Please forgive my blatant hook of a title, but I do wish to seriously ask this question. In a previous post I said that the bible does not actually tell us to believe, but rather that the word we translate "believe" is actually "do faith." If you want to know more about this, please read that previous post and another that explains this more thoroughly.
But if the bible says that we must "do faith" to be saved, then what about believing?
This is truly an important question. Can you be an "unbeliever" and still be a Christian? If the answer is yes, then into what are we converting those who we "win for Christ?" If the answer is no, then what do we do with the bible?
Let's start with some basics: What to we mean when we say "believe?"
We mean the mental and imaginative consent to a set of limits for what can be real. That is, to believe is to agree to consider the possibility of reality to stop and start at such and such a point. It is to think and consider that only certain things can be real. This limit to reality is further defined by certain criteria that must be met. Those criteria are generally defined in historical and objective terms: saying you "believe in Jesus" means that you consider him to have been an actual person who was and is God the Son. Believing in this sense means you think this is real; this is a set of parameters for reality that you accept and try to abide within.
This seems to offer an easy and obvious distinction for those who are "in" versus those who are "out." If you think this is real, you're in; if not, you're out. But there are a number of problems with this. For one, it assumes that thinking is the only aspect of human life that matters soteriologically (with significance for salvation). For another it relies exclusively on the subjective opinion of the individual while claiming objectivity for the opinion.
But the biggest problem is that it disagrees with what the bible says.
There are a number of passages that clearly oppose this sort of understanding for salvation (I am of course assuming that being a Christian means "being saved." This is not the only nor the best explanation of the term, but for the present post it is my preference). I've written previously on Matthew 25, and encourage you to investigate my reading of that text. Matthew 25:31-46 relays Jesus' warning/promise of judgment following the coming of his kingdom; the judgment is between the "sheep" and the "goats." Those who are welcomed into the kingdom are not those who performed miraculous signs, but are those who engaged in loving and caring acts. But it is the response of those who were "put out" of the kingdom that gives the idea that assenting to a definition of reality is the condition of salvation real trouble- "Didn't we cast out demons in your name? Didn't we heal the sick in your name? Didn't we perform miracles in your name?" These actions, on the surface, appear to be the kind of actions that faith alone could produce. Yet they are not, according to Jesus.
Those actions are based on belief; on a perspective of reality.
These actions, while being a part of what Jesus did, are not the hallmark of faith, it seems. And that is because they are performed for the benefit of the self and the personal sense of righteousness that results from them. It is the Car Window Effect that puffs up the ego and assures the performer of his or her personal righteousness, but does not meet the actual need of the other. It does not meet that need because there is no sacrifice involved. To give of your own food, shelter, time, is to sacrifice.
Sacrifice is what belief protects us from.
Why did the Ancient Israelites need to sacrifice their produce and livestock? It was not to appease a bloodthirsty or greedy divine spirit! It was instead to ritually remind and bind the people to what it costs to be for others, to be "the seed of blessing for the nations" (Gen. 22:17-18). To be the means of restoration for the whole world cannot involve hoarding or greed.
When we make the terms of the salvation an assent to certain metaphysical tenets about the limit of reality, we remove the crucial criterion from the table.
This is what I think James was getting at in chapter 2. "Faith without works is dead" because faith without works is belief. And the "works" are not transactional, they are sacrificial. Faith is the sacrificial movement towards others in love. Sometimes this movement requires a lack of belief, because belief can prevent us from having faith. Sometimes it means being courageous in acting out those beliefs.
But can I be a Christian and not believe?
Yes and no. Christianity is not a reductionist proposition, nor is it defined by assent to conceptualizations. However, belief alone is not what determines a person's status within or beyond the promised kingdom of heaven (salvation). Of course, none of us will ever be able to give up believing in something. But those beliefs can never be afforded the authority we seem to give them at present. Instead, faith seems to act as an altogether independent force from belief. Sometimes faith affirms belief in a secondary sort of way. Sometimes faith opposes belief directly.
But what we really mean when we ask if belief is what matters is "Can you be a Christian and not believe like me?" When we realize that this is what we are asking, the answer is immediately yes. You are not a Christian because of what you believe, but rather you are a Christian because you participate in the faithful life of restoration of the whole world to Christ-modelled relationship with God through the ongoing work of the Spirit. This participation happens on every level; emotional, physical, mental, physiological, spiritual. And as we participate we become transformed even as we are renewed. This is never quantifiable or controllable. But it is obvious when we see it, we just can't quite explain why it's obvious or what it is exactly.
