Bible reading: 2 Peter 1:16-21.

Message.

The White Queen remarked: “I’m just one hundred and one, five months and a day.”
“I can’t believe that!”, said Alice.
“Can’t you?”, the Queen said in a pitying tone. “Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes”.
Alice laughed. “It’s no use trying,” she said: “one can’t believe impossible things”.
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast”.
Did you recognise that? It’s from “Alice Through the Looking Glass” by Lewis Carroll.

Christians are people who believe. In fact we say that we believe some quite amazing things. We say that we believe in a God who created the universe from nothing. We say that we believe in a God who speaks to humanity, both nations and individual people. We say that we believe in a God who loves and cares for us, who hears and answers our prayers. We say that we believe in an eternal life after we die. And the very core of our belief is a man who we call the Son of God, who not only lived on earth but rose from the dead after two days. Said like that, many of the things we believe sound far-fetched, even ridiculous, although to us they are familiar. And the accusation is sometimes levelled at Christians: “You have no real reason to believe. Your religion has no basis in reality. Your faith is nothing more than blind optimism”.

Of course there are several different categories of faith. At one end of the spectrum is the faith we exercise when we visit the doctor. We believe that he or she is well-qualified for their job, that they have studied for several years and that they are able to assess our symptoms and come to a considered conclusion. My father, who was a doctor albeit in an age when fewer of the modern tests were available, always said that good diagnosis was an art as much as a science: the doctor has to weigh up what they see and come to a decision before suggesting a course of treatment. And we, the patients, have faith in them to do so – with good reason. The certificates hanging on the surgery wall give us confidence that they know what they’re doing.

Equally, we might be watching an erudite science or history programme on the television. The facts which are presented sound fascinating, but we have no way of knowing if they are actually correct. Of course, we might know a bit of science or history ourselves and are able to set what we are being told in context; that will definitely help a bit. But ultimately we’ll want to see if there are well-qualified experts behind the programme, and we might peer at the small print in the final credits to find out. If there aren’t, we might dismiss what we’ve seen as mere speculation and take its conclusions with a very large pinch of salt.

Turning to the other end of the faith spectrum, we all know that social media and some sections of the Press delight in peddling lies. I’m not just thinking of fake news and conspiracy theories but also of the dangers posed by romance scammers who fleece and disappoint vulnerable women, paedophiles who pretend to be children and draw young people into their net, get-rich-quick schemes which are built on pure fantasy, or the purveyors of quack medicines and supplements which promise amazing health benefits but are in fact absolutely worthless. All these depend on peoples’ trust and belief, and are designed to be very convincing.

The apostle Peter – writing to early Christians who were clearly finding it difficult to hold to the faith at a trying time of oppression and persecution – makes some powerful assertions about faith. It’s clear that he believes every part of the Christian message, from Jesus’s resurrection to the glorious promise of future hope in glory. Indeed, he uses this promise more than once to encourage his readers to remain true to the Gospel. And he says one thing which is absolutely basic or crucial: “Although you do not see him, you love him; even though you do not see him now, you believe in him”. This is the essence of faith, the same message which Jesus tried to teach Thomas in that upper room: active faith means that you believe strongly – but without having first-hand concrete evidence.

So we must then ask this question: are Christians guilty of blind faith, of making nothing more than a spiritual leap in the dark? Some atheists think that this is precisely what we’re doing, that we have no evidence to make the religious statements that we do. As far as they are concerned, evolution and natural selection are the reasons not only for life on this planet but the source of all life, all intelligence, all creativity and all apparent “design” in the universe. They tell us that there is no need to believe in a creator God and that there is no evidence for the existence of anything beyond the natural and the physical. Religion is simply a concept we have built up in our minds. We should grow up and forget it.

How would we reply to a comment like that? I hope we’d say that our faith is much more than just believing in a God who created the universe (and who, I believe, did use the power of evolution to bring that universe to its present state). And we’d want to go on to talk about our detailed belief in a personal loving God, who answers our prayers and who sent his Son to die and rise again – is that a blind faith, too?

There is a branch of theology called apologetics. I need to explain that term as it has nothing to do with “apologising”, it’s not about Christians saying sorry if their beliefs offend anyone! No; “apologetics” aims to give reasoned explanations of why our belief is worthy of acceptance. So it includes evidence to show that the Bible text is accurate, that the stories it tells unfolded in a real historical context, and why people were not imagining things when they said they encountered God. There have been many great Christian apologists down the years who have done a lot of work, both to convince unbelievers of the Christian faith and to bolster up the faith of people who have already believed. Unfortunately some of them, in their worthy efforts to make the faith believable, ended up explaining away its awe and wonder, imagination and mystery, and reduced God to our human level – to a God that’s honestly not worth believing in.

However most folk today realise that science and logic can’t provide us with answers to the big questions of life, that they have robbed the world of mystery and taken the soul out of our lives. These people won’t be satisfied with a stripped-down view of Christianity, they genuinely want to meet God. They also know that the way they’ll meet him won’t be through intellectual proofs but by seeing him alive in his people, both individuals but communities. This places a great responsibility upon churches as they must be places or gatherings where God is plainly visible, where newcomers can genuinely catch a vision of Christ.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I do believe in a faith which has firm foundations. I do believe that there is strong historical evidence for the life of Jesus. I do believe that the Bible is a dependable book which tells us the truth about God – I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. But I also know that, even though Paul wrote that “we try to persuade others” and “we demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God”, it is actually rare to make a Christian convert purely through logical debate, that it is almost impossible to argue someone into the Kingdom of God. For, ultimately, Christianity is spiritual rather than rational; it is caught rather than proved.

So we there’s little point in trying to push dogmatic declarations of our faith down peoples’ throats; indeed, doing that may well make them dig their heels in and stop listening to us. Rather, churches must become the sort of believing community in which the Gospel is not just spoken about but lived. Sociologists say that most people today “belong” before they “believe”; that they become part of a church before they are fully converted to Christ. So, if that church seems shallow or hypocritical rather than authentic, they may be put off believing for life.

So, to come back to my original question: I don’t think I have a blind faith, and I hope that you don’t have it, either. I do believe that I have good reasons, rational reasons, to believe what I do. In fact I believe that it is more sensible to have faith than to not have it. Nevertheless, the most convincing evidence for the truth of our Gospel comes, not through carefully marshalled facts, but through Christians who not only believe the Gospel but live it. So yes, we do have to explain our Good News to people, being prepared to discuss and defend it. But ultimately that’s not what will convince most folk of its truth or authenticity. Jesus said, “Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples”. That is surely the best proof of our faith that there can possibly be.