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Christianity Today, June, 2009 |

When to Be Naïve

It's not a virtue just for children.

Edith M. Humphrey | posted 6/12/2009 09:48AM

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Edith M. Humphrey is William F. Orr Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and author most recently of And I Turned to See the Voice: The Rhetoric of Vision in the New Testament (Baker, 2007).

Related Elsewhere:

Edith M. Humphrey is the author of And I Turned to See the Voice: The Rhetoric of Vision in the New Testament and Ecstasy and Intimacy: When the Holy Spirit Meets the Human Spirit.

Christianity Today also previously editorialized on naïveté.

More Christianity Today articles by Edith M. Humphrey include:

What God Hath Not Joined | Why marriage was designed for male and female. (September 1, 2004)

It's Not About Us | Modern spirituality begins and ends with the self; Christian spirituality, with the Alpha and Omega. (April 2, 2001)

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June 2009, Vol. 53, No. 6, Page 42

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Daniel Kerr

Posted: June 17, 2009 5:54 PM

Only within the last year or two of college have I become conscious of my naivety and its benefits. I felt that my naivety was a grace from God when it seemed to keep me from being influenced by the consistently crass&worldly speech of my high school cross country team. If nativity is the ability to be impervious to vice-ignoring the pull of this world that is not my home-then even ancient pagan philosophers would agree that naivety is a virtue. Lord, let me know enough of You to be naively ignore the ignoble. Discernment is not naivety, but wisdom. The Body has the truth so long as it is connected with the Head, but truth is not the blind faith of naivety. Paul was not naive in his systematic philosophic argumentation. Michael Green says that the early church succeeded because of its abilities to engage in persuasive apologetic; perhaps we can do likewise. Faith is not naivety, but is reacting appropriately to the truth;the world thinks our faith naive folly as it has not truth.

Jim	Posted: June 17, 2009 3:50 PM

Hey cleanstake, 1) There are different degrees of sin. 2) An unjust war is a matter of perspective, abortion is murder. 3) True, the invasion of Iraq was based on false data but still it was not a good idea. But since we are aready there, "get ur done and get out." 4) No body thinks they are doing God's will by being in Iraq. They are surviving and trying to win a war. If God was on our side he would have stopped the war. But do you think the Christian God is for the enemy? 5) Obama is a narcisstic, lying, two faced muslim and does not have our best interest at heart; and a possible predisessor to the antichrist. Time will tell. Get your head out of your @#^& .

Kathy

Posted: June 17, 2009 8:43 AM

I am a Christian who voted for President Obama. I know in whom I have believed and I have no Savior or King but Jesus. Did I vote for him because he's black. Well, he's only half black and part of me probably wanted him as my candidate because he's black. But, not only because he's black. What gets me is the fact that white Americans (even "Christians") can not admit that they didn't vote for him for the reason they attribute to black Americans who did vote for him--because he's black. I would think that true believers in Jesus Christ would really look at the bandaid that came off the old prejudice wound during and after the presidential election. After all the most segregated hours in this nation are still Sunday morning between 9 am & noon. Not every black person in this country is on welfare or desires to be on welfare. We are not all lazy, shiftless and looking for handouts.

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