Spirituality: Faithful to ‘the faith’

Holding fast is, in the first place, an important survival strategy – a way calling for principled resistance against attack. It is also a way of giving testimony to the value that a faith community places on its own convictions, its way of life and on heritage items treasured for their symbolic value. In situations of major threat, it is wise for leaders among believers to hold expansionary impulses in check, place speculative thought on hold and give primacy to maintaining the essentials. There is ample evidence in Mark’s Gospel, in the pastoral letters and in Paul’s letters, of embattled Christian communities being urged to shore up their defenses and formalize their beliefs. The most that could be hoped for in those moments of crises was to maintain the true faith and refuse to be fooled by novelty.

 Adrian Lyons, S.J. from Imagine Believing