Let Faith be Faith

Faith means trusting without knowing for sure.  Everyone knows faith is an essential part of religion.  Whether you believe faith is something we conjure up in our heads, is something God creates in us, or faith is more about doing than believing, faith is central.

The problem is our religions are much too certain.  Our scriptures tell us God operates in mysterious morally ambiguous, unpredictable and strange ways.  So, we need to be careful when we think we are certain about the will of God.  The only one who knows the will of God is God. 

So, why do Synagogue/Church liturgies sound so certain?  When I attend synagogue, all kinds of prayers are chanted as if we are all certain what we are saying is true.  But we’re not certain. I cannot tell you how many Christian sermons I’ve heard where the pastor sounds like he or she is certain about the will of God.  But, some of us have questions and doubts.  Some of us know we are overstating our confidence in the verity of our respective beliefs and traditions.  So, why do we do it?

I suspect most clergy think it’s their role to proclaim the truth and encourage people to believe.  Most accentuate the positive about God and downplay the negative.  For example, religious services beseech and implore God to heal those who are ill.  Week after week, prayers are said.  Sometimes, people do get better and God is credited with the healing.  But, what about all those who only get worse, go through painful suffering and then die, despite the prayers? 

In our worship services, there is no place for lament prayers.  There are no prayers where God is questioned concerning God’s methodology.  I suspect the reason such prayers are omitted, despite the fact they are quite scriptural, is the fear they will imply God is unjust and this will cause people to not believe.

But listen, the contrary is true.  When you promise too much to people telling them that God will make sure nothing bad happens to them, that God will heal them, when you have them recite creeds and sing hymns that say the same, when you preach about the will of God as if you know that will, when you proclaim that everything that happens is God’s will, you are preparing people to give up their faith and their God.  You are creating agnostics and atheists.

So, let faith be faith.  Let it be comforting, risky, magical, superstitious, confusing, full of questions and doubts and wondering if any of it is true.  Our worship services need to be honest and not full of high sounding words that lie in the name of God.  You will never get rid of worries and doubts about God.  It’s part of faith.  So, let faith be faith!  Let it be perplexing, tentative, unsure, crazy making, and reassuring.  Let faith be faith and, in that way, we will be honest about what we trust and what we find hard to trust.

Nature has No Conscience

I am not one of those people who look at nature and conclude there is a God.  To admit, there are beautiful and amazing aspects to nature.  The vast variety of birds, fish, animals, flowers, trees, mountains, lakes, oceans can be breathtaking and their multi colors and shapes offer all sorts of opportunities for avid photographers and spirituality seekers.  I grant it all and marvel at its wonder.

But take a good look.  Nature is ambiguous, unreliable and dangerous.  Nature has no conscience.  Along with its marvels, nature produces terribly destructive hurricanes, volcanos, tornadoes, earthquakes, monsoons, avalanches, forest fires, ice storms, not to mention a host of diseases including varieties of cancer, heart and birth defects, rare infections and countless other ailments.  Nature can be gentle and kind and nature can be wild and ferocious.

Yes, we can try to accentuate the positive.  Some will say, the wildness of nature causes us to be grateful, humble and respect the fragility of our existence.  Others remind us, when natural disasters occur it gives us a chance to help.  Still others talk about how God has blessed us with science and technology to survive nature’s craziness and nurse the environment. And there are even some who talk about the innate beauty of nature’s wild ferocity.

But I remain perplexed.  Is the ferocity of nature worth the cost it exacts on human life?  Think of all the physical, psychological and emotional trauma created by natural evil; think of all the damage endured by people as they try to survive nature’s madness.

I say again, nature has no conscience.  The Jewish and Christian scriptures depict water as a symbol for chaos.  God is pictured creating the world by wrestling or struggling with the chaos of nature, separating the waters from the waters, grappling with human nature, sometimes succeeding sometimes not.  But nature is not held up as something to be worshiped. The word “nature” does not even occur in the Bible. 

Like the biblical deity, we are compelled to wrestle with nature, particularly our own nature.  We ought not worship or romanticize nature. 

We have just experienced the wild calamity and terrible damage caused by two hurricanes.  Nature has no conscience.  When we realize this, we will be better prepared to meet nature’s beautiful, fantastic, horrific and ambiguous behavior.

Why People Hate

Why do People Hate?

