Helmut Thielicke puts into words some frustrating feelings that I have about my experience of speaking to those who wouldn't call themselves Christians:
Aren't discussions, by their very nature, endless? Do they not go on spawning new discussions? Doesn't every serious discussion end with the conclusion that this is where we really have to begin, and that we have arrived not at a period but only at a colon? Isn't this constant beginning anew the sign that we are moving in a circle, a curved line that never ends? This is disquieting, for the circle is ultimately the symbol of noncommitment.
If one examines the conversations of Jesus, one will note that they always end in an arrest, in a sudden termination of the circular. Without exception they end in a "Hix Rhodus, his salta." ["Here you must leap or retreat"] They end at the steep escarpment of a message which cannot be avoided by any detour.
(p.x, I Believe: The Christian Creed)
From this he explains why it is important to teach the "forbidding wall" of the Apostles' Creed. That certain facts must be reckoned with and confessed. However, he is somewhat troubled by his own conclusion, and again puts into words a feeling I have, this time speaking to those who would call themselves Christians but don't seem to know what that means:
We must ask whether the creed is not a continual enumeration of some things which we must believe. Is it permissible to speak of faith at all in this additive way? Are we allowed to say anything more than the simple confession, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief"? Is there such a thing as a minimal content of belief, the possession of which gives me the right to call myself a disciple? Didn't the people to whom Jesus attributed great faith actually believe very little so far as content was concerned, and, what is more, was not that little - as in the case of the woman with the hemorrhage (Matt. 9:20 ff.) - actually very questionable?
(p. xii, ibid)
... lots of questions which I share. No answers!
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