Andy Borgmann's Blog

On the show we have about 7 or 8 people I call "regulars." These are people who listen to just about every show and e-mail us all the time. Most are non-Christians and think our presence on the radio is pretty ridiculous (although a couple are ultra-conservatives and think our show is too liberal). Usually I love these people. Honestly, it is what makes my job so much fun. Their e-mails are usually very creative, hilarious, crude, and thought provoking. I love it. However, a couple of weeks ago, I got an e-mail from one of the regulars who took a fairly cheap shot at Allen after he shared something very personal over the air. I don't care what gets sent to me - it can be vulgar, crude, inappropriate, heretical - anything, but I don't respond to cheap shots.

But the cheap shot got me thinking. I think one of the most frustrating things about faith is what I am labeling its catch-22 syndrome. No matter what happens, faith can't win, and there is always an excuse not to have any.

Lets say I come to you and say, "Jesus is the most important thing in my life." And you say back, "well yeah, but what happened in life." And I say, "well my parents got divorced when I was 12." And then you say, "well there ya go. You need faith because of what happened to you in life." Fair assessment huh? I use faith as a crutch. I get it.

But then you go over to a friend of mine, and they say, "Jesus is the most important thing in their life." And you say, "well tell me about your life." And she says, "well I have had a pretty good life. My parents love each other. My parents love me. We haven't had a whole lot of adversity." And then you say, "well there you go, you have had an easy life. No wonder you believe in God, you have such a naive perspective of life."

Lets say your parents were Christian. Well then it's obvious why you are a Christian - you were raised to be. Lets say your parents weren't Christian. Well then that is obvious too - you are just rebelling against them but instead of smoking some pot and sleeping around, you found this imaginary being called "God."

This conversation could be repeated about a hundred different times with a hundred different circumstance and the conclusion is all the same: "you have faith because of something in your life, but frankly, I don't need faith because I haven't experienced what you have experienced."

But really that is just a scapegoat isn't it? The reason we don't have faith is because we don't want it. We don't want to be told we are not in control because we think we are. We don't want to be told that we are loved unconditionally because it seems illogical. We don't want to believe that God exists - so we come up with any and every reason He can't.

I never finished the book Catch-22 when it was assigned to me (actually I never started it), and I probably should. But I found this excerpt from Catch-22's wikipedia page ironic:

Within the book, "Catch-22" is a military rule, the self-contradictory circular logic of which, for example, prevents anyone from avoiding combat missions.

So whether we are using circular logic to avoid combat missions or accept faith at face value, it still doesn't change reality. And from my observation, it is a reality where faith makes all the difference.