Skeptical Faith

A bonfire with an effigy of migrants in a boat before it was set on fire this month in Northern Ireland. Google Image A story in last week’s news was about a beautiful town in Northern Ireland called Ballymena. I happen to have visited there years ago with my long-time, dear friend, Fr. Gerald Waris, whose maternal grandfather was from the town. Ballymena evidently has long been a hot bed of religious strife. I vividly recall that one of Gerald’s relatives, who was Catholic, told us that a committee of men had to spend nights in the parish church to keep anti-Catholics from defacing it. Now comes another type of strife – one to which Americans can better relate: anti-immigrant bigotry. Rioters and masked thugs have burned buildings, including immigrant homes, in and around Ballymena. A huge effigy of a boatload of immigrants was also set afire. Millions of Irish Emigrants The irony here is that Ireland, including Northern Ireland whence Gerald, and my ancestors hailed, was amon...

Google Image This is third and final blog in a series on an interview with Rowan Williams in the New York Times that was so cogent, so relevant to my goal of helping people searching for God that I don’t want to deprive the blog’s readers of any of his wisdom. For those unfamiliar with him, Williams is a theologian and former Archbishop of Canterbury - principal leader of the Church of England . The Times s tory, is entitled, “ The New Atheists Attack a God I Don’t Believe In, Either.” Throughout the ages, Christians have had so many ways of describing Jesus, and ways he describes himself in the gospels – the Son of Man, the Son of God, the Savior, the Lord, the Suffering Servant, to name a few. But Jesus was also a great storyteller, and that aspect was an important element in his mission. He knew that we humans are more engaged by stories than by direct preaching. “One of the things that people seem to have remembered about Jesus,” said Williams, “is that he told extremely good...

Google Image This blog is second in a series on an interview with Rowan Williams in the New York Times that was so cogent, so relevant to my goal of helping people searching for God that I don’t want to deprive the blog’s readers of any of his wisdom. So, I’m using the interview in successive blogs. For those of you unfamiliar with him, Williams is a poet, theologian and former Archbishop of Canterbury - principal leader of the Church of England . The Times s tory, is entitled, “ The New Atheists Attack a God I Don’t Believe In, Either.” Back when I was in the seminary, studying to be a priest, one of my classmates and I got into a conversation in which he said regarding my faith: “It must be nice to be so certain, to be so sure of it all.” I denied such certainty but without providing details. Fact is, I struggled with faith during my time in the seminary and have done so much of my life. Mostly through centering prayer , I believe I’m getting better at recognizing God in others, ...

Google Image For the next few weeks, this blog, Skeptical Faith, will be a bit different. That’s because I recently read in the New York Times an interview with Rowan Williams that was so cogent, so relevant to my goal of helping people searching for God that I don’t want to deprive the blog’s readers of any of his wisdom. So, I’ll be using the interview in the next few blogs. For those of you unfamiliar with him, Williams is a poet, theologian and former Archbishop of Canterbury - principal leader of the Church of England  and ceremonial head  of the worldwide Anglican Communion . The Times story is entitled “ The New Atheists Attack a God I Don’t Believe In, either” and the interviewer is Peter Wehner,  a contributing opinion writer for the Times. A recent Skeptical Faith blog reported on the benefits of watching “The Chosen,” the wildly successful movie about the life Jesus, the fifth season of which is available on several streaming video sites. Strugg...

Google Image Back in 2006, Author Dannagal Young sprinkled her husband’s bath towel with holy water while he was showering. She got the holy water from a friend, who tried the same thing on her husband, who also had cancer, and he survived. So Young decided to try it as well. A former Catholic, Young describes herself and her husband, Mike, as agnostics, but, she wrote in a recent issue of the New York Times about the holy water, “It couldn’t hurt, right?” She said she “tapped into my childhood Catholicism and faith in a benevolent God as I pictured the magic water covering him with a protective layer.” She did this without his knowledge and acknowledges he “would have been very annoyed” had he known.    Mike had what Young describes as “ a benign tumor that had nonetheless taken over his midbrain,” and he died several months after the failed “holy-water therapy.” She describes her frustration with medical solutions at the time but says she now realizes that “science and m...