I’ve never been to Omaha.  But there’s an old, fold-out map in my car which says it exists.

You’d think I was crazy if I was an Omaha denier.  After all it’s on the map.  There are often pale people who claim to be from Omaha. They can even describe the place.  A reasonable person would expect me to take their word for it even if I don’t have any experience of it.

This seems to me to be the great possibility for entertaining faith in God. Christian faith, at least, has a 2000 year old fold-out map based on the reports of many people who claim to have seen the place.  As with any map, there is more than one route, and you could argue some roads are better than the others. Yet in the end there is widespread agreement – the place exists.

Still there’s a problem. Shouldn’t God at least get the benefit of the doubt, based on the number of people who say they’ve been there?  And isn’t reasonable, should I ever get interested in locating God, I would at least consult somebody’s map?  And yet when it comes to God isn’t it amazing how many folks say no, if they can’t find God on their own terms there must be no God to be found?

Of course their problem points out the problem of settling for a faith that never gets beyond being satisifed with reading somebody else’s map.  I can live happily enough trusting other people’s reports about their trip to Omaha.  God it seems is always unsatisfying – and rarely more than a point of debate – unless we visit for ourselves.

I don’t mind peddling Christian maps to a curious world.  But it’s no substitute for taking the trip yourself.