Overview
Sermons of hope and faith for those who have lost both.
Many of us struggle with doubt, uncertainty, and disbelief. The problem is not the struggle but when we stop wrestling; not when we lose sight of God but when we stop looking. Fleming Rutledge speaks directly to readers who are plagued by doubts and uncertainties about Christian faith. Among the host of challenging questions she addresses are: Doesn’t everyone have their own idea of God? What if I'm not very religious? Can we still believe in the Resurrection today?
Rutledge approaches these questions with a combination of pastoral warmth and intellectual fearlessness. She aligns herself with the struggling questioner as she faces the most penetrating theological challenges of our day. Provocative, learned, and displaying the elegance of expression for which Rutledge is well known, Help My Unbelief does not offer arguments but points toward the One who creates and sustains faith.
Table of Contents
Introduction: “Help My Unbelief” (Mark 9:24)
THE NATURE OF GOD
Haven’t we learned how to deal with the important questions without recourse to the God hypothesis?
1. Moses and Monotheism: A Response to Dr. Freud
Doesn’t everybody have his or her own idea of God?
2. Re-imagining and Revelation
How can I respond to an abstraction like the Trinity?
3. The Trinity in the Last Ditch
GUILT AND INNOCENCE: JUSTIFICATION BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH
Isn’t Christianity about being good?
4. Christ vs. Adam: Kosovo and Beyond
5. Death Sentence, Life Sentence
What makes us OK with God?
6. Flying First Class
Shouldn’t we get rid of the idea that God is judgmental?
7. Access to Peter
Didn’t St. Paul mess up the simple gospel of Jesus?
8. Hope Among the Weeds
Don’t we need to make Christianity more inclusive?
9. True Inclusiveness
10. Mrs. Hammer, Mrs. Durr, Brother Will, and the Word of Faith
Why all the theological apparatus? Isn’t it enough just to be loving?
11. The Faces of Love
12. Love and Power
13. Rewriting the Book of Love
THE GOSPEL AND RELIGION
What if I’m not very religious?
14. No Religion Here Today
15. The Once and Future Doctrine
SIN, EVIL, AND SUFFERING
We don’t still talk about sin, do we?
16. God-damned Christians
What does the cross mean?
17. Common Sense, or Christ-Crucified?
18. Steering Toward the Pain
19. King, and God, and Sacrifice
FAITH AND WORKS
If God is doing everything, what is there for us to do?
20. The Resurrection Reach-Out
If we focus on eschatology (God’s future), doesn’t that discourage human action in the present?
21. Money in Trust
CONTEMPORARY ATTITUDES TOWARD THE GOSPEL
Isn’t Christianity outmoded?
22. Can These Bones Live?
23. Nothing Virtual Tonight
How can I believe stories like that of the Transfiguration?
24. Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory
Can we today continue to believe in the Resurrection?
25. Death Shall Have No Dominion
26. A Way Out of No Way
27. Doubting and Believing
Hasn’t the notion of the Second Coming been discarded?
28. Jesus Will Show
29. Beyond the Valley of Ashes
Isn’t the Bible patriarchal?
30. Ruth’s Redeemer
31. Abigail’s Strategy
32. Lydia: The First Christian in Europe
CODA: TWO STORIES OF LITTLE FAITH GROWN GREAT
33. Gideon’s Three Hundred
34. Even Peter, Even Us
This book title, Help My Unbelief, 20th Anniversary Edition, ISBN: 9780802877901, by Fleming Rutledge, published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (February 11, 2020) is available in hardcover. Our minimum order quantity is 25 copies. All standard bulk book orders ship FREE in the continental USA and delivered in 4-10 business days.
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