If Only I Could Believe!

Plot

There are some aspects of human perception and experience that cannot be summarized and accounted for on a purely intellectual level. In If Only I Could Believe, author and Pastor Wim Rietkerk speaks to the emotional barriers of belief, examining their broader origins following the 1980′s cultural shift in focus toward self-reflection and psychoanalysis. In highlighting our culture’s penchant for gazing inward, Rietkerk also looks critically on reactionary attempts to deny the powerful presence of human emotions altogether and marginalize them as an enemy of responsible action. Rietkerk readily affirms the power of a person’s emotions to deeply color, if not determine the lens through which they interpret reality, make choices, and form convictions. For Rietkerk, this valuing of human emotion is the starting point for a healthy reckoning with the ebbs and flows of disappointment, expectations, and hope that either strengthen or mar ones capacity for trust and belief. Informed by writers such as Blaise Pascal, C.S. Lewis and Francis Schaeffer, Rietkerk’s point of view is also shaped by his own conversations with people expressing an equally honest desire and inability to believe in the Gospel message. With interactive study questions at the end of each chapter, Rietkerk moves dynamically through the sensitive issue of unbelief. While affirming the genuineness of this predicament experienced by both Christians and non-Christians alike, Rietkerk pursues the possibility of a “hope that does not disappoint us”.