Born into the Faith

In her book Faith Unraveled, Rachel Held Evans wrote about her experience as an evangelical in the later part of the 1900's:

To experience the knowledge of Jesus Christ, we didn't need to be born again; we simply needed to be born.  Our parents, our teacher, and our favorite theologians took it from there, providing us with all the answers before we ever had time to really wrestle with the questions.

I'm not sure this is a symptom that is unique to evangelicalism.  Aren't we all tempted to take the easy way? To assume that what we have been taught is the "way it is?"  It doesn't require struggle or doubt, questioning or thought.  Just assume the way we heard the stories as a child are true.  Simple.  Easy.  No questions.

And yet, we are called to more, don't you think? To think.  To question. To struggle. To find answers that are honest and true to our faith.  To have a close-minded faith means that we are never open to change. Never open to growth.  We remain - not child-like in our faith - because children question everything - but we remain childish in our faith.  

Christianity is a faith of change and growth.  That's what sanctifying grace is all about.  That's what moving on to perfection is about.  It isn't easy. It takes effort. It requires confronting what we believe in the light of the truth of God as experience through the holy spirit.  It doens't mean rejecting scripture. It means really, truly, struggling to understand it.  It means respecting scripture.

And then, instead of being born into the faith, we are re-created into who we were made to become.  Grown up - or growing up - Christians.