Epic Struggle

What happens when a simple Sunday School faith slams into a liberal arts education? Something like what one finds in this well-written post at November in My Soul:

Early on in college I read The Epic of Gilgamesh, and to borrow a cliché, nothing was ever the same again. It was a huge epiphany, or maybe a reverse epiphany, as it pushed me away from The Truth. I began to see the forest, or more correctly I began to realize that there was a forest and not just my little sacred grove. When I realized that the Noah flood story, as well as many others, was common across many cultures my already tenuous acceptance of the Baptist indoctrination stretched beyond the breaking point. Like so many before me I thought I had found the answer and felt content in my newly minted agnosticism.

The full post Far on a Dark Wind is here.

I once preached a sermon which worked with the Gilgamesh Epic called Competing Stories: Which do you make your own? The challenege is a real one for whether the Biology or Sociology or whatever you study in college may challenge your faith, or it may be a big event like September 11, Hurricane Katrina or the death of a loved one, each of us can have our faith tested.

I don't actually mean to pick on Sunday School as shallow. But how can you go beyond a too simple view of faith (one which doesn't get you through the real tough times Christians face) without losing child-like wonder Jesus considered essential? How can we raise the next generation to have more robust faith?

peace,
Frank+
the Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor + King of Peace Episcopal Church