I’ve been making my way through Krista Tippett’s new book Speaking of Faith recently and have enjoyed her reflections on her personal faith journey. I always find myself intrigued by her radio program by that name, but hearing from her own experiences has helped me better understand how she engages so brilliantly with representatives of so many faith traditions. At one point in the book, she explores how she became aware of the wideness of the Christian tradition and how that sustained her faith. Her background was in a rather fundamentalist Baptist tradition and as she returned to faith as an adult she desired to only return there “with open eyes, rigor of thought and speech, and the same powers of reasoning [she] expected of [her]self in the rest of [her] life.” As she wrestled with the process of accepting where she had been while still moving forward with integrity in her faith, she quotes a few lines from T.S. Eliot –
Of all that was done in the past, you eat the fruit,
either rotten or ripe
And the Church must be forever building, and always
decaying, and always being restored.
I love that image of church – accepting what has come before and yet always moving forward. It portrays a church, a faith, that is alive – ready to affect the world it inhabits. I find such an image hopeful and know that similar realizations have saved the faith of many (especially in the emerging church). We want a faith that stands up to questions and doesn’t reject us for merely framing those questions. We want a faith that serves the world in life-giving ways. It is a blessing to finally discover a faith like Ms. Tippett did that pushes us beyond disillusionment and can still inspire and transform us without limits.