A Faith Worth Believing
Finding New Life Beyond the Rules of Religion
By Tom Stella

     A Faith Worth Believing begins with this quote: "I do not remember at what age I first became conscious of God, church, and religion, but I do recall that the awareness, when it developed, centered around feelings of fear and guilt. I had a haunting sense that God was displeased with me, and that I must find a way to become better than I was if I wanted to avoid an eternity in hell."

     Author Tom Stella is a Catholic priest, who now works as a chaplain and a retreat leader.

     Because Father Stella has struggled with the Catholic teachings of his youth, he has chosen to search for a way to assuage the guilt he feels at not measuring up to God's standard of perfection.

     His premise is that if we study the Bible and cannot tolerate what it says, we are free to take bits and pieces of it, add snippets of doctrine from Eastern religions, and use the resulting creed to comfort ourselves.

     In one sense, I agree with Father Tom. There is no way we can live up to the demands of a holy God. There is no way we can read the scriptures and not feel guilt, for we, in truth, are guilty of failing His standard of perfection.

    Does that mean if the truth hurts, it's no longer the truth? This is where his premise falters.

     In another quote from his book, it says, "I may no longer believe literally all that is said of you (God) in the scriptures, but I hold to the truth that those stories convey, and I feel the dynamism that drove you to live fully, to die courageously, and to be raised spiritually. I recognize the myth, the eternal and archetypal story, that beckons to the heart of our humanity."

     There are fallacious statements in this quote. If these were true, does that mean the verse in II Timothy 3:16 is false also?

     "All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for correction, for training in righteousness."

     Regarding Father Tom's feelings of guilt over his inadequacies, God knew mankind wouldn't be able to meet His perfect standard, which is why He provided the system of sacrifices in the Old Testament. The purpose of the sacrifices was to assuage the guilt of the sinner. Later, according to the plan of our loving God, He sent Jesus as the last perfect Lamb of God, who takes away, once and for all time, the sin of the world.

    Father Tom believes that men have a divine nature, as when he says, "Your presence (God's) is in and around me. I am it. It is me."

     If humans have a divine nature, then how do we regard the scriptures in Romans 3:10 and Isaiah 64:4? Romans 3: 10-- "There is none righteous, no not one." Isaiah 64:6 says, "All of our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; and all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away."

     The answer to our corporate weight of guilt lies in Romans 8:1-3, where it says, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.

     While understanding that he is stating an opinion based on his experience, his argument will be disagreeable to those who believe in a literal application of scripture. If his goal is to convince others that scripture is flawed, he will have a hard time, because the evidence, in all its simplicity, speaks for itself.

     Unfortunately, the title of the book, A Faith Worth Believing, leads readers to believe that he is defending the Christian faith, when in actuality, he is denying parts of it and replacing them with bits of other religions to make it more palatable to the masses.

    As much as this reviewer appreciates Father Tom as a seeker, I hesitate to recommend his book, for fear of promoting a misleading mixture of truth and error, as it is written in A Faith Worth Believing.