Way back when, in the days when I was learning to be a minister, all our academic modules had weird and wonderful course codes, each of which related to a 'thread' that attempted in ordinary everyday English to describe what it was. So, for example, systematics and dogmatics came under the heading of "Handling Christian Traditions" HCT, pastoral theology was "Believing, Caring and Social Responsibility" BSCR, Biblical studies was "Jewish and Christian Documents" JCD and so on. Apologetics. along with a few bits of philosophy and, I think, the interfaith stuff, came under the heading of "Speaking About Faith" SAF. All of which is long way of getting to the point that yesterday evening our focus was apologetics, based on a chapter from Alastair McGrath's book Mere Theology.
We ably were led in three short reflections and three short small-group exercises that helped us think afresh about theology and apologetics in plain language - this was what William Barclay (don't think a Sassenach is entitled to use the more affectionate "Willie" as my friends here do) might have called "theology for the plain man" or perhaps "ordinary theology" (Jeff Astley) or the "let's do" brand of theology (Laurie Green).
The one that stuck out for me was the middle one and a story about Adrian Plass who it seems as teenagers was something of a smart alec who liked nothing better than engaging in taunting the priest who ran the local youth club. Week by week he would ask the priest questions about God; week by week given answers, Plass would argue and ridicule; week by week the priest was gracious... until one day he snapped and responded by saying of Jesus, "I love him, I just do." Speaking of faith isn't about having the right answers, isn't about understanding, isn't even about being certain, it's about our own experience of the mystery and wonder of that faith.
We thought briefly about the old practice (less rare up here it has to said) of testimony sharing, and how you could end up feeling pretty pathetic if you hadn't been saved from a life of debauchery but had simply drifted into faith in the same way you'd drifted from infancy to childhood and beyond. At various times in various churches (and other contexts) I have led or shared exercises where people are invited to chart their faith story, and when I've done so I've always stressed that it doesn't end at the 'decision' or in the baptistery. The God "moments" are not just big things, they can be tiny. I think one happened last night when I heard about the priest pushed to breaking point who said "I just do, alright." Too often I have tended to pussy foot around in debates either avoiding conflict or trying to defend something I can't do adequately. To be freed to say "I just do" believe, not to have to explain why or how, and that that is good enough is incredibly liberating. Probably wouldn't earn you a very good mark in SAF3c (or whatever it was) but God would be fine with it.