Hate comes from fear, anger and the belief you or your group has suffered a terrible injustice.  If you believe there’s a conspiracy going on and a certain group has it out for you, it awakens inside you the capacity to hate.

After all, the human brain can be trained.  It can be trained to be kind and caring; it can be trained to hate.  You may remember the song from South Pacific: 

You've got to be taught to hate and fear,

You've got to be taught from year to year,

It's got to be drummed in your dear little ear

You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid

Of people whose eyes are oddly made,

And people whose skin is a different shade,

You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,

Before you are six or seven or eight,

To hate all the people your relatives hate,

You've got to be carefully taught!

When all is said and done, hate is a faith.  Hate comes from believing that the people you hate deserve to be hated.  Unlike prejudice and racism, hatred cannot be eliminated by education alone. Bret Stephens says, “Fear is often a function of unfamiliarity.”  When we are unfamiliar with a group, we tend to stereotype that group.

But. fear and hate can be trained out of you by experience. You meet someone from the hated group and discover they are not as dangerous as you were led to believe.  By the way, one of the reasons I teach where I do is so students can meet and experience somebody Jewish and see with their own eyes, Jews are people, human beings, who do not deserve to be hated.  

Wherever you live, do what you can do to stop the hate.

All Beginnings are Hard

It's that time again.  Chaim Potok wrote, “all beginnings are hard.”  Such is the rhythm for those of us who teach.  September means beginning again.  I have walked through this beginning many times.  You would think I would have it down by now.  But there is still a nervous fearful anxious feeling in the pit of my brain, a sense that the wonderful exciting dread time is once again upon us.  Soon, I will have to stand up and talk.

And I am asking myself, what makes for such stress and nervousness?  Is it fear of failure?  Is it fear that I have lost my touch?  Do I wonder if I am getting too old to do this anymore?  Do I wonder if it is fair and right for someone who was Christian and now Jewish to teach Christians about their tradition?  I suppose all of those are factors.  But, I sense it’s something more.

The fact is I love to teach religion.  But teaching religion is not easy.  It’s not just a matter of getting up and talking or sharing information. This is necessary and this I will do.  Teaching religion is teaching young people to think about their faith.  And this kind of thinking is hard work.  Let’s face it: When it comes to religion, many people have not been trained to think. They have been trained to believe.   

And when I stare into their young and mostly innocent eyes, it scares me to have to tell them: God, Jesus, the Bible and religion are a bit more complicated then they might have thought.  My goal is not to hurt their faith but to deepen it.  I do not teach for the tradition, nor against the tradition, but within the tradition.  So, deepening the faith of students involves telling them some things they may not want to hear such as:  The Bible was not dictated by God to the writers.  Adam and Eve were not real people though their story is true.  The notion that everything happens for a reason has some problems.  Not all Christians believe Jesus died for our sins.  Sometimes the best way to express your faith is to hurl questions at the deity.  Judaism and Islam have millions of followers, who believe Christianity is wrong.   

To possess a mature faith means to trust without being afraid of the questions. It also means to think that you could be wrong.

So, here we go again.  All beginnings are hard.  I am excited and apprehensive.  Despite that, I am committed to the notion that a religious person who is not afraid to think and has his or her eyes wide open is closer to the truth.  And wherever the truth is, that’s where God is as well.

Does Geography Matter?

We have moved and are settled in a new apartment. It is very nice.  During our lives, we move in and move out many times.  We keep hoping each move will make us happier, change our perspective, give us a different view of the world, and alter our very personalities.  Moving to a new place is exciting and stress producing.  But we keep on looking for that place, that promised land, where we will feel safe and at home.  Some of us find it easier than others.  But the quest goes on and on.  We never do arrive.

This is a constant theme in the Bible as well.  Having been promised a land, the Jewish people spend most of their time getting to the land, losing the land and trying to regain it.  Eventually they are kicked out of the land completely, go into a long wandering persecuted diaspora, and finally return to the promised land.  And today, in the place that was supposed to be safe and home, they find themselves surrounded by angry people who would prefer they not be there.  So it goes and goes and goes.

There is a truth to be had in all that Jewish wandering.  You will quest for the ideal cave to keep you safe and warm.  This is what we do.  We search for the perfect place, the perfect spouse, the perfect job and the perfect friends. 

