FAITH BY DEFAULT

I guess that it is important as I prepare for Easter weekend that I spend time writing about how I feel about this event. I have yet to feel the motivation to match my desire to go back to church and have therefore not thought extensively about Easter. In fact, it wasn’t until this weekend that I began to think about it at all. I have spent some time during Lent to participate in some additional disciplines, but connecting it to the event of Easter has been at the back of my mind. So as I do reflect on it now I am frustrated with where my thoughts have gone. I would like to think that my little experiment in post-evangelicalism and existentialism would have allowed me to see the resurrection of Christ with new enthusiasm, but the truth is that my journey has only taken me away from reflecting on the resurrection. That is not to say that I have not spent considerable time reflecting on what the resurrection may be beyond heaven. I have, in fact, come to see the message of Christ’s resurrection and how each of us interprets that event as central to one’s faith. But the physical act of the resurrection and the eternal life that we will partake in seems to only more frustrating for me. As I have allowed myself to consider an idea of God that is less absolute and much weaker and as I have allowed myself to consider a Christo-centric yet open theology, I have also been able to reconcile my doubt in such a way that I experience the angst at a much deeper level.

In my time of meditation I have come to reflect again on what faith might actually mean. Hebrews gives us a lot of direction on this topic. In 11:1 we are given a direct definition- Confidence in what we hope for + assurance of what we can’t see. The rest of the chapter, however, gives us a stronger picture of what it looks like: acceptance of God’s power, what motivates our righteousness, what saves us from death, what elicits revelation and prophecy, identity giving, and what gives us confidence. As a fan of Hebrews, these are meaningful descriptors. However, when considering the overall message of Hebrews I find this ego-centric definition incomplete. The message of Hebrews is that Christ acts as priest giving us access to God. In other words, that it is THROUGH Christ that faith is revealed. This message is confirmed throughout scripture. In fact, Romans makes an incredible argument for how righteousness comes through faith, not the law. So despite our best efforts to DO any of the things prompting faith, we are left the need to rely on something that comes from beyond us. In I Corinthians this message is taken even further to show us that the faith that is required for holiness is a gift. So now we must rely on something beyond us to experience any degree of holiness in the form of a gift that is defined as something that is seen in the not absolute of hope and invisible. This gift is only received, apparently, depending on one’s own degree of openness.

Here is my point: everything in me that is rational, every good work that has happened in me, and everything that I now hold to be meaningful rejects the idea of the resurrection. Because of this I can’t help but feel that faith is meaningless. Religion is nothing more than a human attempt at understanding the world and giving some meaning to its meaningless existence. Obviously this means that everything is meaningless. If there is no God or no afterlife then even the most humanistic of philosophies is empty and a pathetic attempt at giving some value to a valueless existence. But at the same time, everything that I have experienced and do experience won’t allow me to reject meaning. Maybe I find it impossible to BELIEVE in God, but I can’t reject meaning. But meaning can only exist if there is something more. So perhaps faith then is ultimately about rejecting believe for the sake of faith.

This goes against everything that faith has been understood to mean for me. Faith has, despite the scriptural references to the contrary, been defined by an ultimately ego-centric ideology. Faith appears to have replaced law with the argument that beliefs are more important than actions. But faith is what spurs on both beliefs and actions, but is, in the end, neither. Faith is the suspension, ironically, of both in order to complete both.