Becoming Un-Boxed

So there was a Priest, a Rabbi, and an Agnostic on the Morning Joe Fox News program this morning. They were addressing the subject of the existence of God in conjunction the coming Easter holiday.   It was interesting to see the misunderstanding each held of the belief system of the other groups.  It is one thing to disagree, but it is another to disagree with something the other does not even believe.  It seemed the Agnostic had much more to say against other perspectives, whereas the Priest and Rabbi mostly talked about their own views. 

I review a great many articles on-line and I often see Christians misrepresenting Atheism and Agnosticism as well as Atheists and Agnostics misrepresenting Christians or religion in general. I don’t think this is done intentionally, but ignorantly.

Moreover, it is seldom true that any one person fully embodies a particular box of that belief system and yet we greatly desire to fit them into an understandable concise mold. Definitions by their very nature are exclusive and confined. When applied to a thing, a definition can be quiet accurate, but when applied to a person it is unlikely it could be thus. Describing the beliefs of a person or a group of people is probably more appropriate than defining it as a closed system.

People often ask my husband and I what denomination we are, or what group of Christianity do we call our own, or what model does our church follow as far as church structure.  We find humor in the questions because it tells us much about the questioner.  What is being asked is “what box can I put you in?” 

My story does not lend itself to a box. I grew up in a Southern Baptist charismatic church that was affiliated with the International Pentecostal Holiness Church and often did joint events with Catholics and Methodists as well as other groups. I am now in a church that is not non-denominational or denominational, but relationally joined with an international ministry. We have no model, but endeavor to hear God and follow Him. 

I enjoy looking for truth in systems of belief others would dismiss as all wrong. I don’t think it possible for any belief to be 100% wrong.  I also think that the truth ensconced in an unorthodox package can be a rare gem at times and would have been missed if the package became a deterrent. 

I am not advocating pluralism or anything of that nature. It’s just that our differences do not need to define us and divide us into a box. Nor do our agreements need to be the basis of alignment. Instead our love for the truth and our love for one another should be what unite us regardless of our differences. We do not need to shed our differences or enter an understandable box in order to find camaraderie.

Moreover truth is not something that brings a confined sameness, but a unity in diversity. I can look at something from one perspective without ignoring the value of a multiplicity of perspectives. Not because two opposite perspectives can be equally true, but because my perspective, where true, is only a part of the whole. I need the other parts so that I can shed what is false and find greater truth in the unity of other perspectives.  If each of us do that we all move closer together to what is real and further away from what is false. 

The Substance of Faith

The etymology of the word “faith” commences circa 1250 and it meant "duty of fulfilling one's trust," and it derived from the Latin root word fied which essentially means "trust". Trust comes from the Old Norse word traust meaning confidence circa 1200. We use these words everyday, but sometimes we use them with a misconceived idea about them.

True faith should be built on trust and confidence in that which you have faith. We use faith/trust everyday. We have faith that brushing our teeth will reduce risk of cavities. We trust that our employer will supply our paycheck at the end of the pay period or else we would not be working for him. After repeatedly being rendered our paychecks we have confidence that we will continue to get reimbursed for the hours worked. We utilize faith, trust, and confidence in a myriad of ways everyday. However, our use of faith is not without reason. We have plenty of reasons to believe that brushing our teeth is advantageous. We have plenty of experiential reason to have confidence we will receive our due paycheck unless something gives us reason to cease having faith that we will receive our paycheck.

Why, then, when we step into the area of spirituality, do we not understand the use of faith and reason? Faith is not blind adherence to someone or something in the absence of evidence and reason. Faith is trust in someone or something based on the substance of the evidence that supports that faith. I have often observed a child leaping off the side of a pool into his father’s arms. The child has faith that daddy will catch him. He doesn’t absolutely know that nothing will prevent this from happening, but he knows daddy loves him and will protect him because daddy is that kind of person. A child like faith is not one of ignorance, but one of trust greater than many adults because adults have learned fear and that often rules their intellect more than their trust. To live a life not bound by fear and distrust is a wonderful freedom that can only come from being in the truth and love of God. Love, trust, faith all go hand in hand. Sure someone can put their trust in the wrong place; we see this happen all the time. But we also see those people who are so afraid that they trust no one and live a life bound to fear.

