"It Matters What We Believe" from Singing the Living Tradition - No. 657

Dear Friends,

Have you, sometime in your life, run up against blind faith? I mean blind religious faith? Maybe it was with someone you know, a friend or relative or neighbor, with whom you had a disagreement about belief. Or maybe in your childhood, you were raised in a faith which asked you to accept without question an image of an all-powerful, all-knowing Father God or divine King. This God, you were told, knew your every thought and every deed.

Maybe he was a harsh God, quick to judge you for your faults and slow to praise for you for your goodness. Maybe you were also taught that as a flawed human being you were inherently sinful and only God could save you. But in order to be saved, you had to be really contrite ... which meant feeling badly about yourself. If this was your experience, maybe you felt oppressed by a constant burden of guilt.

Of course, there is another, gentler side to this traditional God. You may have been taught that God (or Jesus as God) was your friend, someone who walked with you and helped you in troubled times. Maybe you felt comforted by this compassionate God. I know that many people gain strength through such a close, personal God... and those who lack such faith might envy them. I was lucky enough to be raised in a religion whose image of God was more the latter than the former. The God I knew as a child was more a friend and a protector than a harsh judge.

We know there are a great variety of religious faiths. Apart from their differences, what is it they all hold in common? In other words, what is the core of religious faith? The UU minister Frederic Muir writes, "We might all agree with this: that religious faith refers to a set of beliefs or principles. For some, these beliefs are defined by the experiences, history, teachings, and authority of those who claim loyalty to a particular religious way."

One may equate such faith with belief. In America, we think of the most devoutly religious as holding to beliefs despite evidence to the contrary. Often its belief in something incredible... requiring one to block from one's field of vision whatever may contradict that belief.

The bible claims that people with faith will have many rewards. They will be strong. They will prosper. They will be safe. They will be surrounded by loving kindness. So in that case, who wouldn't want to have faith? Sometimes we might envy those who can hold on to blind faith in spite of it all. The old fashioned, traditional faith in all powerful, all-knowing God who gives rewards to the faithful and punishes the wicked. I imagine it must be comforting to trust, like a small child, in God who you believe takes a personal interest in you... like a loving father, who will take care of you and protect you from harm.

And it must be comforting to believe in miracles... to believe that faith can heal, that devotion can save, that prayer alone can change the outcome... turning evil to goodness.. That crawling on your knees in penitence up long steps to a sacred statue can cure your illness or change your life.

But I'll bet the drawbacks of a blind faith are clear to many of us here. "Some beliefs are like blinders, shutting off the power to choose one's own direction." The drawbacks are clear when a traditional God fails us... fails to heal despite fervent prayer or fails to dispense justice by punishing the wicked. Or fails us because such an all-powerful, all knowing God no longer makes sense in a modern world. By clinging to such beliefs, we blind ourselves to the real world or our personal experiences. We are asked to ignore the "still small voice" of conscience, which may contradict church teachings on personal issues such as sexuality or holy war.

When traditional, rigid beliefs don't cut it anymore, we want to throw off the narrow bonds, to be off on our own adventurous journey, a journey in search of truth and meaning. We want the personal autonomy... the freedom to walk into the sunshine. At the same time, we often don't want to go on this journey alone. We want companions and guides on the way. We want the support and encouragement of those around us.

Maybe it was a revolt against blind faith which brought you to this place, this Unitarian Universalist church. This holy place which has no creed or dogma ... where many spiritual paths are celebrated. Where images of God are seen as metaphors. Liberal theologian Sallie McFague said that as human beings, we are limited in how we grasp abstract concepts. We cannot wrap our minds around such things as an "incomprehensible" God or a "God-shaped blank." Metaphorical images, based on what we can know, touch or feel, are necessary for us to think about abstractions. No metaphor is perfect and they are certainly not to be taken literally. We seek a place where this need is recognized.

Through the ages, prophets and seers, wise men and wise women, have offered us a vast multitude of images of the divine. We know no images are right for all people and all times. These images only act as aides in thinking about God and hopefully encountering the divine spirit in our lives. Some are male images... king, judge or father. Some are female: goddess, mother, sister, Sophia, who is the female personification of wisdom. Some are without gender: friend, companion, and lover. Some are non-human... like animals or forces of nature... fire, wind, thunder or something as soft and close as our own breath.

