DOUBT

 In theatre and often in literature, we’re obsessed with the human condition. It resonates deep within us. Its explanatory power is beyond words. It drives and gives arc to the stories we tell. It connects us.

I thought about this recently as a new religious historian was doing a lot of interviews about his new book on Jesus. More specifically than the broad category of history-writing, I’m fascinated by biography writing because it requires nothing less than empathy.

The act of writing a biography or of putting yourself in the shoes of another is a powerful, powerful exercise. This same act is something that helped to re-awaken Karen Armstrong who left her faith for years. If you ever encounter anyone you dislike or hate, simply begin to write his biography. Try to understand what motivated and motivates him, and the humanity--the very thing that runs in your veins--begins to fill the face of the other with colour . . .

As Lesley Hazleton, an award-winning, British-American writer, did just this while working on a biography of the life of Muhammad, she was amazed that, in Muhammad’s own words, at the moment of his revelatory vision, his first emotions were doubt. He didn’t believe what had happened and thought it was either a hallucination or a possession by an evil spirit that was trying to kill him. Afterwards, upon finding himself still alive, his first impulse was to finish the evil spirit’s job and kill himself and leap off the cliff. He came down that mountain in fear and doubt. And it was precisely this doubt that allowed Hazleton to afford him the integrity of the experience specifically because doubt is essential to faith. Strip doubt, and you’re possibly left with heartless conviction.

Hazleton has given a beautiful TED talk on doubt and her experience writing The First Muslim. You should watch it.

CORRECTIONS

I forgot that when I send these updates people often see inaccuracies with what I write, take offense or issue, or don’t like it. Now this isn’t the case with every remark I remember below. But since I made the marks publicly I want to correct them publicly.
Last update I wrote this top 10:

10 Reasons You Know You’re Serving the Homeless in the United States

10. When serving a plate of food, a homeless man says to you “Would YOU eat that?”

9. When offering food to a homeless, hungry man he says to you “Is it cold? I don’t eat cold food.”

8. When offering salad to a homeless woman, she says “No crunchy pieces. Only salad with no croutons.”

7. When offering salad to a homeless person, he says “I don’t eat salad.”

6. A homeless man looks at the food I’m offering him and says, “Hey, even homeless people have standards! You know what I mean?”

5. A homeless man sees you without a phone and offers you one of his two cell phones.

4. A homeless woman in a soup kitchen turns down your Moroccan chicken soup saying, “No, thanks. I’m a vegetarian.”

3. A homeless person offers you a job.

2. A homeless man pats his tummy and says to you “I’ve decided I need to lose a few pounds.”

1. A homeless man complains about rising prices and backs it up by showing you his energy bills.


Now someone pointed out that it’s offensive or seemingly offensive. In fact at least one of the readers was homeless for a while and it’s not a good place to be. I want to acknowledge the plight of homelessness in the U.S. and the often subtle bias against them that shows up in our actions in conscious and subconscious ways. This was not meant to poke fun at homeless people. I didn’t make up any of the items. They’re all true. And yet they are things that I can smile and laugh about with homeless people (not at them). I took each item from true happenings between homeless people and me. They each had names, though, I didn’t name them. For instance, one man, my first homeless friend in DC, really did offer me a cell phone. I’ve really been shown bills. True story, comedy-filled, but true. I think the funniest aspects of life are true. It’s like truth is somehow embedded into the fabric of that mysterious quality that makes us smile and laugh. And that is what is in these stories.

Secondly, someone pointed out that they have experienced this abroad. My friend experienced it abroad and this does happen outside the U.S. The point isn’t so much that it is a US phenomenon, but it’s a phenomenon that happens in places that are relatively more affluent or wealthy than other places. In other words, in any situation in which homeless people are steadily or regularly receiving food through whatever source, they have an option of being particular or picky. This can happen in developed or developing countries. And I was highlighting the cases I experienced in D.C. However, I have yet to experience this in a region of hyper-dire need and hunger, seeing people reject my food due to taste, for instance. This may happen but it’s outside my experience.

Next, someone wrote to explain to me that the Jewish prisoners at the camp in Terezin did not sing Verdi’s requiem because they somehow believed Jesus was God or were converting to Christianity. I asked some others about this to see if this is the message others received. So far, I think only one person seemed to have sensed this in the words I wrote, so I hope it was just one. My point was that the tension was beautiful—the tension of a group of Jewish prisoners singing a Catholic mass and the greater tension of the prisoners singing a mass for the dead in order to both inspire and retain life. I find life doesn’t exist without tensions. If we see none, it’s probably because we’re not yet awake.