But, wherever you live, life, with all its imperfections, keeps on happening.   And there are always things about which to complain. The morning paper was not delivered today.  There is no toilet paper holder.  The towel in the second bathroom is awkwardly hung.  The neighbors seem nosy.  One faucet is not working well. 

Life is a messy business with precious little perfection.  As our culture becomes efficient at fixing things, we expect everything to be easily and quickly fixed.  We expect doctors to fix all our ailments only to be disappointed to discover they too are imperfect.  More and more we expect more and more and are easily disappointed and discontented.  We live in the richest country in the world and it seems we are constantly complaining.  Our president promises to make us great again, richer, more prosperous, give us cheaper material things, and the list goes on and on.

So, what’s the deal?  Geography does matter.  Keep wandering and searching for that place.  But the deal is that life is and has always been ambiguous and imperfect.  If, wherever you live right now, you are happy fifty percent of the time. That’s pretty good.  Have a nice day and enjoy the moment.

P.S. The Blog is on break until September. Stay sane out there.

Can Christians Question God?

For as long as I have been teaching, I have encouraged my Christian students to embrace questioning the elusive and confusing mystery that is God. 

In Jewish tradition, questioning the justice and methodology of God is part of being faithful to the covenants God has made with the Jewish people.  If you believe in the promises, you hold on to your doubts and you raise your questions.

I remember a day when I asked a Lutheran seminary professor, why Christians were so reluctant to confront God concerning his unfulfilled promises.  He explained, whereas Jews were born into a tribe and could never stop being Jewish, Christians, through too many questions and doubts, could lose their faith.  He feared Christians could stop being Christian.  Christians, he asserted, who had been saved by the “amazing grace” of God could never feel as free as Jews to question their merciful God without feeling they were betraying the deity as well as their faith.

I suppose the real question is why are we asking questions or make accusations?  If we are not going to get an answer, what is the point of asking questions?  Jews, Christians and Muslims trust they have received promises from God.  When these promises are not fulfilled, questions and accusations are an honest attempt to exhort God to act like God.  Questioning and accusing God is not against faith.  It is an essential part of faith. 

And, by the way, questioning is quite biblical.  Of the 150 psalms in the bible, over a third are laments and complaints questioning the justice of God.  Jesus’ last words on the cross were a question rooted in those psalms and directed at God.  And the Lord’s prayer is a prayer full of imperatives exhorting God to act like God.

If you trust in the promises of God and they are not happening, the faithful act is not to close your eyes and believe blindly.  Blind faith is stupid faith.  I do not believe God gave us a mind and then wants us to turn it off when it comes to our religion.   

More than anything else prayers and liturgy give us a time and place to stand naked before God, to be honest and speak without pretense.  It’s true, we may not receive a response.  But, at least, we can say, we trusted in the promises and spoke the truth.

Can Christians question God?  As an honest expression of their faith, yes!  And, questioning God needs to be part of Christian, Jewish and Muslim public worship.  We need to train people to understand that faith and questions are not opposites.  Most people going about their daily lives may not have questions.  That’s fine.  But when craziness or absurd suffering happens to them and they experience the silence of God, they need to know about the intimate relation between questions and faith. 

Four Differences about Judaism

Judaism differs from Christianity and Islam in at least four ways.  Judaism is a tribal religion.  Judaism does not seek converts.  Judaism teaches what you do is more important that what you believe. And Judaism encourages questions and questioning God.

Tribal Religion:  There are two ways to be Jewish:  either your mother is Jewish or you can convert into the religion of Judaism. (Reform Jews allow for a person to be Jewish if his or her father is Jewish and the person was brought up to be Jewish)

Not Seeking Converts:  Jews are taught not to seek converts and to discourage someone from converting.  The tradition teaches: a person desiring to convert should be sent away three times.  And the conversion process is lengthy, arduous and requires you to observe Jewish rituals. 

What You Do:  While many Jews have faith in God, faith is not a requirement for being Jewish.  There are many secular Jews who are proud of being Jewish.  There are many ways to be Jewish.  Honoring the rituals of the tradition and caring for the stranger are more important that believing.  In other words, Jewish tradition teaches God is more concerned about what you do then whether you believe.

Questions:  Jewish tradition encourages questioning of the scriptures, debating traditional interpretations, and most importantly, questioning the methodology of God. Questioning is a discipline at the heart of Jewish tradition and a covenantal obligation.