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by shrinking one's reality so that every idea must fit within the covers of a book in order to be accepted. I never have to actually trust in my sense of direction, taking a step down a new, uncharted road - with faith but not certainty about where it will take me.

Some might argue that, without the guidance of the Bible or some other written spiritual law, chaos and immorality would take hold, but history doesn't bear this out. Abraham Lincoln once said that "The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession." He was an atheist in early years and rejected organized religion throughout his life, but it would be hard to argue that he was in any way a hedonist or an immoral man. People can find their way to just behavior through many paths; organized religion is only one such route.

This brings me to an interesting experience I had a few days ago. A friend directed me to a video on YouTube of a talk given by the neo-Calvinist minister Mark Driscoll. Mr. Driscoll and I disagree fundamentally on quite a few spiritual issues, but I was interested in something he had to say in relation to sexuality and morality. At the end of his talk, he recommended that his parishioners ask themselves "Is it common sense?" when deciding on a particular activity. His reasoning made me smile. I'm paraphrasing here, but essentially what he said was that he could name 20 things you weren't allowed to do, and somebody would say, "but I just thought of this 21st thing." To me, that covers a lot of moral behavior. Once we know what is legal, and we give thought to whether something is harmful or helpful to us or others, do we really need a very old religious book to tell us whether or not we should do it? Certainly it's comforting to think that way - just follow the instructions and you'll be fine - but does that enhance faith or does it simply offer us an opportunity to opt out of the spiritual struggle that comes in the absence of absolute knowledge?

It may well be that the world of religion will fall through simple minds - or perhaps it will stand unconquered forever. I don't know, and I'm going to resist the natural urge to simplify my spirituality to an extent that I can pretend that I DO know. Instead, I'm going to try to keep the faith.

Learn more about this author, Jayden Harlow.
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