faith

Review: The Search for God and Guinness

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god and guinness

The Search for God and Guinness, Stephen Mansfield. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2014.

Summary: A history of beer, of the Guinness family and the history of Guinness from its beginnings, and the faith that that motivated the social goods pursued by many of the family members who led the company, and others in the family line.

Unlike the author, who came from a family of teetotalers, I came from a family that enjoyed a good beer in moderation. Most of the beers I grew up with were American beers and often my response to them was “meh.” It wasn’t until recent years that I discovered Guinness, and concluded, that this is what I’ve always thought beer should taste like.

So my curiosity was piqued when I came across this book in a second-hand store. I happen to love God and like Guinness and so I wanted to see how these two went together. Along the way, Stephen Mansfield took me on a delightful journey on the history of beer, including the long line of saints who enjoyed a good brew including the Pilgrims, Saints Patrick, Bartholomew, Brigid, and Columbanus, Charlemagne, Martin Luther, John Calvin and John Wesley. He traces the origins of beer, the science of brewing, and the different types of beer. A fascinating side note of this history is how beer provided a much more temperate alternative to the gin palaces and other forms of hard liquor that spelled the ruin of many.

Mansfield traces the beginning of the Guinness brewery with Arthur Guinness’s purchase in 1759 of a derelict brewery at St. James Gate, Dublin, including his bold move to increase the size of pipes carrying water from the River Liffey to his brewery and “defend it by force of arms.” Guinness had learned the art of brewing from his father, brewing small amounts for an inn, and starting a small brewing operation before taking over the derelict brewery in Dublin. Influenced by George Whitfield, he used profits from his growing brewery to fund the growing Sunday School movement.

From these promising beginnings, Mansfield traces the growth of the Guinness brewery through the generations, and the good family leadership it enjoyed in each generation. There was the key decision to focus on stout and improvements in the scientific brewing of that stout, the transport and storage of the product that provided consistent high quality wherever it was served in the world, and in the twentieth century, the advertising campaigns that made the brand ever-more popular. Among those working on these campaigns was Dorothy L. Sayers.

Most striking in this narrative is the care the company showed toward its workers, providing medical care for employees, families and even widows, housing, and superior wages (as well as a couple free pints a day of stout). During wars they guaranteed the jobs of servicemen, and paid families half salaries while their men were in service. In many respects, including employee education programs, their policies exceeded today’s most progressive companies.

The other intriguing aspect of this book is that while many of the leaders of the brewery were Christians who employed their wealth and position not only to benefit their workers but wider Dublin society, there was also a branch of the family, the Grattan Guinnesses marked for their pursuit of ministry and world missions activity. Mansfield gives us a thumbnail biography of Henry Grattan Guinness, an evangelist who was easily the equal of D. L. Moody. Mansfield notes that the definitive biography of this man remains to be written.

In more recent years, the company diversified and passed from Guinness family leadership and experienced some scandals. Mansfield doesn’t focus much attention on this and handles lightly any problems in the history of the family. He does imply that the long focus on brewing stout was a strength of the company that was lost as they diversified. The emphasis throughout is on the growth of the company, and the positive contributions made by this family, and the influence their faith played in the good works accomplished through their wealth and influence. So I would treat this account as entertaining and informative but not definitive history.

The book concludes with an epilogue that summarizes “the Guinness Way” in five principles:

  1. Discern the ways of God for life and business.
  2. Think in terms of generations yet to come.
  3. Whatever else you do, do at least one thing very well.
  4. Master the facts before you act.
  5. Invest in those you would have invest in you.

This suggests another value of this book, as an example of a business that does well by doing good along several key dimensions from its spiritual compass, to thinking beyond the next quarter, to having a laser focus, quality strategic planning, and respecting the dignity of workers, investors, and customers. While technologies and markets change, it might well be argued that these basics do not, but may be more crucial than ever.

Thinking and Believing

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Caravaggio_-_The_Incredulity_of_Saint_Thomas

The Incredulity of St. Thomas by Caravaggio. Public Domain

I help people discover how it is possible to both think and believe.

This is often what I say when people ask me what I do. I work in a Christian collegiate ministry with graduate students and university faculty. I say this because it is not obvious either inside the church or inside the university that one person may do both.

