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As faith slowly grows up from the heart, confirming some of what we have been told is religious fact, and leading us to drop some of what we have been told is religious fact, we discover a wonderful freedom to be more lovingly, consciously Christian - again in the words of Weatherhead: "Christianity is a way of life, not a system of theological doctrine which must be 'believed.'"
Give me one truly Christian man or woman, Christian in spirit and life, over a myriad that cite creeds and affirm confessions of faith which they do not feel to be true truly. Give me one truly Christlike person, over millions who affirm the infallibility of the Bible or other teachings that neither prove nor disprove one is a person in Christ and following Christ. Let me see as better, any day, the Christian person over him or her who advocates Christianity but is not of the Spirit of Christ. Let me adore, any time, a Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Jain, Jew, ... who is Christlike in heart and has a truly felt faith, than the one professing Christ but has never had Truth rise from within to capture him or her for universal love. And let me give up all faith in religion, if giving up faith means I would truly know Christ and all peoples as my brothers and sisters in God.
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Now, do not take me wrong. I do not encourage a belief in unbelief. I am not against creeds or confessions, but I am for the fact that true faith must be truly felt in the heart and affirmed in freedom of mind.
Also, the story of the mice in the piano has a lesson for those persons antithetical to religious faith. Yes, all that is is from Something. Simply because you have never climbed out of the piano does not mean there is no Piano Player. Much of what goes as intellectual freedom from religion is a pitiable, ego-centric, and uninformed resistance to faith. Such deserves no respect.
The true and mature person of faith, he or she will open the heart and mind to faith and unfaith. And such a one will aspire to a Truth transcending and holding all truths as one.
Therefore, both conservatives and liberals religiously tend to be much alike. Both tend to minimize the grandeur and mystery of Truth. To reduce the world to trust in either is to reduce God to the head and play the role of mice lost to all Mystery beyond their "logical" piano-world.
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Ultimately, Christian faith centers in a person, as we see in the experience of St. Paul. Also, as St. Augustine reminds us, we can discern truths revolving around the Person of Christ, as living elements around the Living Center. We discern the truths interiorily and objectively in Scripture.
Scripture witnesses to the faith called Christian. In its details - symbols, rituals, teachings, prophecies, tales, stories, laws, ... - the Bible intuits the nature and meaning of Christ. This does not mean one has to accept the Bible as infallible or word-for-word directly from God. Rather, the aim of the Bible is to witness to Christ and, so, the living of the Christian life.
And Bounds reminds us of the feeling of faith, as well as the wedding of faith and love, in a loving faith, or faithing love - "It is all feeling, and it works only by love. An unfelt love is as impossible as an unfelt trust."
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