“The opposite of faith is not doubt: It is certainty. It is madness. You can tell you have created God in your own image when it turns out that he or she hates all the same people you do. The first holy truth in God 101 is that men and women of true faith have always had to accept the mystery of God’s identity and love and ways.”
Anne Lamott in a Salon article called God Doesn’t Take Sides (I read this quote on someone’s blog this past week and after trying to remember where and failing, I googled it to find the source. So, thanks to someone!)
I think I just read it in Ed Gilbreath’s book, Reconciliation Blues. Is that it?
That might have been it! I do remember reading someone’s review of that book recently, so that is very likely. When I googled the quotation, it came up in so many sources, as quoted in sermons and attributed to a few people. What I do know is that Anne L. said it in the Salon article I linked to, but it seems that she has said the same thing in a few contexts (one of her books too, I believe).
Do you recommend Gilbreath’s book? I am anxious to read it!
i won’t lie, i love ann lamott. i’m reading traveling mercies for-oh, maybe the twentieth time…. i miss you, erika.
Yeah, AL moves me too.
Thanks for the link to the Salon article.
I especially liked her line about the religious right spiritualizing their fear. We’re all tempted to do that every day, so I’m sympathetic to our right wing brothers and sisters. But sometimes it gets so out of hand and so linked with power and violence that prophetic challenge is the only loving course. AL does it more sweetly than most.
I do recommend it. It has some interesting perspectives. I don’t identify myself as Evangelical but it seems I’m being led to lots of reading about them and this was part of it. He’s not a brilliant writer, but the content is good.