In the university world, it is often thought that if one is serious about thinking, that this rules out believing. One study, by sociologist Elaine Ecklund, found that only 36 percent of university professors still claim some form of belief in God whereas 90 percent of the American public does. Sometimes this has to do with the perceived conflict between science and faith, most often due to the evolution wars in this country. Yet there are leading biologists like Francis Collins, who led the effort to map the human genome, for whom this has never been a problem. Sometimes this is a consequence of what I call, “stupid things done in Jesus name.” For some, the wounds they have experienced at the hands of Christians are serious. And sometimes, I’ve met people who simply do not want there to be a God.

I also find that some really do not think authentic faith has room for authentic questions. And yet questions are at the heart of what a university does. Jesus loved questions. He loved it when his disciples asked him questions. And he probably asked more questions than anyone in the New Testament. He even asked questions in response to questions! This runs so contrary to the idea that a person who believes has lots of answers and lots of certainty. For me, it is much more the case of finding someone who I can really trust with my questions, and who often uses questions to transform me and my outlook on the world, if I am patient and persistent enough with them.

Sadly, I’ve often found the church to equally be a place where, if one is serious about belief, it means that one must rule out much of what some people think. Often it comes in the form of some conflict with what we understand the Bible to be saying. Most often, I’ve found the conflict to be apparent rather than real, more often the result of trying to make the Bible answer questions its’ writers didn’t intend to answer. Sometimes there are real conflicts, but then there are also real anomalies in the data of any field, and the worst thing you can do is force a solution, as much as you’d like to “neaten” things up. And sometimes, the conflict is really one between cultural ways of life in society and the counter-cultural life of God’s people. Here, it seems, the answer is to not simply ask what but why–to understand the reasons behind a different way of living.

I think it is equally the case here that people struggle with the idea that an authentic life of faith does not have room for questions. Yet in the gospels, I see that faith is acting on what one does know about God or Christ, even while asking about what one does not know. After all, none of us gets to one hundred percent certainty about anything. We live and act on knowledge about which we have far less than 100 percent certainty all the time.

To the contrary of what some think, I am convinced that the life of faith may actually open up the life of thought and research. First of all, at the heart of the formative practices of Christian faith is the practice of attentiveness, first of all to God, but also to one’s own life, one’s neighbor, and one’s world. Often, attentiveness is the seedbed in which the curiosity that leads to good questions grows. And good questions are at the heart of good research. Don’t get me wrong. I know lots of people who are not believers who are attentive and ask good questions. I’m simply saying that the attentive life that flows from faith prepares us to be attentive, whether in the lab or the art studio, or when we are studying a musical score or a balance sheet or statistical table.

I could go on. The conviction that we worship and follow the one who is Truth ought make us dogged in the pursuit of truth, because we really believe it is out there, and isn’t just a masquerade for who has power. The paradoxes of the faith–the incarnation, the Trinity, humans as the imago dei and yet as finite and fallen–leads, I believe to a flexibility or suppleness in thinking that is open to the answer being “both this and this” rather than an oppositional binary. Certainly, the belief in a Creator who thinks (the ultimate, it seems to me, reconciliation of believing and thinking), gives a powerful rationale for hypothesizing theories, and searching for lawful order in the cosmos, and even for the power of mathematics to map onto the physical world.

At the end of the day, however, what I am about is not an argument about whether it is possible to think and believe. Rather, what I am about is deeply desiring that my friends engaged in the “heavy lifting” of academic or professional life are able to live with this deep sense that the joy they experience in the joining of prayerful pursuit of knowledge and attentive inquiry, the wonder of those “aha” moments, is the pleasure of the Creator upon them, for which they were made.

St Irenaeus wrote:

The glory of God is man fully alive; moreover man’s life is the vision of god: if God’s revelation through creation has already obtained life for all the beings that dwell on earth, how much more will the Word’s manifestation of the Father obtain life for those who see God.”

My longing? Human beings fully alive discovering in the creation of God the glory of God, bringing thought and belief together. That is joy indeed.

Review: Salvation by Allegiance Alone

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Salvation by Allegiance Alone

Salvation by Allegiance Alone, Matthew W. Bates. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017.

Summary: Argues that the words we translate as “belief” or “faith” are better translated as “allegiance” and that the focal point of the gospel is not simply being forgiven for sins or obtaining eternal life, but allegiance to King Jesus.

