We started Mars’ Hill this year with the question, “Called to what purpose?” Like the idea of being called, there are many beliefs in our lives that we assume have answers, but when these beliefs are challenged, the answers turn out to be merely superficial. The reality is that we take many things for granted, and although we may begin our education with conviction in our beliefs and systems, this assurance is swiftly challenged as we engage the world we live in.

I’ve been in a number of classes that challenge how we think about Christianity and faith. Sometimes we’re left wondering if there any acceptable answers to live by, and it becomes easy to despair the fate of an existence where all the foundations we thought were stable are undermined. If the legitimacy of the New Testament can be ripped apart by Historical Criticism while the figures of academic authority in our lives seem to despair of faith themselves, then how can the average person be expected to resolve these deeply challenging issues?

A recent article in Macleans magazine investigates the increasing trend of dropping Jesus Christ as a literal figure and embracing the Incarnation through the slogan that “Hope is risen.” What struck me was how cornerstones of orthodoxy, such as believing in the literal divine figure of Jesus, is so readily dismissed for vague sayings that deny any intersection with reality. Such thinking reduces statements to superficial slogans that don’t connect with the essence of existance.

The readiness to give up thousands of years of tradition and memory in light of what appears to be overwhelming logic is tragic. More people are finding it necessary to completely severe reason from their spirituality in order to keep any hope or faith in religion. It’s becoming the norm for people to make their religious views compatible with a predisposed trust in information. Religion is becoming increasingly individualized so that each person comfortably chooses how to reconcile their faith with their mindset - without concerning themselves about massive theological issues.

The mainstream has obviously been hit with these internal debates regarding the divinity of Jesus and the authenticity of the Incarnation. The struggle to maintain belief in the face of reality is not new. Perhaps what is new is how our search for truth is often left incomplete; our affirmations of faith are left lying at the foot of information - not enough to defeat the voices of conscience, but with a protest too feeble to deny the power of evidence. Some believers are saying the faith might be better off without Jesus.

Maybe our loss of hope has more to do with our lack of memory than with legitimate circumstances. Certain tenets of Christianity are hard to swallow in any realistic sense, such as the virgin birth and Incarnation, but these are foundations that have been believed for thousands of years and have brought depths of meaning to human suffering and experience. The tragedy of an education is to be left with an excessively critical mind that knows only how to analyze, but not to live.Issues that are easy to leave unchallenged, however, are the ones that are the most difficult to examine. This includes our understanding of spirituality, memory and tradition. Unfortunately, it seems the moment we open up these themes for analysis, we lose the essence of living in a tradition. However, our human experience ranges from the heights of sublimity to the depths of suffering, and cannot be simply accounted for by logical systems. There will never exist a formula that can account for the world beyond the material that embodies all that is tragic and transcendent in our natures.

At the end of it all, our experience with education should not threaten our hope. This is not to say that we shouldn’t experience times of distress, but these periods need to be countered with the knowledge that we have access to the memory of an embodied tradition that doesn’t neglect crucial elements of our humanity. Learning should engage every aspect of our being, not just our heads.