There is a mysterious teeter-totter in every person that includes belief and unbelief. Even devout Augustine acknowledged doubt as real for him. He felt that some doubt might be a good thing, even humbling. Mother Teresa wrote about her long period of doubt. How much doubt cancels the effectiveness of one’s faith? How much faith is needed to overcome doubt? When Peter denied Jesus at the trial, was he a lost soul? Was Judas reflecting faith and love when he kissed Jesus? The kiss of approval was, in this instance, the act of a man betraying God. The denial episode was a giant step for Peter to mature spirituality, to dynamic forgiveness and faith. He is commonly identified as the father of the Christian church in the first century. He is revered. All this boggles the mind. The ways of God with us take some time to mature faith (constancy).
I am an admirer of the work of Benjamin Franklin, one of the chiefs among sinners. He treated some of his family members shabbily. His favorite son was born of a woman with whom Franklin had a tryst. The son also fathered a child out of wedlock. There was some joking even in the Franklin circle of a bastard begetting a bastard. Franklin and his wife simply lived together, when he was present, and declared fealty to each other as wed. His carnality was a horror to his colleague, John Adams. In modern parlance he became a sophisticated dirty ol’ man. His remarks teamed him with deists. But what else did he say and do? Stacy Schiff in her book, A Great Improvisation, suggested Franklin’s many peccadillos, as well as those of other leaders. Franklin seriously allowed for the depravity of mankind. Many of his analyses and observations were theological in meaning. At age twenty two years, he wrote his epitaph, to be mounted over his grave: The body of B. Franklin, Printer (like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out and strips of its lettering and gilding) lies here, food for worms. But the work shall not be lost; for it will (as he believ’d) appear once more in a new and more elegant edition revised and corrected by the Author. (With variant details there are many biographies and epitaphs similar to Franklin’s.) As he aged, how far did he depart from the sentiments he held at twenty two years of age?
Franklin was the one who called the Congress, forming the new United States, to prayer. Arguably, in his lifetime he was the best known American in the World. Only Washington could have challenged him. His inventions, ideas, scientific experiments made him something of an Einstein of his generation. He was Doctor to all, and used his enormous prestige, with some diplomatic skill, to advance, in France, the American Revolution. Some of the American Revolution was financed by France in response to Franklin. It may have been a factor in the ultimate fall of Louis XIV, in that loans/gifts that Franklin gained helped to deplete the French treasury, weakening the monarchy that led to the French Revolution. Here then was a man of some hypocrisy argued for virtue, and, in general context, followed truth. Something of a glutton, and tending to laziness, he could work hard at meaningful tasks. He would have been at home with King David, with Winston Churchill, and other leaders. Which factor won: faith or doubt? In the end we leave every person to God’s evaluation: making the real person subject to truth. Mankind does not decide who, in life’s transition, God approves. Focus for mankind ought to be in Jesus Christ. The Christian must never forget that faith is first personal rather than social. The collections of personals make the social. The individual is responsible to relate to others with mutual responsibilities. We must fulfill the dual role of individual and corporate responsibility. God gives redemption for persons and the church for society. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020