Matthew Bates thinks the understanding of salvation by faith is rooted in a poor choice of words to translate the idea of pistis in the Greek. A better understanding of this word might be “allegiance” or “faithfulness.” Part of the problem that he sees is a lack of focus on how the resurrection of Jesus and his ascension vindicate him as the King who has come and that the only appropriate response to this King is our full allegiance, both initially and through life, and that this restoration to our true allegiance is what constitutes our salvation which certainly includes pardon for our rebellious sin but encompasses so much more. Bates summarizes his case as follows:

“So, in the final analysis, salvation is by allegiance alone. That is, God requires nothing more or nothing less than allegiance to Jesus as king for initial, current, and final salvation. As such, while continuing to affirm the absolute centrality of the cross, the atonement, and the resurrection, the church must move away from a salvation culture that spins around the axis of ‘faith alone’ in the sufficiency of Jesus’s sacrifice. It must move toward a gospel culture that centers upon “allegiance alone” to Jesus as the enthroned king. With the Apostles Creed as a pledge of allegiance, the rallying cry of the victorious church can become ‘We give allegiance to Jesus the king.’ For as the creed reminds us, Jesus the Christ is ‘our Lord’ and he ‘is seated at the right hand of God’ and as such he both merits and demands our undeserved loyalty.”

One might note several emphases in this summary that Bates develops in different chapters of the book. One is an understanding of the gospel as reflected in the Apostles Creed, which he thinks ought regularly be recited in our churches as a king of “pledge of allegiance.” He identifies eight elements in the gospel of Jesus the king:

  1. He pre-existed with the Father.
  2. He took on human flesh, fulfilling God’s promises to David.
  3. He died for sins in accordance with scripture.
  4. He was buried.
  5. He was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.
  6. He appeared to many.
  7. He is seated at the right hand of God as Lord.
  8. He will come again as judge.

Bates contends that these last statements as well as the pre-existence of Jesus rarely are part of our gospel messages and that we thus fail to properly set forth Jesus as God’s anointed Messiah King.

This also informs his understanding of justification. Bates understands justification as tied up with God’s vindication of the son, crucified for sin in his resurrection and ascension to God’s right hand. Through our union with Christ, we share in that vindication, that justification, both instantaneously through our allegiance to Christ, and increasingly through life as we stay with Christ, which he calls “restoring the idol of God” reflecting all and more than we were made to be through Christ. He, along with Wright and others, also observes that the future hope of Christians is resurrection life with Christ in the new creation, not some vague hope of heaven.

He deals with objections, foremost of which is the idea of allegiance as a “work.” So much of his case hinges on the thinness of how we often discuss belief, which seems mere intellectual assent or some kind of trust in Jesus without any further obligation. He contends that faith is in fact a human response to the grace of God, no matter how defined, and that allegiance fills this out as the form of loyal trust appropriate to servants of the Risen King.

I do think the title may de-center the proper focus of allegiance. The focus seems to be on “allegiance alone” but this is dangerous and de-centered if we do not focus on “allegiance to whom?” It is Christ who saves and restores. Just as it has been observed that faith is not “faith in faith” so here we need to avoid “allegiance to allegiance.” While the title makes a polemical point, we might more accurately say “by allegiance alone through grace alone in Christ the King alone.”

I find several things helpful in this work. One is that it addresses the question of “cheap faith” that does not seem to eventuate in any kind of transformed life, often because the person does not think or expect that this follows. Another is that it does reflect the full gospel that the church has confessed through history, the gospel of the king and his kingdom and sets our pardon for sin in the context of being restored subjects, indeed vice-regents, in his kingdom. Finally, and Bates alludes to this, the idea of allegiance may address the sharp divides around grace, faith, justification and works that have separated Protestant and Catholic for five hundred years. The focus on scripture and creed to understand these things may point the way forward. We can hope.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

 

 

Review: Reclaiming Hope

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Reclaiming Hope

Reclaiming Hope, Michael Wear. Nashville: Nelson Books, 2017.

Summary: Written by an Obama staffer in his Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and faith outreach director in his 2012 campaign, this is not only a narrative of that work, but also an exploration of controversial decisions made by this administration, and how Christians might think of the possibilities and practice of political involvement.

