Advice from Gilead, 'against defensiveness in principle'

'I would advise you against defensiveness on principle. It precludes the best eventualities along with the worst. At the most basic level, it expresses a lack of faith.... And often enough, when we think we are protecting ourselves, we are struggling against our rescuer.'

'Boughton takes a very dim view of him [Ludwig Feuerbach], because he unsettled the faith of many people, but I take issue as much with those people as with Feuerbach. It seems to me some people just go around looking to get their faith unsettled.'

- John Ames
in Marilynne Robinson's Gilead
pages 176 and 27