the Bible while in bootcamp for the Army. Sadly, he did not finish it, but perhaps he will return to it later. I was struck, though, by the fact that it was something he had not even attempted until then.

With what Mr Saltzman goes on to write, I think one may infer that his children did not receive a great deal of encouragement to spend time in the Scriptures. And what then of his parishioners? Do they receive the proper encouragement? I hope so; it seems a terrible thing to wish, but perhaps this is an instance (sadly all to common with preachers) where a man of God follows in the footsteps of Eli.

But what I really wanted to write about...

I've been thinking a lot lately on how the outward signs of faith can precede the inward possession of faith. It has been my experience that our society tends to work in the direction of encouraging people to come to faith and then change their life for the better. I think, too often, we neglect the truth that it is possible to come to faith through the proper study of the Word, prayer and the attempt to live a holy life; that all these things can precede the actual faith in Christ.

Despite the paucity of one's faith when starting such a regimen, it is possible for people to become convinced after seeing and experiencing the benefits of living a better, more Christian life even before they have Christian faith. It reminds me of Mark 9, where the man comes to Jesus for his aid and is told that if he believes he will be helped. (I link the KJV because I love the euphonious sound of "help thou mine unbelief".) The man's cry and plea is that of one who wishes to believe and have faith but does not yet know how to go about it. There may be fewer such men in the world than there once were, but it doesn't mean they are gone.

It was reading Pascal's Penseés that originally brought this to mind recently. This is actually part of his famous wager. He points out that if one sincerely does try Christianity on the wager he proposes, one may well find that one's Christian practices develop from merely betting in such a way to maximize one's gains and minimize one's losses to a true faith.