The Talk and the Walk

How do you know when to keep silent and when to talk about your faith? (Serendipity Bible 10^th Anniversary Edition, page 1385).

This is a remarkable easy question, for we all know there's a time to cease with the talk and just walk the walk—when the most eloquent speech is action. There's a time to articulate purpose with some completeness and there's a time to roll up one's sleeves and execute purpose with silent determination. Each represents a stage of faith. One is preliminary and is the honing of conceptual integrity, the other is practical and the visible enactment of commitment. This applies not only to matters of faith but is a process with broad testimonials from experience. If a family is planning a trip, there's a time for discussion and negotiation of interests, but at some advanced stage in the process there comes a time to set the alarm for wee hour departure. At some point an identified purpose becomes a duly enacted purpose. A family's history should then involve not only accounts of the trip, but the process leading up to the trip. Often in retrospect we overlook the process that identifies purpose and dwell entirely on the travel. This is a bias of history that must be resisted. Yesterday I mentioned the Bill of Rights. Surely their enactment should not overlook the preliminary coalescence of commitments propounding the elements most favorable for human nurture.

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How Pragmatism Entails Faith

August Kekulé described the eureka moment when he realized the structure of benzene:

I was sitting, writing at my text-book; but the work did not progress; my thoughts were elsewhere. I turned my chair to the fire and dozed. Again the atoms were gamboling before my eyes. This time the smaller groups kept modestly in the background. My mental eye, rendered more acute by the repeated visions of the kind, could now distinguish larger structures of manifold conformation: long rows, sometimes more closely fitted together; all twining and twisting in snake-like motion. But look! What was that? One of the snakes had seized hold of its own tail, and the form whirled mockingly before my eyes. As if by a flash of lightning I awoke; and this time also I spent the rest of the night in working out the consequences of the hypothesis. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouroboros).

Ever “defend your faith”? How well did you do? How could you give a better answer for the hope you have (1Pe 3:15-16)? Serendipity Bible 10^th Anniversary Edition, page 1385).

Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it. But do this in a gentle and respectful way. Keep your conscience clear. Then if people speak against you, they will be ashamed when they see what a good life you live because you belong to Christ. Remember, it is better to suffer for doing good, if that is what God wants, than to suffer for doing wrong! (1Pe:15-17 NLT).

As an American I speak with special privileges. In America we have freedom of speech which is a law that ultimately derives from respect and empathy for all (for if I desire freedom of speech for myself, I must desire it for others). Therefore, I will discuss my faith in this spirit—with due respect and regard for the nonbeliever.

First I will point out the last sentence in the above Scripture verse: “Remember, it is better to suffer for doing good, if that is what God wants, than to suffer for doing wrong!” Suffering is a common condition of mankind, and it is for us to decide not whether we will suffer, but for what cause will we suffer.

The second thing I will identify is the most persuasive approach that one can take in American—and that is pragmatism. Americans are interested above all in what works. You may counter that this is clearly not the case. Americans devised the Bill of Rights before definitive proof was in that this approach is best. I agree with you totally. They looked at the lessons of history and proceeded not with abject proof, but with a measure of faith.

I believe that love is the better way—not because I have abject proof that it is, but because of experience as well as a measure of faith. The key component of a rationale for faith is reliance on a time-line. That is, as a measure of suffering is part of the human condition, I must never say that faith is a way to avoid all suffering. I can only say that faith in a context of love gives meaning to suffering and in the last analysis brings upon us less suffering in the long run. In the short run one can defend almost anything with only a modicum of rationalization. But faith always looks for the greater good in the long-run (ultimately, in the realm of eternity). Thus, for example, one can rationalize almost any short-run approach for raising children. But only the disciplines of nurturing love will reap abundance of life for the child in the long-run—and while this statement is based on experience, it depends as well on a heaping measure of faith—as surely as instituting and implementing the Bill of Rights takes on a measure of faith. That which is truly pragmatic must always encompass the long-view, so paradoxically pragmatism must always look beyond the here and now and what is demonstrable into the future filled with uncertainty and the exigencies of faith. Thus, in a sense, pragmatism functions as an ouroboros. Like faith, it always entails a measure of circular reasoning.  Or, as the God of Love stated—I am that I am.

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The Necessity of Jesus' Death

How do you explain the necessity of Jesus' death to a nonbeliever? (Serendipity Bible 10^th Anniversary Edition, page 1387).