Michael Wear got involved in Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign after following his rise in politics following the 2004 Democratic convention speech that brought Obama to national attention. After the election, he was appointed as a staff member in the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships under Joshua DuBois. He worked in this office, contributing to efforts to provide tax breaks for adoptions and commitment of the administration to actively fighting human trafficking. He completed his service in the Obama administration heading up the 2012 faith outreach efforts during the presidential campaign. This book discusses that work, which ended with the second inauguration, after which he launched a consulting firm.

It begins with the idealism that surrounded the election of Obama, and the early hopes of an inclusive politics. He highlights Obama’s defense of the inclusion of Rick Warren against people who opposed him for his support of California’s Proposition Eight. An administration that started with a concern to include differing views at the table changed as the Affordable Care Act legislation worked its way through Congress. Concerns about abortion, and the unbending resistance on the contraceptive mandate aroused a sense that the administration was engaged in a war on religion.

Likewise, Wear wrestles with seemingly sincere statements about religious faith and support of traditional marriage by candidate Obama, only for him to “evolve” to a different position, eventually supporting gay marriage, with evidence that this had been the end goal all along. It causes him to wrestle with some of his own work, including speech-writing research that drew on his knowledge of religious audiences.

In reading this, one has a sense of missed opportunities, by both the Obama administration and the political opposition, that led to a hardening of attitudes and deepening of divides. Yet for all this, Wear is neither bitter nor disillusioned. His last two chapters concern the theme of hope. The first of these concerns the error of placing hope in politics. Here he recounts a fascinating interchange between writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Washington pastor Thabiti Anyabwile over this subject. In the final chapter he talks about the important role Christians, who do not put their ultimate hope in politics, can play in reclaiming hope for engagement in the process–hope that is committed, seeks justice, and is humble. He contends there is important work to be done and for Christians to come together around in both racial justice issues and religious freedom.

This last was particularly striking. It seems like these often are treated in a mutually exclusive fashion–you can only be for one or the other. Yet we are in fact in a country where there are both deep racial inequities, and where religious freedom faces real threats. Rather than accepting partisan binaries, why not stand together in a both-and fashion on this and other issues? Similarly, he contends that since marriage has been extended to same sex partners, why not strengthen the incentives for others to marry as well and revisit the ease with which we grant divorce?

Against a temptation in the current toxic climate to withdraw, he writes:

    “In the face of hopelessness, Christians cannot withdraw from their neighbors, under the impression that they are unwanted and so grant what they think the world wants. We do not love our neighbor for affirmation, but because we have been loved first. Now is not the time to withdraw, but to refine our intentions and pursue public faithfulness that truly is good news.”

Wear has given us a thoughtful book about political engagement, one where we see his own growth, and yet one that does not end, like so many, in disillusion or bitterness. He models the deep resources Christian faith brings to sustain a resilience when one faces deep disappointment, opposition, or simply the realization that the road is a long one. While written out of the context of a Democratic administration, it is not a partisan version of faith in politics, but one that any thoughtful Christian, no matter their party affiliation, may read with profit.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: Praying at Burger King

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praying-at-burger-kingPraying at Burger King, Richard J. Mouw. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007.

Summary: Short essays on the life of faith in the world, originally appearing on beliefnet.com, and several other publications.

Richard Mouw is the former president of Fuller Theological Seminary and one of the more thoughtful and irenic commentators in evangelicalism today. This little book, with its unusual title and book cover is a great way to get acquainted with Mouw. He has collected a number of short (most are three pages or so) essays from contributions to Christianity Today, Perspectives, and posts on his blog and on beliefnet.com.

The essays are grouped under three categories: living, believing, and church and world. They are written in a conversational style yet cast a fresh light on some familiar aspect of Christian faith. The title essay has to do with the practice of prayers before meals, and Mouw’s recognition that Burger King is one of those places where God is indeed present and so he will keep acknowledging that. The next essay gives equal time to competitor McDonald’s and an insight of how important it is to talk with youth that translates into caring for the indifferent youth who is serving his burger the next time he is at the airport McDonald’s. Subsequent essays in this first section include reflections on Halloween, Lent, Machiavelli, integrity, greed and a number of other everyday matters from housekeeping to the “ordinary” work of a researcher. He speaks simply about how we often subconsciously bracket off the “stuff” of scholarly work from the “spiritual” life when in fact “every square inch” (as Kuyper would put it) belongs to the Lord.

