{"id":18970,"date":"2014-06-06T05:20:59","date_gmt":"2014-06-06T09:20:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=18970"},"modified":"2014-06-05T16:35:28","modified_gmt":"2014-06-05T20:35:28","slug":"imaginative-obstacles-to-the-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2014\/06\/imaginative-obstacles-to-the-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"Imaginative obstacles to the faith"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

In the interview with Mathew Block<\/a>, we got into the role of the imagination in apologetics, which I discuss at length in my upcoming book with Matthew Ristuccia.\u00a0 Here I discuss how many people\u2019s difficulties with the Christian faith have to do with the way they imagine it.<\/p>\n

CL: Because God relates to people in that way\u2014speaking to us through our imaginations\u2014what does that mean for the Church\u2019s mission of bringing the Gospel to others?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A big reason why so many people today have no religious beliefs at all is, I think, a failure of the contemporary imagination. People cannot even conceive of God. They are closed off from spiritual things because their imaginations have been shaped by a narrow, materialist understanding of the universe\u2014that what we see is all there is. That\u2019s very limiting and it\u2019s stultifying to the imagination. People today in our post-modern world are not open to religion, but it isn\u2019t a matter that they think Christianity has been disproven or that they can\u2019t believe it intellectually\u2014the same people who are skeptical of Christianity are also skeptical of reason! They\u2019re just trapped in their imaginations.<\/p>\n

\n

Art can help awaken the imagination to transcendence and to mystery\u2014to open people up to the idea that there\u2019s something more than just their little lives. J.R.R. Tolkien was once defending fantasy from the charge that it\u2019s escapist. He answered by saying, \u2018If you\u2019re in prison, it\u2019s healthy to want to escape.\u2019 His point was that people today are imprisoned by their narrow materialistic worldviews.<\/p>\n

One thing that Christians can do to reach people is to intentionally speak to their imaginations\u2014to give them the intimation that there\u2019s something more than their narrow little lives. To help them realize their need for Christ\u2014to imagine what it means to be lost and what eternal life is.<\/p>\n

Many of the obstacles against the Christian faith in people\u2019s minds are really imaginative creations: they think of God as an old man with a beard up in the sky looking down on this suffering world, and they can\u2019t believe that. No one should believe that. God is much bigger than that. We have to explode some of these false impressions that people have and replace them with something more real\u2014to open people up to the real mysteries of existence that point ultimately to God.<\/p>\n

Just waking up the imagination of someone isn\u2019t enough, of course; we have to get them back into objective truth. But awakening imagination and opening people\u2019s eyes to bigger spiritual realities is very important as a first step. From there, we lead them into the truth of God\u2019s Word.<\/p>\n

via Canadian Lutheran Online \u00bb Blog Archive \u00bb The Christian Imagination: An Interview with Gene Veith<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the interview with Mathew Block, we got into the role of the imagination in apologetics, which I discuss at length in my upcoming book with Matthew Ristuccia.\u00a0 Here I discuss how many people\u2019s difficulties with the Christian faith have to do with the way they imagine it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,37],"tags":[3174,3173,3176],"class_list":["post-18970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apologetics","category-psychology","tag-christianity-imagination","tag-imagination","tag-imaginative-apologetics"],"yoast_head":"\nImaginative obstacles to the faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In the interview with Mathew Block, we got into the role of the imagination in apologetics, which I discuss at length in my upcoming book with Matthew\" \/>\n<meta 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