We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

219530983_d2039757f0

Ignorance is Not Bliss

We’ve been talking a lot here lately about reason and truth and science and how that intersects with faith. It’s been ruffling a few feathers to say the least. It’s sometimes hard to stay engaged. It’s easier to just check out. But this is precisely what we must not do.

Here’s a blog post from She Loves Magazine written by Kathy Escobar about staying awake when it’s tempting to go back to sleep. Let’s all stay awake.

From the blog post:

I used to always say “ignorance is bliss.” I don’t believe it’s true, but I do sometimes wish my eyes hadn’t ever been opened to the truth and reality of messy, raw, vulnerable living. Even though I know it’s not true, life felt so much easier when I was in denial. I could live in my own little world, unaware of my own pain or others’ around me. Honestly, I was getting by pretty good in the Christian world when I was faking it best. It’s ironic that the place that’s supposed to be the most honest and real—the church—is often the best place to hide, to stay asleep.

Image by Pedro Ribeiro Simões. Used in accordance with Creative Commons. Sourced via Flickr.

Related Reading

Does Prayer Really Make a Difference?

I know the traditional cliché that prayer is for our sake, not God’s. It changes us, not God, or God’s plans. Even C .S. Lewis said that! I have the greatest admiration for Lewis, but on this account I think he is dead wrong. Prayer does certainly change us, but that’s not why we’re told…

Lies, Truth, and the Holy Spirit

The root of the flesh is a lie about who God is and who we are. Satan brings us into bondage of the flesh by convincing us that God is not the loving God he says that he is. In doing this, Satan convinces us that we cannot find fullness of life by being wholly…

Revolting Against the Cosmic Hitler

  Greg returned last week from Europe where he was able to visit some Nazi death camps. In the following, he reflects on a story of a German teenager who actively resisted the Nazi agenda and what that might mean for us as Christians as we revolt against evil: Sophie Scholl was born in 1920…

The Life and Death of MLK and What it Might Have to Say to Us

Tony Fischer via Compfight Here is an EXCELLENT reflection from Jonathan Martin in answer to a question that was posed to him on how he reconciles his rejection of the politics of this world with the social justice work of MLK. This is a must read. From the article: So to come to the question,…

The “Kingdom Now”: Reflections on Magical American Christianity

One major problem American Christians face is that we tend to embrace a magical view of the Christian faith. We assume that if a person “prays the sinners prayer,” “surrenders their life to Christ,” and “accepts Jesus as Lord of their life,” this somehow magically “saves” them and will sooner or later magically transform them…

Sermon Clip: Love: It’s All About the Cross

In this sermon clip, Greg Boyd talks about how Colossians 3:14 and the definition of love. God designed creation so that we would live in community with God and express God’s love towards each other and creation. However, sin disconnected us from God. In this sermon, Greg shows how we were created in the image…