In the second section, three essays caught my attention. In “Entrenched” he observes how this label is often applied to conservatives when in fact everyone is interested in “conserving something” and may be liable to trench digging. He proposes that we might consider a better, more biblical metaphor of “the way” in which we’ve chosen to walk through life, something we are all doing, whether or not we are all walking in the same way. In “He Did Weep,” he writes about Jesus not simply at Lazarus tomb, but in the manger at Christmas. True incarnation involved a crying baby, experiencing the discomforts of all human babies, contrary to “Away in a Manger.”  His sensitive response to a student’s troubled questions in “What about Hell?” and the distinction he made between those who think they are too good to be condemned by God, and those who consider God too good to punish are responses I will remember for similar conversations.

In the third section, his essay on “Eating Alone,” inspired by Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone notes the great dangers that come to us in our increasing isolation from social organizations, the mediating institutions, that once were a significant part of the fabric of belonging. I’m surprised how many writers are sounding this theme, which may truly be one of the great perils of our age. He also includes some beautiful essays about his encounters with Catholicism and some thoughts about “Patriotism” that are balanced and measured and worthy of consideration wherever you are on the political spectrum.

Mouw’s irenic voice is one we need in our time of ambivalent triumphalism on one side and anguished resistance on another. He explores the everyday acts of faithful Christian presence in the real world we inhabit. These essays feel to me to be “dispatches from another place” than where we usually live that call us to both our true selves, and the true north of our faith.

 

Thinking Politically

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In this season of presidential primaries where the news is saturated with politics (and you haven’t seen it until you’ve lived in a swing state like Ohio!) it is easy to go to one extreme or the other. Either we become rabid partisans or we disengage. As someone committed to what I call Third Way thinking, I actually think it is worth thinking about how our first principles shape how we look at the political order and how we engage with politics.

So I thought I would share some of the books that I’ve read in recent years that may be helpful. Most are written by those who I would describe as thoughtful Christians. There are some who read this who might consider that an oxymoron. I hope if you peruse a few of these books, or even my reviews, you might think otherwise. And if you are a Christian, I hope you will consider taking the opportunity of this political season to re-examine your thinking about these matters. Is your mind shaped by media or by Christ?

Christian Political WitnessChristian Political Witness, George Kalantzis and Gregory W. Lee, eds. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2014. A collection of essays from a theology conference looking at ways the church has related to the political order. My review.

17293092 (1)Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power, Andy Crouch. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2013. This a broader question than politics, that of power and whether it is possible to use power redemptively. My review.

public squareThe Global Public Square, Os Guinness. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2013. Guinness explores the commitments necessary to preserve freedom of conscience in a diverse public square. My review.

good of politicsThe Good of Politics, James W. Skillen. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014. He argues that our political life is rooted in creation rather than the fall and how this might shape our engagement in politics, with lots of examples from contemporary issues. My review.

to change the worldTo Change the World, James Davison Hunter. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Hunter argues that we often work from inadequate assumptions about the nature of change and place too great a stock in the political order as an agent of change. My review.

A Public FaithA Public Faith, Miroslav Volf. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2011. Volf also uses “third way” language in laying our four propositions for how Christians might work in a diverse public square. My review.

AllahAllah: A Christian Response, Miroslav Volf. New York: Harper Collins, 2010. Not so much about politics but one of the contentious issues of this election–how we relate to Islam. Volf contends Christians and Muslims worship the same God, albeit with different understandings. Whether you agree with this contention or not, a thought-provoking read. My review.

The Religion of DemocracyThe Religion of Democracy, Amy Kittelstrom. New York: Penguin Press, 2015. This book traces the “American Reformation” of Christianity through the lives of seven key figures spanning the late eighteenth to early twentieth century, in which adherence to creed shifted to the dictates of personal judgment and the focus shifted from eternal salvation to ethical conduct reflecting a quest for moral perfection and social benefit. Good for understanding our American civil religion. My review.

ImmigrationImmigration: Tough Questions, Direct Answers, Dale Hanson Bourke. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2014. Third in “The Skeptics Guide Series” and like others in the series provides a concise overview of basic facts about immigration and discusses the challenges of immigration policy in the United States. My review.

Politics of JesusThe Politics of Jesus, John Howard Yoder. Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, rev. ed. 1994. This is perhaps a classic Anabaptist statement that argues that the church, rather than becoming engaged with the political order, is one. A caveat comes with this book. Yoder, who died in 1997, was the object of numerous charges of sexual abuse of women both at Goshen Biblical Seminary, and later at Notre Dame. Yet, and probably before these allegations came to light, Christianity Today named it in the Top Ten Books of the Twentieth Century.

