I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my faith and why I think it’s a good thing. I’ve been thinking about the fact that most people who have faith probably think it’s a good thing (even if maybe it isn’t). So is all faith a good thing? Well, I think that would depend on where your faith is placed I guess.
So then, why do I think my faith is well-placed? I must think so or why would I have the faith in God that I do?
The reason I’ve been thinking about this lately is that I’ve been reading a book that talks about a faith that is bold and how important it is to have such a bold faith and I’ve been comparing that to myself and wondering why my faith isn’t bolder than it is. I know that writing about faith is one of the ways that I’m testing the water on this and trying to find ways to be bolder.
Why is being bold important? Well, it’s always the people with bold faith who are celebrated in the Bible stories and in the testimonies of Christians you read about in books, right? I’ve also been exposed to some communities that exercise faith in really wild ways and who challenge other people to be really bold, and I wonder why some of what they say makes me uncomfortable. I wonder if it’s because I disagree with it or if I’m just afraid of being bold.
I’m being awfully vague here. It’s because I don’t want to get into too much detail on some of the different aspects of these things. I may want to write about them more later, but for now I want to think more specifically about faith. Sometimes when people talk in really bold terms about faith – in ways that I’m not used to, it seems like it becomes more about the the people talking than it does about God. When someone lays down a really bold statement about God that I’m not sure about, it sometimes feels like this statement has become a proxy for faith in God – “believe this way, and you will have faith in God.”
But I don’t want to have faith in a theology or a particular way of acting. I want to have faith in God. The two aren’t exclusive of course, but when people imply that my faith isn’t adequate unless it conforms to their particular expression or form, then I resist. The problem of course is that if they’re right, then my resistance is costing me.
From another angle, I think about the people with extreme Islamic faith – the kind that inspires them to blow themselves up in a crowded street or public space. What kind of faith is that? It’s bold faith right? They seem to think that they’re doing something very good for Allah. I think most other Muslims would disagree with that – that’s my impression anyway. I haven’t talked to them all.
So if I thought God was urging me to do something extreme like that, what would I do?
I recognize that this is one of those stupid questions that can be unhelpful. It’s a little bit like asking what I would do if my wife suggested that we leave the kids at home and get on a plane and go to to live in Argentina forever. It’s just not going to happen. But if you really want to get hypothetical, then the simple answer is that I would never do that and if I couldn’t convince my wife (still living in the hypothetical here) to change her mind then there would be some big problems.
But I think that the question boils down to my fear that my faith is really faith only as long as it’s convenient to me – if God ever asked me to do something that was inconvenient then I wouldn’t have very much faith all of a sudden. What if I’m just convincing myself that this is what God wants me to do because I’m content here?
The big question is if I’m willing to step out of a comfortable place because God wants me to do something different. Am I willing to do that? That’s a really important question. It’s actually a vital question because there are many stories of people whose faith turned on such moments of decision – the disciples who left their nets to follow Jesus, the young man who was told to sell all he had and give it to the poor, Elisha, Naaman.
It’s an important question, and if I’m going to get it mixed up with a question of whether I’m willing to step out of a comfortable place and do something BAD because God wants me to do that, that’s not helpful. Why would I even debate with myself whether I would listen to God if he asked me to do something evil? It’s dumb.
If God asked me to blow myself up, then I would have to question if that’s really God asking me to do that, and I think that’s really key for me to think about and to understand. Part of my faith in God is my faith in God’s goodness and his love. I see this love in Jesus in such a profound way – I see this love in the wonders of the world around me and I see it in the actions of the people I know who have dedicated their lives to following the example of Jesus in reaching out to others.
There’s certainly instances of what is described as people killing and doing other violent things for the sake of God in the Old Testament. This is troubling at times, but it’s important to remember that there is an arc to the Bible and by the time Jesus comes along to do what he came to do, there is none of this. We do not see any examples of Jesus and his disciples falling on a group of people and slaughtering them. We do not see Jesus and his disciples resorting to violence to accomplish their goals.
It is quite the opposite. When Jesus is presented with an opportunity to participate in “justice” he refuses to participate in the stoning of a woman caught in adultery, but effectively defuses the situation and saves the woman by exposing the hypocrisy of the men involved – making it so clear that what they are doing has nothing to do with justice or God.
He talked of loving enemies and praying for persecutors. He was not a vigilante or a thug.
To ask myself if I would blow myself up if God wanted me to do that is really to ask myself if maybe God isn’t good. It’s really a way of asking if God could change his mind and start demanding violence and hatred.
So let me take this moment to publicly answer myself – the answer is no. God is good and will continue to demand love and reconciliation. Any requests of an opposite nature must be coming from elsewhere.
Now that I have confirmed this for my own twisted sense of imagination, I think it is worthwhile to come back to the more important question – am I willing to follow God into the unknown and the difficult? Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that when God calls us, he calls us to die. Am I ready for that?