It was necessary for Jesus to die (and for his crucifixion to remain relevant today) because he was a kind, considerate, compassionate man with one or two unfortunate traits. One of these traits was that he told the truth. Another was that he did not compromise the truth (as is commonly done) to gain security—social acceptance, wealth, prestige, or power. He believed that his needs would be taken care of as the birds of the air or the flowers in the field have their needs addressed. Since mankind is endlessly making compromises to gain a sense of social security, it lethally resented this man who did not play by the rules but in fact effectively employed freedom of speech and freedom of action with no shadings of calculation or fear. That is, his mere presence came to have a deeply chilling effect on the game of life (which game had become the ultimate end of life) as it had come to be accepted and assiduously played. It was a piece of cake for his ethically sold-out and fear-motivated contemporaries to devise various rationales to justify the death of this one truly free man. He was so singularly exceptional that some came to believe that he was indeed the Son of God.

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Categorical Security

 

 

I know of people that have a fetish about making their beds in the morning. It is highly significant and necessary for them to complete this initial “little routine” in order to start each day with the feeling that everything is in its place and with an undergirding sense of mastery. This psychological buttress enables them to tackle bigger, more important projects during the day.

In a sense this is similar to the feelings of control and mastery we get from putting all things in categories. In many ways this can absolutely further the human enterprise. Categorizing all life, for example, increases the ability to understand it and to subjugate it to further human influence, manipulation, and control. This is also true for the physical elements.

Huge problems arise, however, when this same sense of comprehension and control derives from categorizations that are essentially projections of our own ignorance, hateful passions, and prejudices. For example, great psychological energy, confidence, and mastery were derived from Nazi antisemitism. The Nazi's knew a Jew then they saw one and therefore categorically knew all about them and felt totally justified in manipulating them at will. Human nature is with uncanny adeptness able to substitute falsehood for truth and to feel absolutely complacent, content, secure, and self-satisfied about it.

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The Government – Family Dynamic

The dynamic between the institution of the family and that of government or politics is richly modulated. When one looks upon Jesus and his disciples with his Heavenly Father we see strong predilections for the family. Jesus consistently refused to enter politics but remained true to his family ties and his Heavenly Father. In America a classic example of where politics was co-joined with family was the Kennedy years. It was a Camelot in the sense that it united the institution of family with that of politics—the White House was not only a governmental building but a family home; it united conference rooms with intimate tours of living rooms. In England the Royal Family serves the function of uniting government with family. Quite intentionally England relegates politics to one wing of the house of government and family to the other.

It is always a challenge and the source of yearning to share the best of the family institution with that of government. We yearn for brotherhood, for the daily necessity and exercise of forgiveness, for some sense of intimacy and love even on a national level. While government can never supplant the family nor can the family supplant government—these are two different divinely ordained institutions each with unique responsibilities and privileges—nevertheless both stand beholding to God in their own way for their own purposes. Two obvious examples of responsibility divergence are the family responsibility of reproduction and the government responsibility of sustaining police power.

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The Awesome Communicator

When you pray, don’t babble on and on as people of other religions do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him! (Matthew 6:7-8 NLT).

What is the price of two sparrows—one copper coin? But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows. (Matthew 10:29-31 NLT).

For believers a key attribute of faith is that God is an awesome communicator. Not only does he read each and every email we write to him, he knows our thoughts even before we sit down to write. And for believers this is not a one-way street, but we believe that God also communicates with us through an assortment of intimations—be they promptings of the conscience to illuminating dreams and inclinations. Nonbelievers cannot conceive of such a communicator and dismiss it as folderol and rationalization. Decisive proof in this matter is no doubt a long way off. From a believer's point of view the great rationalization of atheists is that the creativity of man is delimited and explained by the human frame alone. Believers see such a point of view as extreme and reductive and an arbitrary curtailment of vision.

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Different Gods in America?

Yesterday I heard a member of the Republican party say that the Bible says “The poor will always with us” and that “Those who don't work don't eat.” Sometimes I think believers in God are reluctant to raise an obvious fact: we all use the name “God”, but we do not all believe in the same God. “God” can be used as a bludgeon to keep down those who Jesus always helped—the outcast, downtrodden, and the poor. Often it is said that we all are attempting to arrive at the same high place of abundance, we just have different paths up the mountain to get there. I call this into question. This suggests the only difference between us is some rational agenda and not fundamental differences of the spirit and the heart. Unfortunately it is becoming increasingly clear that mean spiritedness has gained ascendancy in the Republican party and it is time to challenge their proclivity to cloak themselves in self-righteous God-talk when their religion has little semblance to the God of love and the spirit of Christ.