Chris Beebout Assignment 4

My teenage years, like those of many others before me, have seen some angst. I don’t steal alcohol or cars or try to bring down the government, but the sculpted character of my Christianity-indoctrinated youth definitely came under fire from doubt last year.

I had decided to deepen my faith by finally reading the Bible, to learn more about the God of everlasting love and hope who played with little kids and made all the cute puppies and kittens. You’ll imagine my surprise when I saw where he commanded his chosen people to slaughter the inhabitants of twelve cities in one paragraph. Thou shalt not kill?

This really made me think further about issues of why God created sin, hell, suffering, etc. while still being a supreme force of good. This posed a new difficulty for me, because the spoon-fed Christianity distributed in Veggietales had always eliminated all of these gruesome details, and thereby the need to reconcile the existence of evil with a good God.

In the end, I was able to discern two choices: to have faith in my own logic—which I technically can’t prove valid—and abandon the hope of purpose, or to keep that blind hope alive and spread it to others, in hopes that eventually God will grant me understanding of his disconcerting actions. I reluctantly chose the latter, although I still struggle with how to view Christianity through the lens of my personal revelations.

Mr. Logsdon, it may concern you that, although I discussed these issues with friends and church leaders, I did not really involve my parents in this life-defining conflict, and I’m sorry to have to tell you that your daughter will keep secrets from you as she questions what you and others have told her. I’m no parent, heck, I’m only sixteen. But if I had to offer any words about dealing with dynamic adolescents, I would say that while you will not always know what is going on, you can always be there to help when you do. You know better than I what that entails.

“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind.” -Corinthians 13:11