Hi MRN,
Since your last comment to me was clearly an expression of exasperation, I feel obligated to answer you here. I understand that you may believe that people like me “spend our days trying to become men of worldly wisdom†but it isn’t like that at all. I feel that we begin as people without faith, but a seed is sown at some stage in our lives and starts growing. We take various paths in that faith, and then our acquaintance with the scriptures develops so far, that we start asking what Jews read in them, what the literal meaning is, where translation has been tendentious and what the philologists have discovered.
We haven’t left the source of faith, but in fact we are delving all the more. One of the reasons for this is the fact that “saving souls†is a tedious task that requires people with commitment – which seems to be something lacking in people who do not belong to fundamentalist groups. People doubt, especially when fundamentalist or conservative faith has obvious weaknesses that become unyielding scandals when priests are either unable to keep up their celibacy and threatened with divorce from the church, or are found to be paedophiles. It is cause for concern when conservative Christian groups support military intervention against an “Antichrist†of their own definition.
For people like me it becomes a question about the source of faith and its development. Have we understood what was written? Have the traditions that we have developed been supportive of the original goal, or have they led us away from them? I have extensive experience as a preacher and you soon recognise how manipulative language is. Is that not worrying? Or is language; are the stories, legends and myths in fact the essence of faith? At what point can we give genuine spiritual counsel or comfort to those in turmoil? Are these not questions that someone making the assertions religious people make has to clear up?
But our delving isn’t only a question of externals. We need our forty days in the wilderness to face up to the fact that temptation is real. It is about power and manipulation, or about love and giving oneself into the message. We have to go deep into our souls to discover what the driving force in us really is. What motives compel us? What do we want out of this? What is the true revelation at the heart of religious zeal? The conflict isn’t between worldly and the spiritual, it is the conflict that each of us is trying to contain in themselves that makes religion divine or devilish.
The question that has become prevalent in my religious life has been the question of responsibility. Am I “saving souls†or am I misleading them? My religious experience isn’t communicable in a manner that satisfies sceptics, but where is this experience leading me and others? Are there other people who have a comparable sentience? Where have they been beneficial to people and where have they wreaked havoc?
Our biggest problem is the lack of continuity from Jesus to us. Church history is a horror story which no Christian can simply push aside pointing to his new shiny denomination. We are a part of that history the moment we pick up the thread and weave on. Neither can we pretend that Jesus approves of what we do and say knowing that the man of the Gospels was a conservative Jew who died two thousand years ago. It is a question of the authority of our calling and its relevance in the modern age. If we quit something like science to maintain our religious practises, we need to be fully aware of what we are doing. I am not saying that it is wrong, but it seems to be saying that I would have to be as assured about that faith as about scientific facts, to push away something that ahs been proven reliable.
I have chosen the path that many Mystics have chosen. It is a path of social commitment and religious study, moving towards trustworthy spiritual counselling, which I witness with my life. Our problem is that there are certain authorities in the churches that call us heretics.
Shalom
Bob
Now to put my house in order.