“There are moments, sure, where you think ‘Is there a God? Where is God?” Archbishop Justin Welby
Friends of Padre Steve’s World. Yesterday I promised you part two of the revised article on the American Civil War as the first modern war. I tried to get it done but since I am so unhappy with the previous edition of it I am tearing it apart and get it logically sorted out. I have been doing this for a while and finally got the first part of it done yesterday. I thought that I could get the rest done today but between a very busy day with multiple meetings and presentations at work as well as securing help for a sailor in a difficult crisis couldn’t get it done. Not only that I am busy getting ready to travel to Munich and the real Oktoberfest tomorrow. That will be fun, we have lived there before and travelled there many times, but never to Oktoberfest. In the week there my wife and plan on going to Salzburg and possibly Nuremberg or Wurzburg. We’ll get back next weekend and then I will get back to work on it.
But anyway, we are so looking forward to this trip, which we are making with a good number of friends from the Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant Stein Club. The trip is paid for by the Gordon Biersch Passport rewards program. Trust me it is the best rewards program of any restaurant anywhere, not only do they have great craft beer and food, but they reward you well, but I digress.
Just a few thoughts on the words of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby who in an interview at the Bristol Cathedral. You can watch that interview here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exmHYXNEt9A&feature=youtu.be&t=11m52s
The remarks shocked some because he quite honestly noted how: “There are moments, sure, where you think ‘Is there a God? Where is God?”
Of course clergy are no supposed to doubt but as I have noted before that I went through almost two years following my tour in Iraq suffering a complete emotional, spiritual and physical collapse from PTSD where I was for all intents and purposes an agnostic just praying that God still existed. So Archbishop Welby’s comments were absolutely refreshing to hear, because for a church leader to do so upsets the apple cart of blind certitude in doctrines that because they deal with God we cannot prove. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said: “a God who would let us prove his existence is an idol.”
Archbishop Welby did note something that I also, at least, most of the time agree: “It is not about feelings, it is about the fact that God is faithful and the extraordinary thing about being a Christian is that God is faithful when we are not.” Honestly I still doubt every day, but I also believe. Andrew Greeley’s fiction Bishop Blackie Ryan noted: “Most priests, if they have any sense or any imagination, wonder if they truly believe all the things they preach. Like Jean-Claude they both believe and not believe at the same time.”
But since I am going to Oktoberfest one last thought on faith and beer.
So, since I am still busy and unlike my wife have done nothing to pack for the trip, I wish you a good night.
Peace
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