{"id":133,"date":"2010-02-12T21:20:21","date_gmt":"2010-02-12T21:20:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/2010\/02\/knowing-beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt.html"},"modified":"2010-02-12T21:20:21","modified_gmt":"2010-02-12T21:20:21","slug":"knowing-beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/2010\/02\/knowing-beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt.html","title":{"rendered":"#127 Knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n<span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"mt-image-center\" height=\"382\" alt=\"shadowofadoubt50.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/105\/import\/shadow\/shadowofadoubt50.jpg\" width=\"258\" \/><\/span>That pesky shadow of doubt thwarts people at every turn. If only it didn&#8217;t exist. Christian culture in particular would like to evolve past it and, as such, they bring it up a lot. <\/p>\n<p>Evangelicals like to invoke the shadow of doubt whilst discussing God&#8217;s existence and his will. Being certain feels awesome. But Christian culture&#8217;s very favorite thing to know beyond a shadow of a doubt is where one will spend eternity. Where will <i>you <\/i>spend eternity? That person happens to know beyond a shadow of a doubt. Sound good? You can know too!<\/p>\n<p>Can you? And should you? If God revealed himself completely and removed all space for faith, would it destroy a sacred part of us and turn us into chess pieces?<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"mt-image-center\" height=\"307\" alt=\"beyondashadowhat75.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/105\/import\/shadow\/beyondashadowhat75.jpg\" width=\"307\" \/><\/span><i><font><\/p>\n<p>Is it faith to understand nothing, and merely submit your convictions implicitly to the Church? &#8211;John Calvin<\/p>\n<p>I have heard it said that belief in Christian dogma is a hindrance to the writer but I myself have found nothing further from the truth. Actually, it fuses the storyteller to observe. It is not a set of rules which fixes what he sees in the world. It affects his writing primarily by guaranteeing his respect for mystery. &#8211;Flannery O&#8217;Connor<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>That pesky shadow of doubt thwarts people at every turn. If only it didn&#8217;t exist. Christian culture in particular would like to evolve past it and, as such, they bring it up a lot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":208,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,34,263,83,35,183,264,86,259,265,95,99],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doing-things-and-avoiding-relationship","category-evangelism","category-flannery-oconnor","category-formulas","category-inconsistency","category-john-calvin","category-knowing-beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt","category-living-in-the-gray","category-self-congratulation","category-superiority","category-tension","category-wrestling-with-god"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>#127 Knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt - Stuff Christian Culture Likes<\/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\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/2010\/02\/knowing-beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"#127 Knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt - Stuff Christian Culture Likes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"That pesky shadow of doubt thwarts people at every turn. If only it didn&#039;t exist. Christian culture in particular would like to evolve past it and, as such, they bring it up a lot.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/2010\/02\/knowing-beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Stuff Christian Culture Likes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-02-12T21:20:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/files\/import\/shadow\/shadowofadoubt50.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Stephanie Drury\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"#127 Knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt - Stuff Christian Culture Likes","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\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/2010\/02\/knowing-beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"#127 Knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt - Stuff Christian Culture Likes","og_description":"That pesky shadow of doubt thwarts people at every turn. If only it didn't exist. Christian culture in particular would like to evolve past it and, as such, they bring it up a lot.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/2010\/02\/knowing-beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt.html","og_site_name":"Stuff Christian Culture Likes","article_published_time":"2010-02-12T21:20:21+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/files\/import\/shadow\/shadowofadoubt50.jpg"}],"author":"Stephanie Drury","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/2010\/02\/knowing-beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/2010\/02\/knowing-beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt.html","name":"#127 Knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt - Stuff Christian Culture Likes","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/2010\/02\/knowing-beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/2010\/02\/knowing-beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/files\/import\/shadow\/shadowofadoubt50.jpg","datePublished":"2010-02-12T21:20:21+00:00","dateModified":"2010-02-12T21:20:21+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/#\/schema\/person\/1974869182ece66da1803ba10db1593c"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/2010\/02\/knowing-beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/2010\/02\/knowing-beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/2010\/02\/knowing-beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/files\/import\/shadow\/shadowofadoubt50.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/files\/import\/shadow\/shadowofadoubt50.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/2010\/02\/knowing-beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"#127 Knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/","name":"Stuff Christian Culture Likes","description":"A Christian Humor Blog with Stephanie Drury","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/?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\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/#\/schema\/person\/1974869182ece66da1803ba10db1593c","name":"Stephanie Drury","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/bd8\/bd861c4f8f95fc9991f0623bcd8ff413x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/bd8\/bd861c4f8f95fc9991f0623bcd8ff413x96.jpg","caption":"Stephanie Drury"},"description":"At one point or another I've been a willing participant in almost all the things I talk about here. I sort of consider myself an expert on Christian culture as I am a preacher's kid and I'm also married to a preacher's kid.\u00c2\u00a0 Christian culture is funny because it doesn't have much (if anything) to do with Christ himself.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/author\/sdrury"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/208"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}