Everyone has their favorite oxymoron. Mine is "Giant Shrimp". Another is "Must Believe!" It says that in the Athanasian Creed..."Anyone who wishes to be saved must believe..."

I often think of the story of Galileo who loved his church but in his scientific inquiry discovered that the church was fundamentally wrong in a number of its scientific precepts. Honestly, he reported his finding to the ecclesiastical authorities and very quickly was excommunicated. Galileo wasn’t damned by his honesty. The church was.

I take great comfort in what the late Bishop John Robinson said, "As one goes on, it is the things one doesn’t believe and finds one doesn’t have to believe which are as liberating as the things one does." Doubt is a part of a healthy spiritual life because it implies that we are taking this journey of faith seriously, examining it in the light of the knowledge of the day and the experience of others, to determine how we truly believe.

"Must Believe" has caused enormous pain, guilt and fear and I don’t for a minute suppose that God demands what is impossible to fulfill.