Fairytales

Reflection

Dismissing Christian faith as a fairytale is a common enough charge, usually meaning something comforting but untrue, invented to soften the harshness of reality. It is worth taking the objection seriously rather than being defensive about it, because it raises a fair question: what actually distinguishes a wishful story from a historical claim. Christianity has always maintained that its central claims, particularly the resurrection, are historical events open to investigation rather than symbolic comfort alone. Paul is notably blunt about this in his first letter to the Corinthians, saying that if Christ has not been raised, the faith is worthless and Christians are to be pitied above all people (1 Corinthians 15:14-19). That is not the language of someone content with a comforting myth; it is the language of someone staking everything on a claim being literally true. Whether the claim withstands scrutiny is a question worth wrestling with honestly, but it is a different kind of question than whether a story merely feels nice.

Questions to sit with

• What would it take for you to investigate a faith claim rather than dismiss it quickly?
• Do you tend to reject ideas because they are comforting rather than because they are false?
• How would your life change if the resurrection turned out to be literally true?

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