CAMP Spirit

As the two major political parties draft their platforms for the upcoming election, the concept of "faith" has come to the fore on more than one occasion, leading me to consider just what faith is and whence it originates. Theologian Roger Haight notes, "Faith is a universal human phenomenon. All people live by some faith." (Dynamics of Theology, Orbis Books, 2nd ed. 2001, p. 15) When one examines the religions of the world, as I did in my recent series of columns on homosexuality, it is clear that faith in someone or something is worldwide and cross-cultural. The objects of faith and the symbols and statements that result from that faith change, whether one is a Swedish Lutheran, an Italian Catholic, a Delawarean Methodist, a Korean Buddhist, or a Pakistani Muslim; but the human response to the transcendent we call faith remains constant no matter where one lives or how one worships. Nevertheless, this faith is manifested in time and space; it is historical and, therefore, is not the changeless, tangible thing that some religious politicians or heads of religious denominations would have us believe.

Faith is recognition that there is a power greater than ourselves. It is the assurance that there is something beyond our understanding that motivates us and prompts us to seek wholeness and well-being for ourselves and others. Monotheistic religions that worship a personal god call this the quest for salvation; spiritualities that reverence transcendence and divinity in other ways call this a journey toward release or fulfillment. However it is manifested, this faith cannot be pinned down; it cannot be rationally explained. Since it addresses the Ultimate that is beyond words or symbols, time or space, any discussion of faith is handicapped from the start because human language cannot do it justice.

Moreover, faith and its human manifestations do not just spring up out of nowhere. They are a response to Spirit/the Real/the Ultimate/God—revelation of some sort that is initiated by the transcendent. Revelation precedes faith; faith is the human response to revelation. But because faith is expressed in human words, doctrines, commandments, and creeds, this revelation becomes expressed historically. As soon as it is spoken about, written down, or repeated, this revelation becomes an interpretation of what was revealed. Thus, the sacred writings of every religion cannot be taken as literally "true" or "inerrant," since they record the intersection of the human and the divine using a medium that is relegated to a particular time and a particular place in human consciousness.

Unfortunately, human beings always seem to want to confuse the object of faith with all of the "trappings" that result from belief in the transcendent. "Beliefs are given the status of faith and masquerade as faith itself.... There seems to be an inherent social tendency toward fundamentalism and creedalism." (Dynamics of Theology, pp. 35-36) This sort of fundamentalism demands adherence to rules and propositions that have originated from human beings, not from the Divine; yet, because they have been confused with divine revelation itself, they become somehow timeless and monolithic. To regard humanly produced customs and mores in this way is actually a perversion of the Divine Spirit that is beyond all human imaginings. A current example of such perversion is the Vatican’s recent repetition of its ancient and anachronistic policy on the position of women: Old, white, straight men living in the 20th century interpret scriptures produced in the 1st century as though they can be wrested out of their context and have meaning for today. Jesus chose male disciples, we are told, so women may not be priests; women were of low status in the ancient Mediterranean that produced the Bible, so they must be of inferior status today. This makes no sense! To follow this line of reasoning, we should not have automobiles or electric lights since Jesus and Muhammed traveled on foot and read by candlelight! But I digress....

If religious faith is to be made an issue in our political landscape, I believe we ought to know what we are talking about and talk about what we know. Candidates can throw a lot of "stuff" at the wall in an effort to see what sticks. Both Republicans and Democrats have the ability to seem knowledgeable about matters of which they are ignorant; but, if they employ "faith" or "morality" or "God" as their warrant, what they say somehow has validity. Whether it is the status of women, the issue of abortion, or the appropriateness of same-sex marriage, ancient forms of revelation are appealed to as proof that things should remain the same. Everyone purports to speak for God, without realizing that as soon as they open their mouths they have changed "God" and anything related to divinity. Roger Haight sums it up well:

"All human experience is individual and particular insofar as it is bound to this or that time and place in history. No texts, however classic they may be, no symbols, however transcultural they may appear, no reasoning, however logical its development, can escape their bond to the particularities of history and their relativity to context. The result of historicity is the sheer pluralism of ways of thinking and the discordant diversity of basic human values to which history bears too obvious a witness." (Dynamics of Theology, p. 222)