Faith is first among the theological virtues because all virtue proceeds from it, including and especially love. Faith is the leap into the unknown, the entering into an action or a person knowing only that I will emerge changed, with no preconceptions of what that change will be. Its antonym is cynicism, born of fear. Prosperous America is a fear-filled society (consider our obsession with security, whether national or international, or in our financial, professional, emotional, and spiritual lives) because we are a faithless society. Without faith, without that willingness to embrace life, including its uncertainty and pain and mortality and mystery, the soul becomes stagnant. In choosing cynicism the soul may be the only aspect of the universe that can resist change and thus the only aspect of the universe that can really die.
— Fenton Johnson, Keeping Faith