Dark Night True Faith

I recently read of Mother Teresa's 50 year crisis of faith. It seems that for a difficult 50 years of her life, she could not sense the presence of Christ. Teresa had written confidentially to those she trusted in the Catholic Church about her lack of any emotional sense of God's presence or love for her. This is a truly remarkable confession when you consider the sacrificial and devotional life she lived towards Christ.

I in no way pretend to understand how such a woman as Mother Teresa could seem to have been emotionally abandoned by God; I am no shrink or theologian, but I do have a few opinions of the atheist who are having their way with this story. Christopher Hitchens said, "She was a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud". This may or may not be true , but I do not know enough about Mother Teresa to make a claim one way or another.

What I would like to point out is the pure hypocrisy of individuals like Hitchen's who take such pretentious stands against apparent religious hypocrisy while the whole time wallowing in their own duplicity. As a devoted atheist, I am sure that Mr. Hitchen's believes and accepts the painful fact they we are nothing more than meat, bones, and sensations, and that any sense of meaning or purpose we have in this life is ultimately a delusion. We are born, we eat, sleep, defecate, mate, and die. We are only part of a mindless evolutionary process that could abort at any moment.

If Mr. Hitchen's world view is correct, why does he fill his words with something that apparently does not exist, "meaning". So what if the poor are robbed by religious fanatics, what ultimate meaning in a 15 billion year old universe could a 70 year old organism possibly have? So what if MT ( as Hitchens's refers to Mother Teresa) had a dark irreligious secret, she was wired by the same irrational, mindless universe he was wired by; what makes him or anyone better than the other? Hypocrisy may just be part of the evolutionary show!

Christopher Hitchen's scathes MT with all the righteous indignation of a fire and brimstone, pentecostal minister. He laments MT's wretched treatment of the poor and rips the Church for it's impious inconsistencies ( and rightly so), but just under the skin of his march for the sacred truth is a man pretending that what he is saying matters because in the end Mr. Hitchen's knows it is all a fraud.

In a Times Online article entitled, "Christopher Hitchen's answers your questions on God, Life, and the Universe" Hitchen's was asked the following question "In the absence of a final end beyond this life, both for individuals and humanity, do you think that ultimately human beings have any either intrinsic or extrinsic dignity? If the latter, what is the source? Hitchen's response:

" I think I would have to hold it at intrinsic dignity, because we have no choice but to believe that is true if we want to continue co-existing. We have no choice but to make that assumption, even if it is subjective and even if it is mistaken: rather as it is right to treat all people as if they were all created equal, although they are not created equal in ability, talent, and desirability. It is good policy, as well as kind, to act as if that were the case."

So we have no choice but to believe something that cannot be proven by any scientific means, according to hitchens. Wow! We all have to live with a total lie if we want to live at all, and he calls MT a fraud? MT had a dark night of the emotional soul, but a cognitive faith in the existence of God. Even if her means of living this out were incorrect and hopelessly flawed, she believed that what she did had ultimate value and the poor she attempted to serve had value atleast her suffering faith was consistent and coherent.

Hitchen's calls us to the fraudulant world of atheism. You will believe you have meaning regardless if you don't because you have no choice (and he calls christians fanatics?). I will take a weak and foolish MT any day over Hitchen's ridiculous call to an absurd worldview.

TOTT

The Word of Faith VS. The Word of God

I recently read an article in the CRI journal on the current gurus in the word of faith movement, and I could hardly believe the garbage being peddled by these apostles of the almighty dollar. The teaching is so self-centered, you would think Christ was crucified just so we could live in luxury.

The one New Testament story that kept coming to my mind was what happened after Jesus fed the five thousand:

"Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. 27Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval."

Jesus rebukes the crowd because they are following him for only one reason, free food! They see Jesus as their messianic meal ticket. After he rebukes them, the demand he preform a sign, and the sign they seem to want is the repeat of free bread and fish. Jesus goes on to challenge their sensibilities:

"I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

54Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. "

It seems to me that Jesus is provoking their shallow discipleship in a big way! It is like he is saying (mockingly) "so your hungry huh, try this on for size!" He refuses their request for a free meal, but offers himself, and the result was the loss of many followers. Jesus is not interested in being our meal ticket, and if its only food we are looking for, then he is not the savior we are looking for.

TOTT