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Arriving home last Sunday and keen to make the most of the early summer sun, I whipped up a ‘whatever is left in the fridge’ salad and headed for the deck. \u00a0 Munching away, I was keen to read Frederick J. Tritton’s\u00a0The Discipline Of Prayer (Pendle Hill Pamphlet No.42<\/a>) but couldn’t get past this passage on the first page:<\/p>\n We are critical and analytical, rather than appreciative and creative, and this tendency at its worst leads to a habit of pulling things to pieces, including other people\u2019s reputations. Some persons simply cannot resist it, and we are all to some extent infected by the complaint.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n While I am not conscious of pulling anyone’s reputation to pieces,\u00a0I am indeed infected by the same complaint. \u00a0I am keen to pursue a simple faith which I can model to others and yet\u00a0I am often too vocal about my struggle with much of the stuff that ‘religion’ and ‘church’ tends to involve. \u00a0 On occasion, I find myself over-analysing and criticising rather than being\u00a0conciliatory and\u00a0appreciative and I spend a good deal of time wishing I could be more constructive and creative.<\/p>\n I want to be involved in a faith community and be part of seeking a way to tackle the issues that seem to plague ‘church’ as we commonly see and experience it. \u00a0 However, I struggle to reconcile my belief in God and my faith with the doctrine and the orthodoxy of mainstream religion and I find myself failing to exhibit the behaviours I hope to see in others. \u00a0Unlike Paul in 2 Corinthians<\/a>, I seem unable to find strength or, indeed, even grace in my weakness.<\/p>\n That said, I pursue and seek answers in scripture for, while it is the source of the limitless interpretation, literalism and biblicism that abound, I believe that it is through understanding it better in my own context that I will progress in my journey.<\/p>\n I also read a good deal of non-fiction works on faith and religion to increase my understanding and\u00a0Tony Jones<\/a> has recently blogged about two titles which have caught my interest and which I will add to my reading list. \u00a0The first is\u00a0The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture<\/a> by Christian Smith and the second\u00a0The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited<\/a> by Scot McKnight. \u00a0They won’t provide the ultimate answer – of that I’m certain – but they may help with the next step of my walk.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n\n