“Faith should not make your life simple. It should make it even more complex,” a friend once said to me.
It is a statement I have been wrestling with for some time. On the one hand, I am tempted to reply that life is already dizzyingly complex, full of existential and interpersonal puzzles to sort through; shouldn’t one’s faith help to ease this complicated frenzy?
Simultaneously, I am relieved to hear my friend speak these words, because they acknowledge and do not attempt to reduce the complexity I confront daily in this world. If, in the words of Jon Sobrino, we “must be faithful to reality,” then we are also compelled to admit that reality does not always play into theological paradigms as neatly as one might hope. To cram them into religious narratives uncritically, would be to violate truth as it impinges upon us in the varied, situational contexts of our lives. It would mean denying, or short-circuiting some aspect of our humanity, a humanity within which God promises to continuously conspire and reveal sacred wisdom. And I will not stand for that kind of dismissal. I will demand a faith that speaks directly (and tenderly) to the complexities of my own life and the stories of others, without feeling neurotically compelled to solve or nail things down. I cannot bear to participate in the crucifixion of an unbridled life.
I suppose that my lack of doctrinal commitment is a kind of conviction. Any one of my friends, who I have had the pleasure of talking and dreaming with over the years could surely attest to my reoccurring preoccupation with letting the world be a sacrament of grace, an ambiguous disclosure of divine life. And yet, here I am in the winding labyrinth of knowing, needing to circle back once more to this personal conviction.
Why, I wonder, do I feel summoned back to the same questions I managed to live out years ago? Why the excited return and the intense drive to write all about?
I suspect that the desire to reaffirm my ongoing conviction is due to the fact that lately I feel like it is being threatened or simply ignored. In ministry circles, as in any market, there is always something to sell. Or at least that is the presumption for some ministers; they have to sell (teach) this theology to people in the most effective (simple and sensational) way possible. And while I am all for accommodating culture and utilizing spicy language and surprising slants to convey a message, I often wonder if we are implicitly communicating that a life of faith is as neat and sexy as an advertising campaign. That kind of product may sell immediately, but is it ethical? Is it right to equip people with fervent truth claims that will not, ultimately, cohere with the complexities and imperfections that life consistently deals?
Our relationship to a faith tradition is just like the many other relationships we entertain throughout our lives. If it is founded upon unrealistic expectations, and one day that person, or theology, fails to adequately live up to such promises, you will quite certainly taste the bitter gall of betrayal. Once galvanized by this betrayal it is nearly impossible to avoid feelings of resentment that ultimately contribute to the dissolution or severance of that once hollowed relationship. These moments of religious disillusionment need not be framed in total hopelessness. Consider the perspective of James Alison’s, a Catholic theologian, on a maturing faith:
“To each step of the clearer and more complete revelation of God, that is to say, to each purification of faith, there is a corresponding and simultaneous collapse of a whole series of elements which seemed to have been indispensable bulwarks of faith” (Faith Beyond Resentment).
Colonnades of conviction will collapse either way you look at it. But in the first relationship, based on tightly wound expectations and tidier campaigns, you have bitterness and resentment. In Alison’s graceful collapse, untruths may fall away, but only to give way to a more complete, refreshing vision of God. Wherein lies the difference?
Perhaps it is obvious that the more rigid your faith, the quicker it will snap in the wind, like a badly splintered relationship. However, if you keep a pliant spirit, dispossessed of absolutisms, then you can remain free and responsive to the Spirit of truth, however She blows.
It is still complex and not always clear. It may be ridiculed as flaccid, wavering, and unreliable. But I do not know of any ship that has successfully navigated the expansive seas with a rudder that is bigger than its sails. Which is to say that a charted course, or theology, is a fine scheme so long as you understand that your survival is utterly bound to the relationship you keep with the wind. Fishers of men should know all about that.
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