This is hardly an exhaustive list of good books out there. Nor does it reckon with classic works like Augustine’s City of God, Aristotle’s Politics, and Plato’s Republic just to name a few. What strikes me as I review this list, is that it emphasizes both the importance of and yet limited function of the political order. Politics matters, but it is not everything. That itself may be an important perspective in these upcoming months.

I’d love it if you would add your recommendations in the comments! I always love to hear of books I haven’t read, and I suspect other readers would enjoy that as well!

 

 

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — The Three “F’s” of Christmas

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Nativity edited

Our nativity scene from my wife’s family

This will be my last new “Youngstown” post before Christmas. I thought I would take a few moments to reflect on the three “F’s” that defined Christmas for many of us who grew up in Youngstown: faith, family, and food.

Faith was important in many of our families. It was “the reason for the season.” It was about remembering the birth of Christ. We had Advent calendars in some of our families building our anticipation of Christmas eve and Christmas day. Many of us grew up dressing up as shepherds, wise men, or Joseph or Mary as we retold the story of the nativity. Some of us remember candlelight services concluding in candlelit darkness singing “Silent Night.”My wife remembers midnight masses where at midnight the baby Jesus was placed in the nativity scene at Sts. Cyril and Methodius Church.

Family gatherings were big in Youngstown. On my wife’s side, her father and his brothers all lived in the same part of town (Brownlee Woods and Poland) and the brothers would go from one house to another over the course of the holidays. I remember gatherings at my grandparents as a child with cousins from Texas and a living room full of people gathered around the Christmas tree (after we had gathered around the dining room table). We still have that table and buffet in our home, it having passed from my grandparents to my parents to us. Boy, my grandmother could cook, and I’m reminded of her whenever I see these pieces of furniture.

And that brings me to food, the third big part of any Youngstown Christmas. There were all those cookies  and candies–snowballs and rum balls, bow ties and clothes pins, pizzelles and kolachi, iced sugar cookies and peppermint bark. There was often a big dinner–a ham and sweet potatoes, or roast chicken or turkey and mashed potatoes. The challenge was often saving room for the next family gathering.

Faith, family, and food were important themes not just at Christmas but throughout the year in working class Youngstown. Faith wasn’t something you “wore on your sleeve” in some kind of showy way, but it was always a part of life. Families were hardly perfect, but somehow there for you when the chips were down and at any big life event. And good food (often accompanied with plentiful drink!) marked any celebration.

As I close, I would love to hear your memories of faith, family and food at Christmas. And I want to extend my own wishes that this upcoming holiday will be filled with all of the best for you! Merry Christmas, Youngstown!

Review: Questioning Your Doubts

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Questioning Your DoubtsQuestioning Your Doubts, Christina M. H. Powell. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2014.

Summary: This book comes out of the world of academic research and proposes that the process of questioning our doubts as well as our faith builds bridges of understanding deepening both our exercise of reason and confidence in our faith.

“We build too many walls and not enough bridges” –Isaac Newton.

Christina M. H. Powell grew up in Pittsburgh, a city of bridges spanning the hills and the three rivers that define the city. As a Christian inhabiting both the world of faith and science, she has concluded that part of her calling is to be a bridge builder. She holds a Ph.D in virology, having done her research at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard. And she is an ordained minister within the Assemblies of God church. In her own life she has bridged what often seems a divide, and an important element of living her calling has been learning to question doubt and to learn how to live with these questions.

She begins by noting that doubts can be both intellectual and experiential. She contends that doubt, particularly when questioned, can actually deepen rather than cripple our faith because we were made to think. She contends that it is important to understand the interplay of influences in our lives that shape how we think and experience. All these may lead to faith but can never replace it. Within this context, doubt may actually be a good thing that leads to discernment. As she notes, misgivings about a fad teaching may be a good thing that saves pursuing a course that can end badly. She points out how important questions are in the world of research, and in the ministry of Jesus, in solving problems and leading to truth.

Having considered the value of doubting and questioning and both the importance and limits of our rationality, she moves in the second part of the book to consider sources of doubt. One has to do with our limits as human beings to know and the discernment to know when pressing past these is courage, or folly. Another is the reality that there will be unanswered questions in our lives. She realistically explores the place of mystery, the challenges of suffering and pain, and the “closed doors” in our lives. To conclude this section, she teases out the ways disillusionment can masquerade as doubt, for example when we experience painful encounters in Christian community.