NATHAN MYRICK
Truth as Relationship II
I've been thinking more about John 14 lately, and I am still wrestling with Jesus' claim to be the "truth." In the past, I've written about how if are not careful we will mistake our assumed knowledge of truth for Jesus. An other way of saying this is that because we think we know what truth is we know who Jesus is. But that is the wrong way around, because we have an idea about truth that is not (for most of us) based on who Jesus is. Instead, we need to pursue Jesus and be open to what is true because of him, and not attempt to figure out who he is based on what we think is true.
And I'm not the only one who thinks like this.
Have you ever heard of the distinction between Big T- Truth and little t- truth? Here is a helpful (if somewhat academic) article about the distinctions between the two. To my point, we tend to think about truth as the easily verified, concrete, empirical reality of matter and logic. Mathematics and Newtonian physics are easy examples of truth. On the other hand, Truth tends to be representative of more qualitative matters; morality, ethics, and of course, beliefs. Many Christians have found these designations helpful, as the designations allow them to play by different rules when discussing morality versus mathematics.
But what we don't realize is that these distinctions are the product of a set of assumptions about the nature of the world (philosophers call this "ontology").
We assume that certain aspects of the human experience have different evaluative rules. But where this falls apart is when we consider the consequences our subjective Truths have for the objectivly true world. And to make this even more complicated, the process works in reverse; Big T-Truths are informed and formed by little t-truths as we experience them. I suspect that the distinctions exist only in our minds and imaginations. Of course, based on my own arguments about the construction of reality/ies, that which exists in our minds eventually exists in actuality. However, and to the point, how do we evaluate those realities which are the product of such imagination without succumbing to the feedback loop of T/t-truths informing each other and continuing to deceptively exist symbiotically?
This is the basis of my argument: there need be no such T/t distinction.
The entire framework is wrong. Especially if we take Jesus' claim in John14 seriously. We cannot be foolish enough to project onto Jesus our own imaginative attempt at avoiding the struggle of reconciling our existence with what we want Jesus to be saying.
I have a different proposition.
This is why I have posted previously my hypothesis that it is helpful to think of truth as the positive relationship between an entity and reality, and of a lie as the negative relationship between an entity and reality. Sometimes the entity is a reality, or at least the perception of reality. Sometimes the entity is a person or idea. This semantic turn works to reconcile T/t distinction, and allows reality to be evaluated on the merits ascribed for it in the bible. Yet it also, and simultaneously, allows for us to understand a multivalent meaning in Jesus claim to be the truth; in Jesus resides the fullness of God and humanity. In him we have a picture of perfect relationship to God- he is the epitome of truth.
For us to participate in Jesus' claim to be the truth we must get rid of our notion of T/t.
T/t is a lie because it creates a negative reality based on what we read in the bible. We cannot align ourselves with John 14 and still allow for a "truth" that exist's beyond the scope of that claim, yet we cannot blame Jesus for evil, and so reality has to exist that is not "true" according to the language of John 14. We therefore, for our own sakes, need change the way we think about truth so as to live more faithfully into the reality of Jesus' restoring the world to Godself.
There is of course an unresolved issue in this.
Can we allow for a reality that is not God? We have to, so the semantic turn requires qualification. Perhaps we can say that there are lying realities as well as truthful realities. I am inclined to this line of thinking because I doubt the ability of myself or any other human to be able to fully understand reality. It then becomes possible for us to allow for a congruent reality to exist beyond the scope of our perception of it.
I wish to clarify a possible point of confusion here: I am not suggesting a pantheism wherein God is every existing thing. I do think that God has left divine fingerprints on everything he has created, but I distinguish the creator from the creation.
And I'm not the only one who thinks like this.
Have you ever heard of the distinction between Big T- Truth and little t- truth? Here is a helpful (if somewhat academic) article about the distinctions between the two. To my point, we tend to think about truth as the easily verified, concrete, empirical reality of matter and logic. Mathematics and Newtonian physics are easy examples of truth. On the other hand, Truth tends to be representative of more qualitative matters; morality, ethics, and of course, beliefs. Many Christians have found these designations helpful, as the designations allow them to play by different rules when discussing morality versus mathematics.
But what we don't realize is that these distinctions are the product of a set of assumptions about the nature of the world (philosophers call this "ontology").
