The Shattering of Certainty

A passage from the book

When the world becomes an enemy

I have encountered people who could look at a dragon outside a Chinese restaurant and see a sign of the devil. I have heard Buddhists described as children of Satan by people who had scarcely begun to ask what Buddhists believe. Even a pattern on a piece of clothing could become evidence of an invisible allegiance.

What troubled me was how much of the world became impossible to encounter once it had been interpreted that way. The other person was already explained. Their history, their language, the tenderness of their life, the possibility that they might have something to teach us—all of it disappeared behind a verdict.

I knew that I could not live in such a universe. I loved Yeshua, and still do, but I could not understand why loving him should require me to become frightened of so much that exists.

[…]

And now the conditions under which we encounter such questions are changing. An ancient text, a disputed translation, a cosmology from another culture, an unfamiliar claim about the universe: all may arrive in the same small window, in response to a few words typed or spoken into a machine.

We are being given extraordinary opportunities to look again. I wonder whether we are also being asked to grow up in ways we did not expect.