The last part of the book explores the resolution of doubts in our lives. She sees this not as pat answers but as a lived journey of authentic faith in the midst of our doubts, which may be more compelling to others than our most well-reasoned apologetic defenses. Sometimes, our efforts to make sense of our doubts require that we remember and retrace the steps that have brought us to our present place just as Jacob’s journey of flight and return required coming back to Beth-el where he first encountered Yahweh. She also talks about the fact that this is a journey in community, something that both scientists and saints through history have appreciated. She has a wonderful sketch of Michael Faraday, a rigorous experimentalist and also a preacher who practiced community both in his science and faith. She concludes that we should not be discouraged if we feel we are going through cycles or circles of doubt and questioning and faith, because the journey of faith is one that takes a life to complete.

There are two groups of people for whom I would especially commend this book. One is students, both undergraduate and graduate, who struggle with the apparent divides between what they believe and what they are studying. The other is pastors and seminarians who may be confronting their own doubts as well as the doubts of those they will pastor. The added benefit for this latter group is that the author’s journey helps develop a vision of how science and faith need not be in conflict with each other and what the world of scientific research is really like, knowledge often lacking in our local congregations. The fact that the author bridged these worlds in her own life and pursuit of calling gives us a narrative that “gets real” about reason, faith, and doubt and the value of questioning in building bridges of understanding.

To the building of more bridges and fewer walls….

I Will Not Vote For Fear

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By Elias Goldensky (1868-1943) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

By Elias Goldensky (1868-1943) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”  -Franklin D. Roosevelt, First Inaugural Address

It seems we have come a long ways, and not for the better, from this inaugural address given by Franklin Roosevelt in the depths of the Depression. It was a time where fear was palpable as people wondered about how they would feed their families, where they would find work. Roosevelt realized something that we might consider for our day — nameless, unreasoning fear paralyzes.

There are times when fear is good — when we recognize real danger, like stopped traffic and take action like hitting the brakes. Nor does what I am saying mean we don’t reckon with real dangers that we may face as a nation and take appropriate action–and go on with our lives. But we often get this far out of proportion and focus on things that are more distant threats while ignoring common sense things in front of us. We fear Ebola outbreaks when more die every month of heart disease due to poor diet and exercise (roughly 50,000 per month) than all who died in last year’s epidemic in west Africa, bad as it was. That’s what nameless and unreasoning fear does.

It seems that the political rhetoric, as well as news media stories, foster a state of free-floating fear in the populace. Cancer, epidemic, terrorism, guns and those who use them, Wall Street, immigrants, gays, homophobes, health insurance, the “liberals”, the “conservatives” are all objects of fear. In politics, it seems the basic tactic is to focus on a fear, summons our worst nightmares about that fear, and argue that if you elect the other man or woman, that’s what you will get. Along the way, we demonize a whole group of people, because a few from their group have done something horrendous.

We’ve created a politics of gridlock and a politics that pits our citizenry against itself rather than summoning us to listen to each other, to work together to solve real problems like our national infrastructure, whether physical or digital, and the perennial challenge of how we will raise our children to be people of character who have the skills and industry to foster the common good. In Roosevelt’s words, it seems we choose retreat rather than advance. By protecting ourselves from what we fear, we may also wall ourselves off from opportunity.

What troubles me most is when I see people of faith succumb to the politics of fear. A friend of mine observed that often the very first thing God says in encounters with human beings is “be not afraid.” Many of the Psalms chronicle the spiritual journey of people from fear of their circumstances to faith in the God who cares not only for the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, but also for the people made in God’s image. Somehow, living in a steady state of fear seems inconsistent with being a person who trusts in the care of God, and that the good, the true, and the beautiful will in the end endure.

Some time back I reviewed a book titled Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear that explores the culture of fear we have increasingly surrounded ourselves with. One of the most moving chapters is one describing the response of the Taize’ community to the brutal murder of Brother Roger by a mentally deranged person in the midst of their worship. Most of us would install metal detectors and have armed security available. This community decided that this would be to give way to fear instead of remaining a community of welcome and shalom.

