Faith Works: A pastoral word for times of division
If you are called a “person of faith,” regardless of your religious tradition or membership, it probably means one of a few things.
Faith is often referenced as a shorthand for “believes there is more to life than physical existence,” whether an afterlife or heaven or a subjective awareness of self beyond death. Our local shorthand is “heaven or hell, you pick.”
There are aspects of personal faith that may hold to no more than a sort of objective immortality — our good deeds endure, perhaps the elements that make up our existence last, like the carbon from the heart of ancient stars forming the essence of life as we know it. Reincarnation is not something I’ve studied, but it seems to carry pieces and parts of both the objective and the subjective.
And there are people of faith who believe that there are most certainly things that endure and God who is everlasting reigning over all, but don’t think much about their later judgment or status in eternity. As I said, being a “person of faith” can refer to people with viewpoints about the divine and the eternal that might not track exactly with your own, and that’s been one of the delights of writing this column over the years is the chance to learn how others believe and to test my own faith against the propositions of another. (Note to fellow Christians that I Peter 3:15 is always relevant!)
To be a preacher and teacher of Christian faith requires you both be more willing than most to state your assumptions in public, and be ready to respond to contrary opinions (again, I Peter 3:15). Sometimes that might be from non-believers or outright atheists, or it might be coming from near at hand, as a fellow believer in your particular tradition disagrees with how you are presenting or explaining the faith you at least outwardly share.
For anyone who thinks debating let alone discussing faith with an atheist or agnostic is a waste of time, I invite you to hunt up online one of my favorite stories about how “The Great Agnostic,” Robert G. Ingersoll, ended up in a train compartment with another former Civil War officer named Lew Wallace. Wallace was raised in church, but as an adult was unaffiliated yet thought himself a Christian of a generic sort. On the way home from a political convention where they both had played a role, Wallace challenged Ingersoll’s agnosticism as a barrier to his advancement in politics, and in return Ingersoll asked Wallace to defend the faith he claimed to hold.
The result of Wallace’s reflections on why he believed what he did was a book, entitled “Ben-Hur.” The full title is “Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ” and we have “The Great Agnostic” to credit, in no small part, for having that story, since transformed into a stage play and multiple cinematic renditions.
Disagreements about subjects for which there is little objective evidence are inevitable. And there’s a tragic human tendency — one could almost call it sin — to separate and divide groups over such disagreements. II Corinthians 6:17 gets used all too often as a basis for calling on the like-minded to “come out” and separate themselves from unbelievers.
There’s one discussion to be had about whether a person whose beliefs don’t precisely track with yours is really to be called, Biblically or otherwise, an unbeliever. But I also find myself pulled to consider along with verse 17 the earlier statement in the same passage by Paul to the church in Corinth, at verse 14: “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.” Right, don’t put yourself in a place where someone whose views are at odds with yours can control what you do. That’s what being yoked together, put in harness side-by-side, can impose.
What I worry about is the tendency to want to separate any divergent view far enough away to where we never have to spend time arguing with each other. The impulse I understand: it’s nice to sit and talk with people who already feel and think and work just as you do. Colleagues and friends and family, when you’re all on the same page, are great company.
But I don’t believe our faith is strengthened, let alone advanced, by only being practiced in the midst of the like-minded. When iron sharpens iron, a little friction helps both edges stay sharp.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he dislikes divisions of all sorts, and perhaps enjoys a good argument all too well. Tell him what’s what at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: Faith Works: A pastoral word for times of division
