...

... it is impossible for me to write simply about my intellectual aspirations without discussing my faith. In short, I continue to be deeply unsettled by the evolution and state of my faith. In the beginning of my academic journey, I approached the crossroads of faith and religious studies with a naïve zeal, but I quickly learned that my undergraduate training had placed my beliefs squarely under my own skeptical eye. I do not say this to denounce religious studies as a humanistic study, for indeed I found it can also liberate us from well-intentioned, but false, propositions. However, as I become critical of my own religious beliefs, the more I am at a loss to state succinctly what those beliefs mean to me. It feels, as Kierkegaard writes about speculative thinking, as if I am eternally postponing a decision of supreme importance and consequence, a stance that I have so far found extremely disconcerting and untenable. I hope that after graduating from Divinity School, I will be equipped to begin to navigate through this theological welter and make some sense out of my role as both a Christian and an aspiring academic.

I am suspicious of any fashionable idea.