Why I Believe
My faith urges me to spread the good news, by example (“You shall know them by their fruits”) and also by word.
My nature readily gets the example part, but the word part demands I not ‘brag on’ belief, and shrinks from seeming to tell others what they ought to think about faith (I’m not defending this, just reporting). My upbringing says, “Don’t talk politics or religion at dinner parties, or anywhere else, if you can avoid it.” Faith mixes awkwardly with the news/entertainment media.
So, as I work on this, I hear in my head the wonderful Louisianan and novelist, Walker Percy, and the wonderful novelist, Frederick Buechner, in Vermont, chuckling away at me, out of their long experience wrestling with writing about faith for general consumption. This is not easy.


