Religion and Belief

First, let me say that this will be the last post for a week. First Congregational Church, Salt Lake City, which I now serve as minister, holds a week long, overnight camp for 4th - 9th graders in the mountains above SLC. AND, I function as the camp pastor for the week. So, I will be out of touch for a few days. I am taking Bryan Magee's Confessions of a Philosopher to read, but I will not have any intellectual stimulus from the Internet, which may not be a bad thing.

Second, I am thrilled by the 3 comments made concerning my last post. I think this is set up for you, good reader, to read them.

Salon.com published an interview with James Carse, author of The Religious Case Against Belief, on July 21, which was written by Steve Paulson. The very first question and response should be enough to get you thinking for the next week.

Q: I think the vast majority of people would say belief is at the very core of religion. How can you say religion does not involve belief?
It's an odd thing. Scholars of religion are perfectly aware that belief and religion don't perfectly overlap. It's not that they're completely indifferent to each other, but you can be religious without being a believer. And you can be a believer who's not religious. Let's say you want to know what it means to be Jewish. So you draw up a list of beliefs that you think Jews hold. You go down that list and say, "I think I believe all of these." But does that make you a Jew? Obviously not. Being Jewish is far more and far richer than agreeing to a certain list of beliefs. Now, it is the case that Christians in particular are interested in proper belief and what they call orthodoxy. However, there's a very uneven track of orthodoxy when you look at the history of Christianity. It's not at all clear what exactly one should believe.

This seemed to me to be connected to the religion and doubt comments I made on July 20. You might want to read that posting if you have not.

How much do you think belief and religion overlap? How do you respond to those who disagree with you?

What fails ... religion or human beings?

In February 2008, Karen Armstrong, a most prolific writer in the area of religion, did an interview with a German writer that appeared in the magazine, Islamica. I have copied a Q&A that I find fascinating.

Too often it seems that religious people are not necessarily more compassionate, more tolerant, more peaceful or more spiritual than others. America, for example, is a very religious country, and at the same time it is the most unequal socially and economically. What does this say about the purpose of religion?
The world religions all insist that the one, single test of any type of religiosity is that it must issue in practical compassion. They have nearly all developed a version of the Golden Rule: “Do not do to others what you would not have done to you.” This demands that we look into our own hearts, discover what it is that gives us pain and then refuse, under any circumstances, to inflict that pain on anybody else. Compassion demands that we “feel with” the other; that we dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there. This is the bedrock message of the Qur’an, of the New Testament (“I can have faith that moves mountains,” says St. Paul, “but if I lack charity it profits me nothing.”). Rabbi Hillel, the older contemporary of Jesus, defined the Golden Rule as the essence of Judaism: everything else, he said, was “commentary.” We have exactly the same teaching in Confucianism, Daoism, Hinduism and Buddhism. I have tried to show this in one of my most recent books, The Great Transformation.

The traditions all insist that it is not enough simply to show compassion to your own group. You must have what the Chinese call jian ai, concern for everybody. Or as Jewish law puts it: “Honour the stranger.” “Love your enemies,” said Jesus: if you simply love your own kind, this is purely self-interest and a form of group egotism. The traditions also insist that it is the daily, hourly practice of compassion -not the adoption of the correct “beliefs” or the correct sexuality- that will bring us into the presence of what is called God, Nirvana, Brahman or the Dao. Religion is thus inseparable from altruism.

So why aren’t religious people compassionate? What does that say about them? Compassion is not a popular virtue. Many religious people prefer to be right rather than compassionate. They don’t want to give up their egos. They want religion to give them a little mild uplift once a week so that they can return to their ordinary selfish lives, unscathed by the demands of their tradition. Religion is hard work; not many people do it well. But are secularists any better? Many secularists would subscribe to the compassionate ideal but are just as selfish as religious people. The failure of religious people to be compassionate doesn’t tell us something about religion, but about human nature. Religion is a method: you have to put it into practice to discover its truth. But, unfortunately, not many people do.

Much of the "new" critique of religion by the 'neo-atheists' like Harris and Dawkins centers on the harm that they see has been done in the name of religion or has been caused by religion. Perhaps, though, they miss the real point. It is not the failure of the religions and the religious teaching that should be emphasized, but the failure of human beings to live in the way that the religions teach. What do you think?

