hagiography

1. The writing and critical study of the lives of the saints; hagiology

For more than a year now, Audrey and I have not been attending church regularly. We've spotted a few places we mean to try attending, and have been urged to try coming back to the church we had been attending by friends, and there are a ton of aspects to those decisions, but here is one that seems relevant to the wotd that came up in our discussion last night (given that you stretch the meaning of saint to include people who really seem to be getting the 'living a life of faith' right, to our eyes):

There is a tendency, probably common to communities in many religions, but that I have experienced directly through the Christian community, particularly in evangelical circles. It involves surrounding oneself with media, people, and content that is all 'Christian', such that your life can exist in a sort of Christian bubble. I think this is a horrible model. A) it blocks out different, new, alternative ideas, encouraging ignorance and enabling atrocities borne of passivity. B) it makes it very easy for there to be a border of the bubble, where things inside are 'good' and approved and things outside are 'bad' - and one of the bedrock planks in Christ's platform was Love thine enemy. C) The bubble becomes a crutch, where you are surrounded by Christianity and thereby don't require a strong inner faith life - its all around you instead.

My views on this are strongly influenced by the people in my life whose faith I most respect - both of my parents, my brother, a handful of my in-laws. These people certainly don't all have the same faith lives, but they all do share one aspect that I find very important. Their faith is a living thing that they have with them always - they nurture it and care for it, and thus they are whole spiritual selves equipped to take their faith with them into any environment, regardless of what other people, ideas, cultures, and forces are around them. There is no bubble, no borders to where and with whom they are comfortable being Christians. In any case, that model seems to be the one that works for all these people whose faith I really admire.

I think there is a third model that isn't quite bubble and isn't the equipped self model, but I haven't thought enough about it to be clear - something like the 'golden path' model, the classic straight and narrow sort of thinking, where you're on it or you're in the weeds. I don't much care for that either.

Anyway, hagiology recalled some of that discussion. blog out.