When There’s Nothing To Say [Questions That Haunt]

I’ve got a different kind of answer to the most recent Question That Haunts:

Since being diagnosed with cancer six months ago, I find myself revisiting my understanding of terms like faith and hope.  Next month I preaching about faith the topic of faith.  In the process of preparing for the two sermons I am going to preach the thought occurred to me that I might benefit from other people’s insights. Here’s my question, how would you define faith? What does it mean to have faith in the midst of living your life?

I’ve got nothing to say.

As I do every week, I thought a lot about this question. I read the responses on the original post. I read up on the use of pisitis in the New Testament. I pondered a hook, to get me into the topic and launch me into a 1,000-word response (that’s what I aim for in my answers).

But nothing occurred to me. In fact, I will admit to you that I find the question almost completely uninteresting. It seems too ethereal to me. It seems like everything has already been said. It doesn’t “haunt” me, and I don’t know that it haunts Christianity.

So maybe I shouldn’t have chosen it. But I did. And there it sits, unanswered.

If anything, I pride myself on being honest, even on topics in which some of my fellow theologians hedge their bets and pull their punches. So rather than bullshit my way through an answer that both you and I would be disappointed by, I’m going to pass. If you think I’m wrong, or that I missed an opportunity here, let me know in the comments.

In any case, I’ll post a new question later this week, and I’ll try to choose one that will interest us all.