Language is Courage

Perhaps it’s just bad timing, perhaps not, but I got this email this morning.

Dear Andy
There is only one way to fill the Emptiness you try to fill in your life.
You are a child of God the almighty. He love you more than anyone else can do so.
He send his son Jesus in the world and he died on the cross for all our sins.
So that we are free of our guilt and can be reconnected with our father in heaven.
He knows of all your fights and your needs. He can fill up your heart completely.
And he was the one who saved you in all your adventures.

Kind regards

xxxxxxxx (name withheld)

Mmm. Interesting. It’s nice to get something unusual, especially as I’d only been arguing about faith before bed the night before. I read it to Vanessa over porridge. “Don’t reply,” she said. She knows me. She knows I take religion seriously, and that I’ll say something I regret. Maybe she also knows that here, in a Catholic country, faith still carries weight.

I’ve tried to steer clear of religion and politics on here. A platform like this, with a couple of thousand eyes a day, can turn into a gallows. What you believe today might look foolish tomorrow. And there’s the simple fact that when your living depends on people liking your words, upsetting them has consequences. Few people are truly free to speak.

But I can’t ignore it.

I think about religion a lot. It troubles me. I was brought up with it — Adam and Eve, the Ark, God made it all — though it was fairly toothless. I question it because I question everything. Maybe there is a God. Check the data. But I also see how belief shapes power. There are people in high office who genuinely long for Armageddon. Who see environmental collapse as prophecy fulfilled. Who believe history is on rails, heading for some divine conclusion.

These aren’t fringe ideas. They influence policy. War. The planet.

When you don’t have faith, or your faith is filtered through science and doubt, these things sound absurd. But absurd ideas have teeth. History proves that.

I find it strange that in a supposedly rational West we tiptoe around faith as if it’s sacred territory. Criticise an ideology and you risk exile. Mock a doctrine and you’re cruel. Yet faith, when politicised, can be ruthless.

I’ve lived with Christians, Mormons, Scientologists, Jews, Muslims. I’ve tried to understand. I want to understand. I’d love the comfort of certainty. No questions. No doubt. But the more I look, the more disturbed I become. Faith promises simple answers to complex problems. That’s the appeal.

And it isn’t confined to religion. Politics is the new church. “I will make America great.” “Total equality.” “End all injustice.” They’re sermons. Congregations roar because hope is easier than nuance. Ask for detail and you’re a heretic.

Maybe I’m the odd one out. Maybe the madness is mine. Maybe faith — religious or political — is hardwired into us. A survival trait. A story that kept tribes moving forward.

But I can’t accept easy answers. I can’t follow a God who requires blood. I can’t follow prophets who promise paradise through violence. I can’t believe history bends neatly toward utopia.

Life is cruel and joyful and complicated. It offers no guarantees. No heaven. No promised land. Only doubt, and the responsibility to think.

Maybe that’s my faith: doubt.