{"id":474,"date":"2012-05-11T04:59:03","date_gmt":"2012-05-11T04:59:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/leavingsalem\/?p=474"},"modified":"2012-05-02T00:49:05","modified_gmt":"2012-05-02T00:49:05","slug":"sancta-ignorantia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/2012\/05\/sancta-ignorantia.html","title":{"rendered":"Sancta Ignorantia"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Having lunch with friends recently, we began talking about our earliest childhood memories. Maybe you have a firmer grip on your memory than we do, but none of us could recall anything but flashbulb moments before our kindergarten years.<\/p>\n

My friends have a young son, not yet three-years-old. He was sitting at the table with us, now throwing French fries across the room. As we talked, his mother looked over at him, turned to the rest of us at the table and said, \u201cIf something happened to me now, while he was so young, he would have no memory of me.\u201d<\/p>\n

This sort of threw a wet blanket on our otherwise happy lunch date, but she was right. Here was a child so devoted to and dependant upon his mother that he can never be more than a few feet from her presence, and yet should she vanish, he would have no memory of her.<\/p>\n

That observation really got me thinking. Does a child \u2013 any young child or baby in arms \u2013 really know his mother? No, not in the least; not at all.<\/p>\n

He doesn\u2019t know his mother\u2019s hometown; that she was a cheerleader in high school; that she graduated from college at the top of her class; that she has a remarkable career. He doesn\u2019t even know the color of her eyes.<\/p>\n

He knows nothing of her family history, her most life-shaping experiences, her favorite meal, or how she likes to spend her quiet time \u2013 when she gets any quiet time. He knows none of these things. He doesn\u2019t know her.<\/p>\n

And yet, he does know her, better than anyone else. He recognizes her voice, her laugh, her touch, her smell. Even as a toddler, he could pick her out of room of hundreds of other parents. He loves her, runs after, and cries for her.<\/p>\n

At the same time, he is both in ignorance of the very one who gave him life, and clings to her with such attachment that he cannot live without her. It is a beautiful sancta ignorantia \u2013 holy ignorance.<\/p>\n

We all live in holy ignorance, even when we are \u201ccertain\u201d about the things we believe. Just as a mother makes herself known to her child, God has made himself known to us through his creation, his Scriptures, and supremely though Jesus Christ. We get it; at least enough of it for faith to be born and to grow. But we don\u2019t understand it all. We can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Paul recognized this when he prayed for the Ephesians, \u201cMay you have the power to understand, as all God\u2019s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep Christ\u2019s love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully.\u201d<\/p>\n

When we speak of Christ we are speaking only of our understanding about and experiences with him. He remains out of our reach. Yes, we know Jesus, but we don\u2019t know him, and we will not know him completely this side of thekingdomofGod.<\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t weaken our faith. It pushes our faith forward. We press on in pursuit of more, because the faith we hold on to is incomplete. Our conclusions about God, about Jesus, about the Bible, about our own spiritual experiences, are always unfinished.<\/p>\n

Yes, we cling with confidence to our faith, and yet we learn to hold to our conclusions loosely. \u201cHere we stand. We can do no other,\u201d as Luther said, and still we know our beliefs will continue to develop over the course of our lifetimes. We confess, \u201cThis is what we believe,\u201d and yet what we believe is in process.<\/p>\n

Faith in Christ is not something we master in this lifetime, no more than completely knowing another person is possible in this lifetime. But our inability to grasp the totality of Jesus Christ is not reason to give up on faith.<\/p>\n

This does not stop us from loving him, from pursuing him, or from crying after him. It intensifies our chase. For we recognize that the only way to know the unknowable God is to pursue him until he makes Christ \u201call and in all.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, the answer to the question of the tent-meeting revivalist, \u201cDo you know Jesus?\u201d is an absolute and positive, \u201cYes!\u201d followed by an absolute and positive \u201cNo!\u201d<\/p>\n

Sancta ignorantia: I plead holy ignorance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having lunch with friends recently, we began talking about our earliest childhood memories. Maybe you have a firmer grip on your memory than we do, but none of us could recall anything but flashbulb moments before our kindergarten years. My friends have a young son, not yet three-years-old. He was sitting at the table with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":441,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,20,7],"tags":[52,33,138],"class_list":["post-474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apologetics","category-children","category-jesus","tag-faith-2","tag-ronnie-mcbrayer","tag-sancta-ignorantia"],"yoast_head":"\nSancta Ignorantia - Leaving Salem<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/2012\/05\/sancta-ignorantia.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sancta Ignorantia - Leaving Salem\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Having lunch with friends recently, we began talking about our earliest childhood memories. Maybe you have a firmer grip on your memory than we do, but none of us could recall anything but flashbulb moments before our kindergarten years. My friends have a young son, not yet three-years-old. He was sitting at the table with…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/2012\/05\/sancta-ignorantia.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Leaving Salem\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-05-11T04:59:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-05-02T00:49:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/leavingsalem\/files\/2012\/05\/unknown-150x150.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"ronniemcbrayer\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Sancta Ignorantia - Leaving Salem","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/2012\/05\/sancta-ignorantia.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Sancta Ignorantia - Leaving Salem","og_description":"Having lunch with friends recently, we began talking about our earliest childhood memories. Maybe you have a firmer grip on your memory than we do, but none of us could recall anything but flashbulb moments before our kindergarten years. My friends have a young son, not yet three-years-old. He was sitting at the table with…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/2012\/05\/sancta-ignorantia.html","og_site_name":"Leaving Salem","article_published_time":"2012-05-11T04:59:03+00:00","article_modified_time":"2012-05-02T00:49:05+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/leavingsalem\/files\/2012\/05\/unknown-150x150.jpg"}],"author":"ronniemcbrayer","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/2012\/05\/sancta-ignorantia.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/2012\/05\/sancta-ignorantia.html","name":"Sancta Ignorantia - Leaving Salem","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/2012\/05\/sancta-ignorantia.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/2012\/05\/sancta-ignorantia.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/leavingsalem\/files\/2012\/05\/unknown-150x150.jpg","datePublished":"2012-05-11T04:59:03+00:00","dateModified":"2012-05-02T00:49:05+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/#\/schema\/person\/8d43dc9d6bc43a8f9e7f03adcb07e2d0"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/2012\/05\/sancta-ignorantia.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/2012\/05\/sancta-ignorantia.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/2012\/05\/sancta-ignorantia.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/leavingsalem\/files\/2012\/05\/unknown-150x150.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/leavingsalem\/files\/2012\/05\/unknown-150x150.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/2012\/05\/sancta-ignorantia.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Sancta Ignorantia"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/","name":"Leaving Salem","description":"Beliefnet Voices -- Leaving Salem","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/#\/schema\/person\/8d43dc9d6bc43a8f9e7f03adcb07e2d0","name":"ronniemcbrayer","description":"Ronnie McBrayer is a syndicated columnist, speaker, blogger, and author. His books include \u201cLeaving Religion, Following Jesus\u201d and \u201cThe Jesus Tribe.\u201d Visit his website at www.ronniemcbrayer.me.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.ronniemcbrayer.me"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/author\/ronniemcbrayer"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/441"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":499,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474\/revisions\/499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}