So I call this Unitarian Universalist faith, this faith which has no creed or doctrine, an un-blind faith. It's a faith which admits for questions and doubts. It encourages personal choice in matters of religion. This is a mature faith with no easy answers, but which respects each individual's ability to work through the complexities, the contradictions and the mystery.

For some people this raises unsettling questions. What is the content of this un-blind Unitarian Universalist faith? Is there any? What could a God of a liberal, peace and justice seeking, ecologically minded religion look like or act like? Can this God stand up to the harsh reality of daylight? And what advantage is it to me, you or anyone else to have this faith? Can it guide you to make important choices? Can it comfort you in your hour of greatest need? Can it explain to you your place in the world? I say, without reservation, yes!

It's common for Unitarian Universalists to say they don't believe in God who is an old white man with a long beard up in heaven. Have you said that yourself? Have you heard others say it? That rejection implies a lot. For one thing, it implies that you reject the God of traditional Christianity and Judaism and Islam... a patriarchal image of God as king or father, an absolute male ruler and judge of ancient times.

Of course, the ancients understood metaphor. Their patriarchal God was not a real blood and flesh king, but pure spirit, totally divorced from the world... out there somewhere in the universe. Not just transcendent, but separate, mysterious, ultimately unknowable. And creation is not sacred, but devoid of the divine, something to be dominated and used. There were exceptions, of course: the holy priests and prophets (mostly male of course) who have a special relationship to God.

You and I may yearn for a God who is closer, within reach... not far off beyond the universe. We yearn for a natural world which is sacred. We yearn to be affirmed as a goodly part of this creation. We yearn for a more meaningful metaphor.

Sallie McFague uses a metaphor that is helpful to me. This is an image of the world as the body of God, as a living system where the Creative Spirit expresses itself. God, she writes, can be thought of in two ways, which are interrelated: First God is a transcendent agent which acts in the world... the Spirit of Life of Carolyn McDade's song. It is not a clockmaker God who once created the universe in the Big Bang and then let it go to operate by its own laws. This God is still and will ever be active in the world.

And it is also a God who is imminent (or embodied) in the world... the whole world, not just in one person, nor just in humans and other living creatures. She means the entire world is God's body. In this way we are invited to see the divine in all Creation. We may also think of God as feminine, as Mother Earth who generates new life. Or as Gaia... the earth as a living organism.

Religious is important, not just for how we think of the divine, but how we think of our relationship to this divinity. Otherwise it's just an empty intellectual exercise. What do religious liberals say about our human place in creation? In this image of the transcendent AND imminent God, we share in the divine consciousness and can act as extensions of God's agency in the world. We not only have inherent dignity and worth, but we possess a piece or spark of the divine within. We are co-agents with the Creator in the unfolding of the world's natural and social evolution.

Of course, no sane person would deny that we all are capable of doing great evil as well as great good. Yet in process theology, God always tries to lure us ... to gently persuade us... into doing what is good and right in the world. We can sense what is good and right... through our relationship to other human beings and to nature... and by communion with this Divine Spirit of Creation.

So I think it does matter what we believe. Not for the sake of belief alone, but for how it affects our lives and our actions. Belief lead to action. And false beliefs leads to harmful actions, as we have witnessed in holy crusades... domestic and foreign. Let us be grateful that we are free from a blind faith, which claims that God is on its side. Let us hope instead that we are on the side of divine creativity.

In the words of William Cleary,^*

Holy Ocean of Creativity around us and within us,

can you give us open eyes and minds so that we do not find ourselves at war with the creation to which we belong?

If we are aware of the crucial clue

--that everything is linked to everything else- we can live more relationally, more connected to our environment and our community, in more conscious communion with the earth and with those we love and encounter.

You are the eternal Spirit:

give us all a more comprehensive perspective that enables us to live larger lives and cherish ever-larger hopes.

Amen

* "Conscious Communion - When Wisdom Is Our Ideal" by William Cleary, Prayers to an Evolutionary God. Woodstock, Vermont: Skylight Paths Publishing, 2004. p. 37.

Other Source: Sallie McFague, The Body of God; An Ecological Theology. Augsburg Fortress Press, 1993