Once a number of years ago, in the early days of a four-month sabbatical at an ecumenical institute, I presented an overview of my sabbatical project to my fellow institute resident scholars during our weekly scheduled seminar.<\/p>\n
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In its early stages, my project was an intended exploration of the difficulty of trying to life a life of faith with integrity when the Being one has faith in is remarkably absent and silent most of the time. I don\u2019t remember much of the presentation (my project changed significantly over the following weeks), but I do recall that I said a lot about the importance of doubt, skepticism, and open-endedness in the life of faith. During the Q and A, a fellow resident who would turn out to be one of my best friends asked (with a bit of impatience, it seemed to me) \u201cVance, isn\u2019t there something that a person has to believe with certainty in order to be a Christian?\u201d I responded, in full philosopher mode, with another question: \u201cI don\u2019t know\u2014is there?\u201d I\u2019m still wondering.<\/p>\n
It is a natural human trait when attempting to build a belief system to draw boundaries, define terms, and clearly delineate standards of agreement or disagreement with others. This trait is particularly prevalent (and problematic) in the realm of faith and religion. In his essay \u201cHow Far We Are From God\u201d (from his essay collection\u00a0Breakfast at the\u00a0<\/em>Victory), James Carse tells a story from his time as a student at Yale Divinity School that illustrates the problem.<\/p>\n James and his fellow divinity student friend Bob are both Christians, but the details of their shared faith are frequently at odds. James was raised Presbyterian, and believes in a God he describes as \u201ca distant, faceless entity you had somehow to find on your own . . . like the sky over Long Island Sound: gray, vast, cold, full of veiled threat.\u201d James longs for an amazing, unmistakable experience of the divine, an experience that would let him know that he is one of the religious elite. \u201cI wanted to be special among the citizens of faith. The certainty I longed for would, I thought, give my voice a discernible authority\u2014a direct route to spiritual arrogance.\u201d<\/p>\n Bob\u2019s Episcopalian God, at least in James\u2019 estimation, was remarkably laid back and chummy. \u201cBob\u2019s God was always there to cheer you up . . . Bob didn\u2019t seem to have to look anywhere at all. His God was always checking in with you. So you must wait. And God\u2019s there, abounding in warmth.\u201d While approaching James\u2019 God required \u201cdedication, sacrifice, and vigilance,\u201d Bob\u2019s deity was apparently happy with worship according to the Book of Common Prayer on a semi-regular basis. Bob\u2019s God was an affable elderly aristocrat, \u201cabounding in genuine warmth,\u201d about as different from James\u2019 distant, threatening deity as one could imagine.<\/p>\n Not surprisingly, believing in very different Gods led James and Bob to very different approaches to theology. James expects that everything should be reducible to logical and rigorous doctrine, if one expends sufficient time and effort; he professes that \u201cI was impatient with Bob\u2019s lack of theological earnestness.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou just can\u2019t attach your faith to any old theology,\u201d I argued. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to have a theological context that will help you understand what your faith means and how to live by it. In fact, whether we realize it or not, Bob, our faith is already full of theological assumptions.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n To which Bob essentially responded, \u201cWhatever,\u201d or \u201cChill out.\u201d James believes that the Bible is to be taken at face value, while Bob\u2019s approach to Scripture is far less rigorous. So whose God is a closer reflection or representation of the real divine Being? James\u2019 or Bob\u2019s? Persons of faith, even ostensibly the same faith, have gone to battle\u2014often literally and with deadly results\u2014over just such disagreements.<\/p>\n I am reminded frequently on this blog of how touchy persons of faith can be when their favored understanding of God gets challenged. For instance, I suggested earlier this week that persons of Christian faith share a great deal in common with persons of other faiths, even with persons of no faith at all.<\/p>\n