We assume that certain aspects of the human experience have different evaluative rules. But where this falls apart is when we consider the consequences our subjective Truths have for the objectivly true world. And to make this even more complicated, the process works in reverse; Big T-Truths are informed and formed by little t-truths as we experience them. I suspect that the distinctions exist only in our minds and imaginations. Of course, based on my own arguments about the construction of reality/ies, that which exists in our minds eventually exists in actuality. However, and to the point, how do we evaluate those realities which are the product of such imagination without succumbing to the feedback loop of T/t-truths informing each other and continuing to deceptively exist symbiotically?
This is the basis of my argument: there need be no such T/t distinction.
The entire framework is wrong. Especially if we take Jesus' claim in John14 seriously. We cannot be foolish enough to project onto Jesus our own imaginative attempt at avoiding the struggle of reconciling our existence with what we want Jesus to be saying.
I have a different proposition.
This is why I have posted previously my hypothesis that it is helpful to think of truth as the positive relationship between an entity and reality, and of a lie as the negative relationship between an entity and reality. Sometimes the entity is a reality, or at least the perception of reality. Sometimes the entity is a person or idea. This semantic turn works to reconcile T/t distinction, and allows reality to be evaluated on the merits ascribed for it in the bible. Yet it also, and simultaneously, allows for us to understand a multivalent meaning in Jesus claim to be the truth; in Jesus resides the fullness of God and humanity. In him we have a picture of perfect relationship to God- he is the epitome of truth.
For us to participate in Jesus' claim to be the truth we must get rid of our notion of T/t.
T/t is a lie because it creates a negative reality based on what we read in the bible. We cannot align ourselves with John 14 and still allow for a "truth" that exist's beyond the scope of that claim, yet we cannot blame Jesus for evil, and so reality has to exist that is not "true" according to the language of John 14. We therefore, for our own sakes, need change the way we think about truth so as to live more faithfully into the reality of Jesus' restoring the world to Godself.
There is of course an unresolved issue in this.
Can we allow for a reality that is not God? We have to, so the semantic turn requires qualification. Perhaps we can say that there are lying realities as well as truthful realities. I am inclined to this line of thinking because I doubt the ability of myself or any other human to be able to fully understand reality. It then becomes possible for us to allow for a congruent reality to exist beyond the scope of our perception of it.
I wish to clarify a possible point of confusion here: I am not suggesting a pantheism wherein God is every existing thing. I do think that God has left divine fingerprints on everything he has created, but I distinguish the creator from the creation.
Being for Others
If I can be so incredibly arrogant as to assess the enduring legacy of conservative evangelicalism as a culture, it would be a culture of fear. Fear of the “world” (try figuring out exactly what the “world” is in the bible. I guarantee it will scare the bejesus out of you); fear of knowledge; fear of failure; and above all, fear of being wrong.
We all have fears.
My own fear is that God doesn’t really love us after all. I’ve been assured of this love for me in innumerable and immeasurable ways, yet seen it betrayed in some of the most despicable of circumstances in the lives of others. It is easy for me to understand God’s love for me, but I am unnerved when I fail to see it in the life of my friends. Does God love the undocumented immigrants living in tin huts along the Rio Bravo in towns like Socorro, Texas? Does God love the tens of thousands of people who are victims of the sex trade? What of the poor little girls in Bokencamp, near Corpus Christi, who have escaped that fate in Latin America only to be interred upon entering the US and who will be returned to that life should no family or guardian be located for them in Estados Unidos? What of the greasy smear on the train tracks of the Manitoban prairie that was once a guy named Brad, or the 5 year old victim of AIDS whose emaciated life left her while my arms offered her the paltry sum of God’s love I could muster in Honduras?
We all have fears.
My own fear is that God doesn’t really love us after all. I’ve been assured of this love for me in innumerable and immeasurable ways, yet seen it betrayed in some of the most despicable of circumstances in the lives of others. It is easy for me to understand God’s love for me, but I am unnerved when I fail to see it in the life of my friends. Does God love the undocumented immigrants living in tin huts along the Rio Bravo in towns like Socorro, Texas? Does God love the tens of thousands of people who are victims of the sex trade? What of the poor little girls in Bokencamp, near Corpus Christi, who have escaped that fate in Latin America only to be interred upon entering the US and who will be returned to that life should no family or guardian be located for them in Estados Unidos? What of the greasy smear on the train tracks of the Manitoban prairie that was once a guy named Brad, or the 5 year old victim of AIDS whose emaciated life left her while my arms offered her the paltry sum of God’s love I could muster in Honduras?
