Liberty professor says students are questioning their faith in the wake of Falwell Jr. scandal https://t.co/qAGpwIPhpQ— Raw Story (@RawStory) August 25, 2020
Substitute the word "faith" (which doesn't mean what most people assume it means, especially in this context) with the word "trust" (a much better fit), and then ask:
1) are they questioning their trust in voyeuristic culture? (We all like to watch pretty people pretend to make love; or just kiss and pretend to "make out" as we used to call it. We've grown up with it, we consider it "entertainment." To question it is to be a "prude," or worse. But the difference between the "money shot" in porn and what you can see on any network news show is really kinda slight, a matter of degree, not kind. Photographing actual children in a sexually suggestive setting is evil. Photographing young adults who look 13, is fine. I'm even surprised to have forgotten how many famous actresses went topless in movies in the '70's and '80's, and we just considered it de rigeur. Let's face it, to some degree, we all like to watch. Not that such watching puts us in the same category as Jerry Falwell, Jr., who seems to be taking lessons from Chance the Gardener. But still: where are we drawing these lines, and why?)
2) are they questioning their trust in whited sepulchers? "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness." (Matthew 23:27, KJV) Because that might actually be useful.
3) are they questioning their trust in a place like Liberty University, because that might actually be useful, too. Their ancestors in faith (and intolerance), the Puritans, established universities like Harvard to foster education and intellectual investigation. Even the Catholics, who put imprimaturs (still!) on works by clergy and the religious (a category apart from believers), allowed for thinkers like George LeMaitre, who corrected Einstein's math in his Theory of Relativity on the way to constructing the "Big Bang" theory. Somehow I don't think anyone trained at Liberty University is going to accomplish anything like that; or even a philosophy (or theology) that might help us in these modern times.
(as an example of what I'm thinking about: child abuse reports are down sharply in the time of coronavirus. Not because abuse is down; but because school is out. Most of the reporting on abuse comes from schools: teachers, staff, etc., who are obligated to say something if they suspect something. I know former teachers who remember children "acting out" as the December holiday approached. School was where they were safe. Home was not. What kind of culture do we have where we not only don't realize this, but really don't care? What kind of culture do we have where this is permitted, where it is invisible? You know the guy who asked "Am I my brother's keeper?" was the murderer in the story, not the good guy, right? A new philosophy of society that isn't "rugged individualism" and "blow you, Jack, I got mine!" might, just possibly, be more important than a school that will kick you out for having a Playboy under the pillow in your off-campus apartment.)
4) are they questioning what it means to trust God? Not in the ultimate sense of trust/no trust, but in the sense even the Hebrew prophets raised: what does it mean to trust God? What is the price? What is the benefit? What is the purpose? "The peace of God, it is no peace; but strife sown in the sod." Strife sown in the sod reaps a harvest of...more strife? I would go so far as to call that the beginning of wisdom. Even God says the human heart is devious beyond all understanding, and God has to test the heart to find out what it is in it.
Can we trust we know what is in our own hearts, without testing to find out?
5) are they questioning their trust in what it means to judge others? "Don't pass judgment, so you won't be judged. Don't forget, the judgment you hand out will be the judgment you get back. And the standard you apply will be the standard applied to you." Matthew 7:1-2, SV Always a good thing to remember. That's the part where Jesus goes on to talk about the splinter in your brother's eye, and the log sticking out of yours; the one you see reflected as a splinter. We are all, better off, as Candide said, tending our own gardens.
Oh, and being our brother's keeper. We do have obligations to each other; but those burdens are easy, and their weight is light. It's when they become heavy and burdensome that we should question what we're putting our trust in.
"For where two or three are gathered together for a threesome, Jerry is there, in the midst of them."— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) August 25, 2020
Book of Dos Equis, 4:19
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