It is often said in Christian circles that it takes more faith to be an atheist because there is a greater leap to accept proof of a negative than proof of a positive. The only way you can know a negative is by knowing all things and being omniscient yourself. But the way you know a positive is by knowing that particular thing and not all things. I really don’t want to hear about unicorns and fairies in response to this statement. That doesn’t really address the matter. Nor am I using this an argument for God’s existence but more so an illustration of the leap of faith employed.

However, even in saying this it reaffirms the misuse of the word, faith. It isn’t really faith in the real sense of the word that is employed in believing in nothing, except maybe faith in one’s own intellect. It is a skepticism that leads to atheism, not really a faith. Faith and trust is absent, not because of lack of evidence, but because of skepticism. Atheists deny what they have not experienced even to the extent of discounting the experiences of others because they haven’t shared them.

The Christian puts his faith in God because he has come to know God is real, not as some would suggest, to come to know that God is real. Many think that faith is employed to posit God’s existence, but in reality it is employed after knowing God is real. An encounter with God doesn’t take faith, it’s the most real thing in the world when it happens and no one can shake that knowledge. It is then that faith rises for when you have come in contact with the living God you know that you know that He is real. Faith in Him can lead to deeper relationship with Him, but it is not a major factor in knowing He exists.

Proof that He is real is more an experiential matter than simply an intellectual matter. There is a plethora of intellectual arguments for and against His existence, but once you’ve encountered Him all arguments are secondary to the reality of that encounter.

I know a God who is in pursuit of humans with His love. He points to Himself in creation, in reason, in logic, in history, in revelation, in our emotions, in our desires, in our morality, in our creativity. He affirms who are we are and does not detract from who we are. The supernatural affirms and enhances the natural.

I am not merely asking that people accept only intellectual arguments for Christianity and join the club. I am suggesting that people can authentically truly experience the living God for themselves and come to know that Christianity is true. I don’t know God as a mere set of intellectual ideas and assumptions, I know him personally and relationally.

Faith isn’t something you muster up to believe in something unbelievable. It is the substance of trust in that which has become believable. I pray that you can find the way through the seas of uncertainty and set down your anchor into the firm foundation of truth that is knowable both cerebrally and experientially.

A Heart Cry To Christians

G.K. Chesterton wrote that “Christianity has never been tried and found wanting, but found difficult and untried.” However, I am increasingly encountering people who have tried Christianity in the manner it was offered to them and found it wanting for all it contained was empty religion and not authentic transforming power of life with Christ. Christians make grandiose claims about what the Christian life is supposed to look like and then we don’t deliver.

Unbelievers are asking good questions that deserve respectful reasonable answers and many Christians get defensive instead of helpful in this process of inquiry. Many Christians have not examined their own belief system to an extent where they are capable of reasonably answering questions about the faith they live. This is a sad reality.

Skeptics claim the burden of proof lies with the Christian. To a great extent, I agree. As a Christian, I owe people an encounter with God. Not only should I be prepared to give reasonable answers for the hope that I have in Christ Jesus, I should be a living testimony of that answer for He who is the Answer lives in me. If my claims are true, there should be apparent evidence of this reality in my life. If this evidence is non-existent, then people have a good reason to doubt my words.

We take our commission to be His witnesses for granted. We carry the hope of the world inside us and yet are practical atheist ourselves. We live as if God doesn’t exist much of the time. If we can live the life we are living without God’s help we are not living the way we were created to live. People are looking for truth and we throw them pat answers about how Jesus is the only way to God, but we fail to live supernatural lives that transcend man-made religion and truly exemplify the call of Christ.

Why should an unbeliever take any of our claims to heart when they look at Christianity and only see religion? This isn’t their fault. It’s ours! They ought to demand authenticity. They ought to demand real answers. They ought to compare the Christian claims to that of the rest of the world. And we ought to be living lives that are supernaturally empowered, full of love, and rooted in truth that we can clearly communicate to those who ask for the reason for the hope we have in Jesus.