Jesus loves me, this I know, but what makes me so goddamn special?
But fear thrives in isolation.
It's simple: I'm not. We live in fear of the other. We live in fear of the possibility that she might be right, and I, wrong. And of course, that fear causes us to place unassailable defenses between ourselves and others. I can protect my innocence and piety by assuring myself that I am different than you, and so this is what I do.
We isolate ourselves because we are afraid. It is a vicious cycle. This system of fear continues to function because we think that we are our own persons and selves; that our fears are between us and…us. We tend to conceive of ourselves in isolation from each other, but we are not that in actuality. Each of us is invested in our friends and families, experiencing the triumphs and failures of others.
And in some profound way, we are members of one another (Rom. 12, 1 Cor. 12, Eph. 4).
This is why the issue of God’s seeming abandonment of others is so troubling: it creates a disconnect in myself; the self I share with others becomes severed from the self I experience as me. I am not me in opposition to you, but I am me because of you. And so when the people who are supposed to be members with me in Christ experience the abandonment of God, I too feel the ache. I cannot notice the homeless man on the street corner and think: “There but for the grace of God go I,” but “there with the grace of God go I.” It is a terrible and radical shift, but if we all made it there might not be any room for fear to reign. But the shift cannot be made until we ourselves are transformed by the renewing of our mind regarding the authority we give to the System of Belief.
But faith is being for others in love.
Where belief needs to be right; where they fear being wrong to the extent that they don't care who they destroy to protect their piety, faith is unconcerned with personal righteousness. Faith sees in the dying orphans of this world the very dearest of God's children. Faith laments the injustice of the world and calls on God to act. But faith does not need to be right. Faith can be wrong; faith can call God out wrongly, because faith depends on God's faithfulness, not it's own. Faith loves beyond reason. Faith hopes for good and calls God out when it seems God has not lived up to expectations. And this act opens the faithful to God's own heart and response.
The Believable Lie pt II: Authentic Beliefs
A cataclysm occurs at the point where authenticity becomes entrenched in the system of belief, for when our beliefs become authentic to who we are they become who we are. It is as if an alien life form had taken over the space in your brain that controls what you do, make, say or think. And when this alien life form takes over, it cannot be disobeyed or disagreed with.
Authentic beliefs cannot be allowed to be proven wrong.
When my beliefs become truly authentic I am unable-or unwilling-to listen to anything that disagrees with what I believe. I refuse to listen or to hear because I must protect the integrity of my beliefs as authentic to myself; I, me, this guy, cannot be allowed to entertain the possibility that I might be wrong, because then my beliefs would be inauthentic.
This is what religious beliefs look like.
Religious beliefs are defended at all costs and in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. That is, it is claimed (and has been claimed by me), because beliefs do not depend on fallible human reasoning. Lunacy or not, this stands to the reason of authenticity; the constructed markers of reality that we call beliefs can only be maintained if we are authentic to them.
This means we really have to believe whatever it is we believe.
"Truly. You just gotta believe. You just gotta construct the same boundaries for what can and cannot be real as I tell you to. This is how you get to heaven. And don't let anyone tell you any different, because if you stop maintaining these boundaries you're going to hell."
This is called "epistemic closure."
Epistemic Closure is a fancy way of saying "refuse to learn." Literally, it means to close off from knowledge. But the term has connotations of belief, in that in order to close off you have to determine what is knowledge and what is not. In this way, you set out beliefs (markers of reality) about what can and cannot be learned, or rather what is and is not knowable.
Authentic religious beliefs require epistemic closure.
If our own salvation hinges on our ability to withstand any contrary evangelistic efforts, then to protect ourselves from such a possibility we refuse to listen to anyone else’s beliefs. When we make believing the litmus test of salvation we exclude the possibility that we are wrong about what we believe. Of course, when we set ourselves up as the ultimate authority we make ourselves out to be God. The bible would call that- sin.
Authentic beliefs cannot be allowed to be proven wrong.
When my beliefs become truly authentic I am unable-or unwilling-to listen to anything that disagrees with what I believe. I refuse to listen or to hear because I must protect the integrity of my beliefs as authentic to myself; I, me, this guy, cannot be allowed to entertain the possibility that I might be wrong, because then my beliefs would be inauthentic.
