ABSTRACT

After almost eighteen years of living in a family that, for me, was very warm, supportive, and loving, I went off to college. My dormitory room seemed cold and impersonal. I loved the intellectual excitement of the liberal arts college and the lively discussions with my new acquaintances, but when I’d wake in the morning and look beyond the boring brown window drapes toward the sky, I no longer felt sure that a personal God was looking down on me. The frightening thought struck me: if no God exists, then maybe nothing matters. My plans to become a minister, my passion about racial equality, my longing to marry and raise kids-all of this might be baseless, without foundation. Years later when I heard the great modern protestant theologian Paul Tillich speak about “the shaking of the foundations,” I immediately knew I had already experienced it.