![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
'comfort' is not the right word.
'I'm sure you get a lot of comfort from it' is not a phrase I would agree with, regards to Christianity.
I do get a lot, I know; I get a lot of blessings. I get a coherant framework for my life, there are moments of fierce and powerful joy, there is community and friendships, there's a whole number of things-to-do that become more attractive options, there's even a ton of free food.
But 'comfort' is not the word I would use, because it implies that Christianity is something that I can use to justify the things I would do anyway. Believe me, it isn't. There are much darker paths along which I would have strayed was it not for my faith.
I have been saved not only in the overall metaphysical sense of where I am going when I die, but in many small ways from many small deaths I would otherwise have found. The journey has been glorious and in places unbelievable, but rarely comfortable. My faith sustains me, it keeps my head above the water and the sharks at bay, but comfort? That's generally a warning sign.
'I'm sure you get a lot of comfort from it' is not a phrase I would agree with, regards to Christianity.
I do get a lot, I know; I get a lot of blessings. I get a coherant framework for my life, there are moments of fierce and powerful joy, there is community and friendships, there's a whole number of things-to-do that become more attractive options, there's even a ton of free food.
But 'comfort' is not the word I would use, because it implies that Christianity is something that I can use to justify the things I would do anyway. Believe me, it isn't. There are much darker paths along which I would have strayed was it not for my faith.
I have been saved not only in the overall metaphysical sense of where I am going when I die, but in many small ways from many small deaths I would otherwise have found. The journey has been glorious and in places unbelievable, but rarely comfortable. My faith sustains me, it keeps my head above the water and the sharks at bay, but comfort? That's generally a warning sign.
Re: Comfort
Date: 2003-12-01 02:00 am (UTC)From:The Holy Spirit is known as the comforter, yes. As I've said elsewhere now, 'comfort-as-a-verb' isn't always too far off; it's an important part of the way God keeps our heads above the water, and the only way that we can even hope to live the injunction not to worry. I think there is a perception of Christianity as some kind of mental soma, though, and that perception needs to be dealt with.