This is what religious beliefs look like.
Religious beliefs are defended at all costs and in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. That is, it is claimed (and has been claimed by me), because beliefs do not depend on fallible human reasoning. Lunacy or not, this stands to the reason of authenticity; the constructed markers of reality that we call beliefs can only be maintained if we are authentic to them.
This means we really have to believe whatever it is we believe.
"Truly. You just gotta believe. You just gotta construct the same boundaries for what can and cannot be real as I tell you to. This is how you get to heaven. And don't let anyone tell you any different, because if you stop maintaining these boundaries you're going to hell."
This is called "epistemic closure."
Epistemic Closure is a fancy way of saying "refuse to learn." Literally, it means to close off from knowledge. But the term has connotations of belief, in that in order to close off you have to determine what is knowledge and what is not. In this way, you set out beliefs (markers of reality) about what can and cannot be learned, or rather what is and is not knowable.
Authentic religious beliefs require epistemic closure.
If our own salvation hinges on our ability to withstand any contrary evangelistic efforts, then to protect ourselves from such a possibility we refuse to listen to anyone else’s beliefs. When we make believing the litmus test of salvation we exclude the possibility that we are wrong about what we believe. Of course, when we set ourselves up as the ultimate authority we make ourselves out to be God. The bible would call that- sin.
The Problem of Authenticity
Ever since Kierkegaard coined the term and Sartre popularized it, the value of authenticity has maintained a prominent place in the minds of those in individualized society. The general consensus is that it is better, nay, crucial, that a person be authentic- that they be who they truly are.
Of course, this means that a person needs to know who they truly are.
But what informs this self understanding? How do we know what our own authenticity looks like? Does it feel right? Is it tied to emotional stability? No one seems to know, but we all know that authenticity is good.
The trouble is, authenticity is relative to something else.
This relativity means that to be authentic to yourself you need to differentiate and understand a divergence in the human person; you need to know what parts of you are you and what parts of you are not. To confuse this even further, identifying which is the fake you as opposed to the real you carries with it no qualitative criteria. There is no way to measure the merit or value of the fake vs the real you.
Sure, you can say you know when you are pretending.
But over time your pretension becomes ingrained. Let me put it this way, when you first start playing soccer, you're rubbish. But you practice. As you practice, you become better and better, until you are a legitimate soccer player. But at what point did you become authentically a soccer player? It was when you started practicing. But in your true self you weren't yet, because you knew you didn't know to play. But then you learned.
There are two sides to this observation.
The first is that in order to improve you need to recognize that you are not very good at soccer and in order to improve you need to make some changes to the way you do things; you need to practice and learn the game. This is the positive aspect of authenticity; recognizing and naming your status. But the second side dictates that you stake yourself down at the beginning of your career and say "well, this is the set of skills I was born with and I am not going to improve beyond these, so what's the use of practice?" This is the negative aspect of authenticity: the unwillingness to change for the better; to improve.
This is the danger in authentic Christianity.
Authenticity is only good for awareness of one's own condition, and not as a marker of arrival. Admitting you are a drunk and then making no efforts to seek help or curb your drinking is unacceptable. The same is true for the notion of authenticity; realizing the strength of your character without working to improve that is unacceptable. And what could be more fake than disingenuous effort?
But there is a darker side to authenticity; authentic belief.
Of course, this means that a person needs to know who they truly are.
But what informs this self understanding? How do we know what our own authenticity looks like? Does it feel right? Is it tied to emotional stability? No one seems to know, but we all know that authenticity is good.
The trouble is, authenticity is relative to something else.
This relativity means that to be authentic to yourself you need to differentiate and understand a divergence in the human person; you need to know what parts of you are you and what parts of you are not. To confuse this even further, identifying which is the fake you as opposed to the real you carries with it no qualitative criteria. There is no way to measure the merit or value of the fake vs the real you.
Sure, you can say you know when you are pretending.
But over time your pretension becomes ingrained. Let me put it this way, when you first start playing soccer, you're rubbish. But you practice. As you practice, you become better and better, until you are a legitimate soccer player. But at what point did you become authentically a soccer player? It was when you started practicing. But in your true self you weren't yet, because you knew you didn't know to play. But then you learned.
There are two sides to this observation.
