Read the article “Mother Teresa’s Crisis of Faith” by David Van Biema. In the article, Van Biema describes Mother Teresa’s “crisis of faith”: for forty years, Mother Teresa did not feel God’s presence, at times leading her to raise doubts about her faith. This aspect of Mother Teresa’s life was unknown during her life, but was only revealed in letters published after her death.
In the article “The Dogmatic Doubter,” the atheist writer Christoper Hitchens claims that these letters show that in her heart Mother Teresa knew that God does not exist. However, according to Hitchens, rather than accept this, she chose to live as a hypocrite, presenting herself to the world as a person of faith. Van Biema’s article presents more positive interpretations, and points out that many Christian mystics have had a similar experience of God seeming to be absent, called “the dark night of the soul.”
Your discussion question is: Did reading these articles and learning about Mother Teresa’s “crisis of faith” change your opinion of Mother Teresa? Why or why not? Does learning about her crisis of faith make you look more negatively on Mother Teresa, or does it lead you to look at her more positively?
Write at least 150 words answering the above questions.