@Richard ... OK ... I see what you mean. In that context, I, too, agree with RedWell's sentiments. JRC

JRC, I suspect that Redwell's comments were addressed to the original post, not your comments--in which case, I have to agree with the observations offered.

@RedWell ... Regarding your 2 points: (1) Actually, I was never intending to teach literature. What my vocation pertained to was actually teaching Catholic theological and ecclesiological doctrine to Roman Catholic adults. Historically, the Catholic Church has done what might be charitably described as a "lousy" job of educating its laity, at least, after about the 4th grade. (The adjecive I would like to use instead of "lousy" is more accurate, but would also get my post removed.) So you have multitudes of Catholic adults who don't understand the first thing about what the Church teaches ... or who -- and this is even worse -- learned what they think is Catholic doctrine by talking to other Catholics who, though well-meaning, are as theologically and doctrinally illiterate as they. (I don't mean that unkindly. They themselves were not taught, so it ends up being a case of the blind following the blind, or at least the near-sighted.) Catechists / Teachers who know Catholic teaching and who have the gift of teaching it to others are a crying need in the Church now. That is what I was called to do, and, as part of my MDiv internship, I did that enough to know that I am ferociously good at it. But I am a lay person, not a priest or deacon, and in today's Church, that is approx 2522552231 strikes against me ... even though my knowledge of Catholic theology and my teaching gifts are easily at least the equal of any priest in the Archdiocese. (2) I did teach as adjunct faculty while I was finishing up my PhD, and also as Summer Fellow at Exeter College of Oxford Univ, where I finished the "diss". Without bragging, I will say that -- not only in my opinion, but in the opinion of my students and faculty colleagues -- I was screaming good as a teacher. After class, my students, at least half of them, anyway, would follow me to the "King's Arms" pub, where we would continue our discussions and debates over pints of Guinness and Magner's. On several occsions, I had to plead fatigue and -- politely and gently -- chase them away. So I have experienced my calling, at least enough to know that I really am as good as I think I am. As I said in an earlier post ... I have come to believe that, if there is a God, he was just playing mind games with me. JRC

Fully agree...with two caveats. 1) Lots of people are naturally good at liturature, English and other humanities disciplines, but the market is beyond saturated. I counsel finding something ELSE you are also good at to pair with such passions. 2) Our education system makes it difficult to know if you are good at trades until it too late. This is a problem - I can't be honest about my calling if I haven't experienced it.

To clarify, I guess I should add that Dr. Rieux was an atheist. At one point in the novel, while he and his by-then-very-close friend Fr. Paneloux are relaxing over a drink at the end of the day, Dr. Rieux confides to Fr. Paneloux that the experience of living in the midst of the plague has enabled him to discover a d to articulate what, for him (Dr. Rieux), is the purpose of life. Dr. Rieux says that, for him, the whole purpose of life is "To be saints without God". At the time I first read that, I was a Christian and it struck me as absurd. Now it strikes me as one of the wisest things ever written -- right up there with E. M. Forster's "only connect" from A Passage to India -- and that's saying a great deal indeed. JRC

@Karen ... I wish there were more -- millions more -- people like you in the Christian community in general, and in the conservative / evangelical community in particular. I hang around here because of a long-long-ago interview the great Catholic theologian Fr. Karl Rahner gave to some periodical or other in the 60s. I have not read the interview myself, and only encountered it second-hand because Prof. Martin Marty makes reference to it in his excellent book -- on doubt, as it turns out -- A Cry of Absence. In that interview, Fr. Rahner remarks that he believes Christians and atheists -- "those who perhaps have excluded God from their horizon" as he says -- should be more in dialogue and make common cause on issues they can agree on about justice issues. One thinks in this regard of the relationship between Dr. Rieux and Fr. Panelioux, a Catholic priest, as they work with the sick and dying in Albert Camus' novel The Plague. JRC

@Taylor, I understand your frustration and your concern. But as the author of this post--I can't speak for the moderators, editors, or Christianity Today--I would like to see this remain a safe space for discussion and disagreement and even the expression of doubt. I see in Jesus a love of hard questions and of hospitality (neither of which, of course, is unlimited). Like JRC, I believe that if anyone were to lose faith as a result of his or others' questions and skepticism, then there was a much bigger problem there to begin with. I appreciate being faced with questions I've never heard and ones I don't have immediate answers to. They make me sharper. Here is an earlier post I wrote on the topic of Christians and doubt: http://blog.christianitytoday.com/women/2011/09/many_doubts_in_christian_educa.html

@Taylor ... Just for the record: Mark 10:28-31. JRC

@Taylor ... All I can say is that, yes, since I left Christianity, I do see the Bible in a different light, from a different angle. Partly, also, this is because of a lot of reading I did at Seattle Univ's theology dept while working on my MDiv. As a result, I ask questions that never occurred to me to ask before about biblical stories seen from a more oblique -- yes, at times, even heterodox -- angle. The issues about cost-counting and Jonah are 2 such. I may be absolutely wrong. (BTW that is an admission I've heard from conservative Christians only a fingers-of-one-hand times. You are all so much more ... well ... certain than I ever was. Hence my little questions.) But the interesting thing is that so many find even the questions so frightening. In any case, you give me 'way too much credit. I certainly don't have the power to destroy anyone's faith, unless that faith was ready to fall of its own weight, anyway. I hold the heretical position that faith can be thought about and is worth thinking about. If that adds up to fear, then ... well ... so be it. The problem in that case is the fear, not me. JC

JRC, one of the main flaws in most, if not all of your posts regarding the Bible, is your use of eisegesis. And for those who do not know, wikipedia defines it as is "the process of misinterpreting a text or portion of text in such a way that it introduces one's own presuppositions, agendas, and/or biases into and onto the text. The act is often used to "prove" a pre-held point of concern to the reader and to provide him or her with confirmation bias in accordance with his or her pre-held agenda." In your example, nowhere does it say in the Bible that any of the disciples left their wives and children to follow Jesus, but you write it as a fact with no verses at all that say such a thing. Also, I believe that you are doing this very intentionally, because of this, I hope that the moderators put an end to it. You have no intention of becoming a believer, you're here only for the purpose of trying to purposefully spread disinformation and to debate. I've seen you totally ignore people who have corrected you on certain points, and then, in later posts elsewhere, you repeat your old argument, even though you have been shown that it was incorrect. That's because your intention is to try to make people doubt their faith, which is exactly something satan would love to do. You'd be happier still if they became atheists like you, and you'll do whatever you can to convert people to your point of view. I will pray for you, but won't bother with reading any more of your posts. It seems like the Constitution has become your Bible, and it gets boring. But it's not just boring, but dangerous. I think you're well aware that you're doing this to try to persuade people to believe and think what you believe to be true. You do a lot of Scripture twisting, something that satan is excellent at. Satan tries to appear inviting, and can seem friendly, and appear as an angel of light if he chooses. Satan appears enticing to people, not as an outright enemy. If you're not a follower of God, you are a follower of satan. Those are the 2 choices given us in the Bible, and that's whether you believe it or not. One day, every knee will bow before Jesus.