The first is that in order to improve you need to recognize that you are not very good at soccer and in order to improve you need to make some changes to the way you do things; you need to practice and learn the game. This is the positive aspect of authenticity; recognizing and naming your status. But the second side dictates that you stake yourself down at the beginning of your career and say "well, this is the set of skills I was born with and I am not going to improve beyond these, so what's the use of practice?" This is the negative aspect of authenticity: the unwillingness to change for the better; to improve.
This is the danger in authentic Christianity.
Authenticity is only good for awareness of one's own condition, and not as a marker of arrival. Admitting you are a drunk and then making no efforts to seek help or curb your drinking is unacceptable. The same is true for the notion of authenticity; realizing the strength of your character without working to improve that is unacceptable. And what could be more fake than disingenuous effort?
But there is a darker side to authenticity; authentic belief.
The Believable Lie Pt. I
Over the past months I have been writing about the difference between faith and beliefs, and between lies and truth. I have written that faith is not about believing, and that Jesus' claim to be the truth in John 14 is not to be confused with him claiming to be our own, personal understanding of "truth" in some Cartesian/Platonic sense. But I have not yet explained why beliefs are unworthy masters and need to be removed from our understanding of faith.
But now is the time for such an explanation.
Here's how it works: We assume our beliefs to signify 1) the limits of reality, 2) the markers of identity, and 3) the means by which an individual participates in salvation. But our beliefs are not themselves the determiners of truth, as we have already established; we do not get to Jesus by starting with our idea of what "truth" is and trying to squeeze the entirety of the biblical account of Jesus' life into that definition. Unfortunately, all of us have to some extent. This is unavoidable in our modern context, yet none the less lamentable. My purpose here is to show how disastrous this act has been in the life of the church, and to do so requires some abstract explanation.
Can you bear with me?
When our person encounters a new experience or piece of information, the gatekeepers of our life, our belief system, engages that experience or information to see if it is acceptable within the parameters of reality our belief system has laid out; can this experience fit into what we consider to be real? In order to determine this, our belief system activates a criterion of resonance. This criterion of resonance requires the new information or experience to coincide or "resonate" with some previously established standard of reality accepted as "truth."
But truth cannot be determined this way.
Why? Because our beliefs are not intrinsically connected to some metaphysical realm where absolute truth resides in self-perpetuity; they are arbitrary and self perpetuating. Furthermore, truth is created, in this sense, through the action of belief. What we believe determines what we do (as we presently function), and when we believe something because it resonates with our previously established markers of reality and truth, we incorporate it into our system and begin acting in accordance with it.
But what if that new supposed "truth" was a lie?
Well, it would only be a lie for short time, because we, in our zeal for authenticity to ourselves (our beliefs), have created a reality out of that false belief; we have made it true. The lie has become a truth because we have enacted it. But a lie is negative relationship to reality. Therefore
Our actions have created a qualitatively negative reality.
In our blind commitment to ourselves we have unwittingly contributed to the destruction of God's good creation in order to ensure our salvation and righteousness. We call that sin. And we sin because we believe (do-faith) our beliefs. Our conceptualization of "faith" now serves our beliefs because we need to defend our selves and this through our beliefs; our piety. Our very sense of righteousness must be preserved even in abstraction. If we can convince ourselves of our dis-association from original sin by clinging to a notion of that which caused our sin as this which saves us we are blissfully and dangerously content.
Your belief in Jesus does not prevent your participation in sin; it causes it.
But now is the time for such an explanation.
Here's how it works: We assume our beliefs to signify 1) the limits of reality, 2) the markers of identity, and 3) the means by which an individual participates in salvation. But our beliefs are not themselves the determiners of truth, as we have already established; we do not get to Jesus by starting with our idea of what "truth" is and trying to squeeze the entirety of the biblical account of Jesus' life into that definition. Unfortunately, all of us have to some extent. This is unavoidable in our modern context, yet none the less lamentable. My purpose here is to show how disastrous this act has been in the life of the church, and to do so requires some abstract explanation.
Can you bear with me?
When our person encounters a new experience or piece of information, the gatekeepers of our life, our belief system, engages that experience or information to see if it is acceptable within the parameters of reality our belief system has laid out; can this experience fit into what we consider to be real? In order to determine this, our belief system activates a criterion of resonance. This criterion of resonance requires the new information or experience to coincide or "resonate" with some previously established standard of reality accepted as "truth."
But truth cannot be determined this way.