Once more with Rauschenbusch

I hope the quotations from this giant of 19th and 20th centuries Christianity whetted your appetite to learn more about him. I guess I started thinking about him as our country nears the Presidential elections. It seems every election cycle is about change in some way. In my youth, JFK embodied change as few had done before. Jimmy Carter was a statement about change after the Nixon and Ford administrations. Reagan represented change after Carter. And on it went.

One thing to consider is what kind of change we, as a nation, want and in what areas do we want to see change. For people of faith, Walter Rauschenbusch has a word. I am dependent here on the November 27, 2007 Christian Century article by Gary Dorrien.

First, Rauschenbusch was a realist. He understood much about the limitations of good intentioned people. From his book, Christianity and Social Crisis, he wrote, "We must not blink at the fact that idealists alone have never carried through any great social change ... The possessing classes rule by force and longstanding power. They control nearly all property. The law is on their side, for they have made it ... For a definite historical victory a given truth must depend on the class which makes that truth its own and fights for it."

Second, despite his realism, he recognized what he believed to be important and was willing to struggle for it. From the same book, he wrote, "We shall never have a perfect social life, yet we must seek it with faith ... At best there is always an approximation to a perfect social order. The kingdom of God is always but coming. But every approximation to it is worthwhile."

Maybe we people of faith should ask who will do a better job of bringing about an approximation of the Kingdom of God where justice and peace reigns and then vote.

Taste of Raushenbusch

Not many people outside of theological circles know Walter Rauschenbusch. Yet, he was a major force at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. He is credited with being one of the major leaders in the "Social Gospel" movement, which called the church to be active in alleviating social injustice.

In a very small way, let me introduce you who read this blog to him by sharing some quotes:

Christianity is in its nature revolutionary.

Every generation tries to put its doctrine on a high shelf where the children can not reach it.

Whoever sets any bounds for the reconstructive power of the religious life over the social relations and institutions of men, to that extent denies the faith of the Master.

Sin is a social force. It runs from man to man along the lines of social contact. Its impact on the individual becomes most overwhelming when sin is most completely socialized. Salvation too, is a social force. It is exerted by groups that are charged with divine will and love ... A full salvation demands a Christian social order which will serve as the spiritual environment of the individual.

The saving of the lost, the teaching of the young, the pastoral care of the poor and frail, the quickening of starved intellects, the study of the Bible, church union, political reform, the reorganization of the industrial system, international peace - it was all covered by the one aim of the Reign of God on earth.

Faith and Doubt

Peter Steinfels is a regular contributor on matters religious to The NY Times. I heartily recommend all who might read this blog to go to the Times website and search for his name. You will greatly rewarded.

In Saturday's on-line edition (July 19), he reflects on a 2007 book written by Charles Taylor entitled A Secular Age. Steinfels described the book as "[Taylor's] formidable exploration of how the conditions of religious belief — and of unbelief, too — have changed for modern Westerners."

One section from Steinfels' column was particularly striking to me. "Far more than in the past, Mr. Taylor writes, believers must live their faith 'in a condition of doubt and uncertainty.' Religious thinkers, of course, have long argued that uncertainty and faith are not the polar opposites often supposed; that indifference, and not doubt, for example, is the greater adversary of faith; that absolute certitude about God often reflects a dangerous arrogance."

I have long argued that faith and doubt can be held simultaneously by the religious person. I believe the confession of faith in Mark 9:24 - of the man who was seeking help for his son and who said "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief" - is the most honest confession of faith contained in the Biblical text. Paul Tillich, one of the great 20th century theologians, wrote about the component of doubt in all faith.

The recent Pew Center study on the nature of religious thought among Americans stated that 92% of Americans believed in God or a universal Spirit. Of those, 71% claimed they were absolutely certain of this. While it would not fit in a phone interview format, I would want to ask, "What do you mean when you say that you are absolutely certain of this?"

So, let me ask you. Do you believe in a God or universal Spirit? If so, how certain of that are you - absolutely, fairly, not too, or not at all? Finally, does that certainty ever waver?