Sunday, October 20, 2019

Do Thinking and Religion Mix?


In all my years of teaching I have encouraged my students to think about and understand their religious faith and tradition.  I have urged, provoked, agitated and aggravated them buttressing my words with the quote from scripture, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul and your mind.”  


But there are times when I wonder if I am right.  The more I spend time thinking about parts of my own religious tradition, the more problematic that tradition becomes.  Many of us were brought up to think critically, to ask questions, to assume the authorities could be wrong.  But when we do this in the area of religion, it seems to create doubts, unbelief and abandonment of key parts of our religious tradition. Does thinking about religion work? Or does religion work best when we don’t ask too many questions?


I suppose it depends what we mean by the word, work.   If the goal of our thinking is to defend and support what our religion teaches, then, critical thinking can weaken what has been taught.  It raises questions about why we do what we do.  Did all this stuff come from God?  Or did people make it up and declare that it came from God? And is our tradition always right?


But, here’s the thing, religious traditions have always been mingled with puzzling mysteries, inconsistent stories, unreliable declarations, and allusive and elusive scriptures urging us to trust and act in particular ways. The easiest way to proceed is to bow our heads and believe, no critical thinking required.


But for many of us the old days of just believing without thinking are over.  Thinking and religion do mix if you think and trust that real and truthful religion is not frightened of questions and integrity. Maybe thinking does not support the most naïve faith but it does support and endorse the most honest faith.  


Having said all that, I remember being in India and asking a Hindu holy man, where he thinks the notion of reincarnation came from.  He looked at me with a wry smile and with a certain mellow wisdom in his voice, said, “That is a very Western question.  It will not bring you to the truth.”  For him reincarnation just is and that is all he needs to know.


So, are we Westerners asking the wrong questions?  If we want our religious faith and tradition to have integrity, what else can we do?  For us thinking and religion must and do mix whether such thinking bolsters our faith or not! 

Monday, October 7, 2019

The Complexity of Faith


Sometimes we are given the impression that faith is a simple thing.  Just close your eyes, trust, sing a hymn, and you’re done.  God is at work and nothing bad will ever happen to you.  Trust in the reliability and promises of God and your life will go well.  Everything happens for a reason.  Heaven is waiting.  Faith is simple.  Keep singing the old hymns.  Every day brings new hope.


But it’s not true.  Faith is complicated.  It has to do with trusting without knowing for sure and trusting when trusting makes no sense.  

We have five senses by which we comprehend and decode reality.  Theology, talk about an invisible God, is not simple.  It is complex and it becomes extremely complex when we are living through chaos.  Chaos is the feeling of being out of control or forced to live with little or no order in our lives.


In the scriptures God is pictured as constantly wrestling with chaos, the chaos of nature and the chaos of human nature.  Sometimes God succeeds and sometimes God fails.  Chaos is chaotic and hard to control. It is an inexorable part of life.


Sometimes we need to ask ourselves what it is we are trusting God to do.  Some will assert, God gives us the strength to survive the chaos.  But that is not always true.  Some people do not survive the craziness of life and are swallowed up in its tumult.


All I’m saying is trusting in the providence of God is not easy.  Atheists and agnostics have a point we ought not ignore.  Trusting in God is a risk we take, hoping against hope, God is there and cares about us.


Faith is complex because it occurs despite the chaos of life, in spite of the chaos of life, and to spite the chaos of life.  Faith and doubt are two sides of the same coin.  And there will be times when the doubt side of the coin makes the most sense.


I am not against faith.  I am a person of faith.  But our faith needs to be honest and steeped in integrity.  Faith is not simple.  Faith is complex.