For these reasons, I’m putting our politicians, and the media wizards who surround them, on notice that I will not vote for those who try to win my vote through fear-mongering. We can do better than that. Life is inherently unsafe, and the only true safety, at least from my faith perspective, is in the God who holds me in life and death. I want those who will call us, not to fear, but to both courage and compassion as a people, who appeal to “the better angels of our nature”, of which Abraham Lincoln spoke in his first inaugural address.

Is that too much to ask?

Doubt. . . And Belief

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"C.s.lewis3". Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

“C.s.lewis3“. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

One of the most troubling experiences for those of us who are people of faith comes when we face serious questions and doubts about that faith. Most often, these come unbidden. It may simply be that life happens and we wonder, “how can this be true and yet there be a good God?” It may be that we are pursuing a line of intellectual inquiry related to our calling and suddenly come smack up against something that poses questions about what we believed to be true–whether this concern the origins of life, or the nature of human freedom, or the rightness of certain convictions and the ways in which we have lived these out.

I think there are at least two aspects to what troubles us in these situations. One is that something, or even Someone, we have cherished as true and real is called into question–perhaps even the very existence of what we have loved is questioned. We do not want to lose what we have so loved, and has so made sense of our lives. The other troubling aspect for many of us, I think, is that we suspect that it is wrong, or there is something wrong in us, to have these questions and doubts.

In a book on C. S. Lewis, I came across some statements I find very helpful on this topic of doubt and belief. Lewis held that, “If it’s not true, God does not want you to believe it.” Clearly belief to him was not “believing in that which you know is not true.” Lewis rather believed in the thoughtful but not frantic effort to resolve the questions and doubts we face. He wrote, in a letter to Rhona Bodle:

“I don’t mean by this that you should cease to study and make enquiries: but that you should make them not with frantic desire but with cheerful curiosity and a humble readiness to accept whatever conclusions God may lead you to, (But always, all depends on the steady attempt to obey God all the time. ‘He who does the will of the Father shall know the doctrine.’)”

At another point he also writes her:

“No one can make himself believe anything, and the effort does harm. Nor make himself feel anything, and that effort also does harm. What is under our control is action and intellectual inquiry. Stick to that.”

From this I draw several insights that I have found helpful:

1. Implicit in all this is that doubt for Lewis is part of the life of faith, not antithetical to it. The antithesis of faith is unbelief, a refusal to act upon what one is convinced is true.

2. We cannot make ourselves not doubt and the frantic effort to do so only makes things worse, not better.

3. Nor should we go to the other extreme and make doubt a fashionable way station, something to be celebrated. Sometimes I fear that it is more preferable these days to talk about what we doubt and question, than what we believe and embrace, as if the latter person must always be a bit narrow-minded lacking in intellectual acuity or sensitivity.

4. Intellectual honesty is important. This means an openness to the truth, whatever that turns out to be, whether it confirms, re-shapes, or overturns what we have believed. Lewis never wanted people to believe if the evidence against their faith was stronger than that for it. At the same time, Lewis thought we should continue in our beliefs unless we were presented with cogent reasons to change them, even when we have questions and doubts.

5. For Lewis, part of the answer is disciplined intellectual work–meeting the doubts head on. Rarely do we come upon a question that others have not wrestled with, often deeply. No where is this more true than in the Bible itself. Philip Yancey makes the observation in a very thoughtful post on this subject that none of the famous atheists of the past or present raise questions that have not been raised and wrestled with in the pages of scripture. Beyond this, there are thoughtful people who have written on most of the questions that we face. To search prayerfully looking for God to give illumination about the things we struggle with is not to force a resolution but rather to express faith that God may meet us in our search.

6. The other part is disciplined obedience in what we know. The great command to love God and love our neighbor is not suspended by our doubts. Continuing in our own reading and prayer, our worship, our community with others and service are all ways we walk in the way of God who ultimately is the one to address our doubts.

What Lewis’s counsel emphasizes is that faith and doubt are not mutually exclusive. By “action and intellectual inquiry” we are expressing a trust that God rewards those who seek and who come to God with their questions. What I also appreciate is the recognition that belief is not merely a matter of intellectual assent but rather a deepening relational trust–a movement from believing “in” God to believing God, as we would a spouse or friend we trust deeply because of all we’ve shared together. What Lewis commends is an approach to doubt meant to take us into the knowing and being known that is the deepest longing of human beings, something never easily won, but worth the effort.