Melinda Penner made a thoughtful post on the nature of faith on the Stand to Reason Blog today … I think she's "in rare form, as usual"1:

It's common these days for people to talk about how their "faith" will get them through a difficult and trying experience. This is said without qualification of what the faith is placed in and of anyone who exhibits faith. It seems as though "faith" is usually treated as a quality which, in and of itself, has the power to endow strength, endurance, and hope.

1 Extremely obscure STR inside joke