Why? Because our beliefs are not intrinsically connected to some metaphysical realm where absolute truth resides in self-perpetuity; they are arbitrary and self perpetuating. Furthermore, truth is created, in this sense, through the action of belief. What we believe determines what we do (as we presently function), and when we believe something because it resonates with our previously established markers of reality and truth, we incorporate it into our system and begin acting in accordance with it.
But what if that new supposed "truth" was a lie?
Well, it would only be a lie for short time, because we, in our zeal for authenticity to ourselves (our beliefs), have created a reality out of that false belief; we have made it true. The lie has become a truth because we have enacted it. But a lie is negative relationship to reality. Therefore
Our actions have created a qualitatively negative reality.
In our blind commitment to ourselves we have unwittingly contributed to the destruction of God's good creation in order to ensure our salvation and righteousness. We call that sin. And we sin because we believe (do-faith) our beliefs. Our conceptualization of "faith" now serves our beliefs because we need to defend our selves and this through our beliefs; our piety. Our very sense of righteousness must be preserved even in abstraction. If we can convince ourselves of our dis-association from original sin by clinging to a notion of that which caused our sin as this which saves us we are blissfully and dangerously content.
Your belief in Jesus does not prevent your participation in sin; it causes it.
Faith, Folly, and a Green Pontiac
In the the spring of 2003, I bought my first car. Well, my second car, actually. The first one was a gift from my Grandpa. That was in 1996, the year my second car was made, ironically. But in 2003, I bought my first car. A green Pontiac Grand Prix. A four-door SE model, complete with tape deck and power windows and locks. I loved that car.
I called it my Miracle Machine.
I called it that because in the summer of 2003 some friends and I were out fishing in the creeks near my home town at dusk when the driver's window refused to roll up. I tried every trick I could think of- opening and closing the door; pushing the button rapidly; banging on the control panel; turning the car on and off; tuning the radio- the usual things. After I and my friends had exhausted our repertoire of tricks to no avail, I had the idea to pray for the window. And so I did. Aloud. My friends watched and muffled their snickers. When I had finished, I hit the button.
The window rolled right up.
My friends and I were dumbfounded. I tried to play it cool, offering some pithy remark about the power of "faith," I'm sure. But inside I was astounded: here for the first time was, in my mind, proof that God actually answered prayer. And directly at that! Of course, the car started getting nicknames- Mountain Car, ATC (All Terrain Car), etc. But I stuck with Miracle Machine, or "MM" for short.
It wasn't long before MM gave me another opportunity to prove my "faith."
I was giving a friend who is a mechanic a ride over to my house later that summer, and as we neared the house I stopped at the mailbox and rolled down the window. Wouldn't you know it, the window refused to roll up once again. My friend noticed what had happened and said "Oh, don't worry. I know exactly what that is, happens to these cars all the time, easy to fix. When we get to your house I'll pull the cover off and get it working in no time." I replied "Don't bother. Here," and I prayed once more for my window to roll up.
And once again, it rolled right up.
My mechanic friend was astounded. He said that once that problem occurred the window should be inoperable until repaired; that it was an "on/off" sort of issue, no "in between phase." I just smiled and continued my pontification about "faith" and God answering my prayers. The verse from James 5:16 flashed through my mind: "The prayer of a righteous person is very effective." I hope I had the good sense not to proclaim it, but it was certainly encouraging to think that way. Heh, "encouraging." The pious way of saying "ego padding."
But it's funny how often faith is really folly.
In January of 2004 the window got stuck down again. This time, it stayed down. It was -30 Fahrenheit, and I was freezing my extremities off driving to work. I prayed and I prayed. I prayed alone and in the presence of others. Nothing. Finally, I got some cardboard and duct tape, and covered the gaping hole right next to my head so that my heater would be effective once more. I called my mechanic friend and made an appointment to get the window fixed.
And I wondered what had happened to my "faith."
Now, ten years later, I am finally beginning to get an idea of what was going on with ol' MM and her window. It stands as a turning point in my life; a point where I began to be aware of what faith is and what faith isn't. Faith is not a crutch that keeps us from being responsible. It is not a blank check to the easy life where cars don't need to be repaired and personal piety is left secure.
Faith is, instead, the choice to act when God calls.
