Murray Haar On Religion: A Leap of Faith

Friday, July 26, 2019

A Leap of Faith

Faith is trusting without knowing for sure.

Our scriptures exhort us to love God with all our heart, soul and mind. We are commanded to love the deity with all our intellect. We do not have faith by believing mindlessly, thoughtlessly and without questions. I cannot believe that we have been given a brain in order to disregard its ability to analyze and question when it comes to God and religion.

Whatever God is about and indeed if there is a God, he, she, it is invisible, complicated, mysterious, inscrutable, unpredictable and methodologically questionable. It is not a violation of trust to have such thought or questions. It is an inherent part of trusting without knowing for sure.

And any God worth the name would encourage such questions and doubts as an expression of our faith.

So, do not feel guilty about wondering if any of this religious stuff is true. Count yourself as normal and alive.


A friend of mine who works with the poor in the inner city cautions me: There are those whose lives do not possess the privilege of sitting around, thinking and asking questions. They are the poor whose questions have to do with whether they will have food or shelter or a bed for the coming night. For them any small bit of good news is a blessing from God. They do not have time to doubt or the inclination to ask God questions.

Some would say these people live a simple faith, a trust which says, “God is in control, everything happens because God wants it to happen for some mysterious plan or purpose, we are unable to decipher. Questions and doubts are contrary to faith.   All we can do is trust that God knows best.”


But I wonder, is it possible, these people with the simple faith are not blind or stupid or leaping into the darkness. Those who continue to trust despite what they see are implicitly by the nature of their faith and trust confronting and accusing God with their own implicit questions, doubts and hopes. It takes courage and wisdom to have such a faith and to live such a life. The simple fact is: there are just different ways of questioning the justice of God. Their expectations, theology and faith are their way. And maybe that will have to be enough. What do you think?

Have a restful rest of the summer.

P.S. The blog will be on break for the month of August. Thank you for reading and thinking with me.

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Notes from The Door

Whenever you care for the neighbor in pain, at that very moment, God is real. At that very moment, the Messiah has returned. In every situation where there is pain and injustice do what you can do to stop the pain. Murray Haar
Religion was not created by God but by people. What God thinks of our religions only God can say. If your religion teaches you to love God and to stand with your neighbor in pain, it is a good religion. If it teaches you to hate and to be indifferent, it is a bad religion. Murray Haar
Get Busy livin or get busy dyin (Shawshank Redemption)
The Holocaust teaches us that it is possible to be alive but no longer human. Murray Haar
I am wiser than this man; it is likely that neither of us knows anything worthwhile, but he thinks he knows something when he does not, whereas when I do not know, neither do I think I know; so I am likely to be wiser than he to this small extent, that I do not think I know what I do not know. Socrates
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead, Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood. For nothing now can ever come to any good. W. H. Auden
For the most part, Christian pastors and priests are not taught to think but to transmit. They go to a vocational school called a seminary where they are taught how to transmit and proclaim the gospel but not how to teach their people to think critically about what they believe. They do not know how to teach their parishioners that Christianity could be wrong. Pastors and Priests are not prophets; they are religious functionaries who care about people and love Jesus. They themselves are usually nice people, will visit you in the hospital and give you bread and wine but they are not, for the most part, great thinkers. So, to expect them to reform the Church is just not realistic. Occasionally though, pastors show up who can think and believe at the same time and it is in them that there is hope for a reformation. I have met them. They are real and I have hope in them. Murray Haar
We do not believe in the Bible. We believe in God. The Bible is a vector toward God and the neighbor. When the Bible points us toward God and the neighbor, it is true. Whenever it does not, it is not true. We have to learn not only to read the Bible but to argue with it. Then the text will become real. Murray Haar
“In religion, the question is more important than the answer to the question.” A Midrash
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Dylan Thomas
“He who saves a single life, saves the world entire.” The Talmud
“We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, or the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time or conditions of our death. But within all this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we shall live: courageously or in cowardice, honorably or dishonorably, with purpose or adrift. We decide what is important and what is trivial in life. We decide that what makes us significant is either what we do or what we refuse to do. But no matter how indifferent the universe may be to our choices and decisions, these choices and decisions are ours to make. We decide. We choose. And as we decide and choose, so are our lives formed.” Joseph Epstein

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Friday, July 26, 2019

A Leap of Faith

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