It is the radical open-ness to God's action in my life. It was of course faithful to ask God to roll up my window that first spring evening. It may have even been faithful to ask God to roll my window up with my mechanic friend in attendance that summer day. But it would have been more faithful to make an appointment, pay my friend for his time and labor, and have him fix the problem that was causing my window to fail. In a sense, I was living entirely by faith. I put myself out there for God, expecting him to take care of my needs. And he did. And I liked it. So I did nothing. And when the mountain of a window refused to get back out of the sea where I had cast it, I felt completely betrayed. How could God leave me out to (freeze)dry like this?
I think we mistake God's messages and warnings as a provisional "end."
If I had been faithful to God's warning in the spring and summer of 2003, I would not have had to endure both the frostbite on my left ear and the humiliation of admitting that my "faith" was not strong enough to keep my car from needing repairs. In hindsight, the humiliation was infinitely good for me, but were I humble in the first place the lesson would not have been as needed.
I called it my Miracle Machine.
I called it that because in the summer of 2003 some friends and I were out fishing in the creeks near my home town at dusk when the driver's window refused to roll up. I tried every trick I could think of- opening and closing the door; pushing the button rapidly; banging on the control panel; turning the car on and off; tuning the radio- the usual things. After I and my friends had exhausted our repertoire of tricks to no avail, I had the idea to pray for the window. And so I did. Aloud. My friends watched and muffled their snickers. When I had finished, I hit the button.
The window rolled right up.
My friends and I were dumbfounded. I tried to play it cool, offering some pithy remark about the power of "faith," I'm sure. But inside I was astounded: here for the first time was, in my mind, proof that God actually answered prayer. And directly at that! Of course, the car started getting nicknames- Mountain Car, ATC (All Terrain Car), etc. But I stuck with Miracle Machine, or "MM" for short.
It wasn't long before MM gave me another opportunity to prove my "faith."
I was giving a friend who is a mechanic a ride over to my house later that summer, and as we neared the house I stopped at the mailbox and rolled down the window. Wouldn't you know it, the window refused to roll up once again. My friend noticed what had happened and said "Oh, don't worry. I know exactly what that is, happens to these cars all the time, easy to fix. When we get to your house I'll pull the cover off and get it working in no time." I replied "Don't bother. Here," and I prayed once more for my window to roll up.
And once again, it rolled right up.
My mechanic friend was astounded. He said that once that problem occurred the window should be inoperable until repaired; that it was an "on/off" sort of issue, no "in between phase." I just smiled and continued my pontification about "faith" and God answering my prayers. The verse from James 5:16 flashed through my mind: "The prayer of a righteous person is very effective." I hope I had the good sense not to proclaim it, but it was certainly encouraging to think that way. Heh, "encouraging." The pious way of saying "ego padding."
But it's funny how often faith is really folly.
In January of 2004 the window got stuck down again. This time, it stayed down. It was -30 Fahrenheit, and I was freezing my extremities off driving to work. I prayed and I prayed. I prayed alone and in the presence of others. Nothing. Finally, I got some cardboard and duct tape, and covered the gaping hole right next to my head so that my heater would be effective once more. I called my mechanic friend and made an appointment to get the window fixed.
And I wondered what had happened to my "faith."
Now, ten years later, I am finally beginning to get an idea of what was going on with ol' MM and her window. It stands as a turning point in my life; a point where I began to be aware of what faith is and what faith isn't. Faith is not a crutch that keeps us from being responsible. It is not a blank check to the easy life where cars don't need to be repaired and personal piety is left secure.
Faith is, instead, the choice to act when God calls.
It is the radical open-ness to God's action in my life. It was of course faithful to ask God to roll up my window that first spring evening. It may have even been faithful to ask God to roll my window up with my mechanic friend in attendance that summer day. But it would have been more faithful to make an appointment, pay my friend for his time and labor, and have him fix the problem that was causing my window to fail. In a sense, I was living entirely by faith. I put myself out there for God, expecting him to take care of my needs. And he did. And I liked it. So I did nothing. And when the mountain of a window refused to get back out of the sea where I had cast it, I felt completely betrayed. How could God leave me out to (freeze)dry like this?
I think we mistake God's messages and warnings as a provisional "end."
If I had been faithful to God's warning in the spring and summer of 2003, I would not have had to endure both the frostbite on my left ear and the humiliation of admitting that my "faith" was not strong enough to keep my car from needing repairs. In hindsight, the humiliation was infinitely good for me, but were I humble in the first place the lesson would not have been as needed.
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