I don’t remember all the comments I was to correct from the various response emails, but I do remember one last one deals with sharing what others say. I’ve shared what many people said about me anonymously, never with any problems. But an anonymous story breaks fiduciary trust (confidence) according to some or one. So please excuse me for sharing anything you might have said about me in an email to a few people. Please feel free not to share with me answers to questions such as when I ask “what do you think I want.” I don’t interpret anonymous stories as breaking trust so that was probably the difference in ethical behavior there. My guess is that the feeling of betrayal committed by me is worsened if the story I share is one that is critical of me (making the person feel bad) versus a story when someone is praising me (I don’t think every story would elicit a response).

Lastly, someone asked why I would not have more questions or fight more when told he was not into God anymore. My guess is that my point in the last update was completely missed. So to repeat, I said something like this. It is evident more and more to me that there is an undercurrent of atheism that runs central to the Judeo-Christian tradition. There is a dual tradition of the priest (who works in the service of God) and the prophet (who speaks out for God against God (the god being served by the people)). There is a strong tradition of religious people who fall into rituals of serving God in their image rather than one greater than their conception. And so a multitude of voices (usually a prophet) usually speak out revealing glimpses of a greater understanding. Through the arc of the Torah and New Testament Bible one can find a pattern of people coming into a deeper understanding of God and trading in old images of God for better ones. You can see this developmental understanding of God through the trajectory of the Bible regarding people’s understanding of God’s uniqueness, God’s agency, God’s character, etc. This list goes on. This is a process I, myself, have engaged in throughout my life whether I knew it or not. And I still do it today. It occurred with Jesus’s disciples after he was crucified, with the Christian church through Luther and Calvin, with the church during the movement from slavery to abolition, etc.
So it is evident then that we can engage in certain dialogues that, though seemingly subversive, lead us into a deeper meaning such as

“God, rid me of God” Peter Rollins
“Forsaking God for the sake of God” Meister Ekhart
“Before God and with God we live without God.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It is always difficult to stuff ideas and lessons that have taken years to learn or ideas I’ve picked up from others and share them in a short email or blog, but think of it like this. I’m not surprised when a friend has left the faith or questions God. First, the act of questioning God and this crazy world is a very godly act, one I feel is desired by the God of Judeo-Christian tradition. Think of the one name that was given to the people who would be God’s chosen people (remember; they were chosen not at the exclusion of others [old understanding], but chosen to be a blessing, for the inclusion of others—one example of a developmental understanding through the arc of the stories of the people of faith)—Israel. The one, singular, defining name given to the people of God means “wrestles with God. . .” Really? Wrestles with God? Not holy or sanctified or righteous or good or perfect or better-than-you or best or anything else that is perfect? Really? Really. It seems to be the nature of God to allow the tension that is humanity to find beauty in the mess, the quagmire of questions.

The story of Job is probably the oldest dated writing of the Torah and Bible. In the story a man named Job loses everything (business, money, etc.) and his friends come around to comfort him with. Job has even lost his children; his wife tells him to curse God and die. His friends come one by one and reason with him. They tell him this and that (for example, “you must have committed some sin in order to be dealt a blow like this”). The perfect cookie-cutter answers, given to me by church people for why God was happy with Job and unhappy with the visiting friends, never made sense to me. The friends said reasonable things (according to some wisdom). Job just struggled and questioned God. And therein lies the answer. The friends offered . . . theology. Theology isn’t bad in and of itself. It’s quite natural in the after math of the event of God to have thoughts about what happened. We form beliefs. But it’s what happens when those provisional, inadequate thoughts take the place of final authority that a problem arises. And here Job didn’t deal with theology. He wrestled with God. He questioned, he pleaded his case. And I honestly think, at the end of the story, when God shows up in a huge whirlwind and asks all these impossible questions about “Who put the stars in the heaven? And who put the sun in the sky?” God doesn’t answer Job’s questions because it’s not about the set answers or understanding or . . . theology. It’s not central. Rather, it’s about a conversation and the growth that happens in that engagement with God. God then honors Job and not his friends because Job didn’t cling to theology; Job clung to God by wrestling with God (just like the name Israel would come to mean when given as a new name to Jacob). It’s the same reason David was so close to God. David wasn’t close to God because he felt close to God all the time. No; he was close to God because even when he felt distant from God he expressed his feelings of distance directly to God thereby maintaining the closeness and connectedness even in the center of feelings of isolation (I may have to reread that a few times to let that sink in). He struggled.

And the most mature of us realizes that our images or pictures of our God are provisional. That’s why we trade them up. That’s why when I question God I realize and understand that I’m never questioning God but I’m questioning my understanding of God. So when someone becomes an atheist, I’ve learned that they are not rejecting God but they are rejecting their understanding of God. And if that is the definition of atheism then I’m a type of Christian atheist because I reject my understanding of God all the time as I learn to hold a better and more accurate (closer to who God actually is) image of the increasing mystery that is God.

So in a sense because I understand the tensions, the wound, the rupture that is in the scripture (a recent book called the “Encyclopedia of Biblical Difficulties” tries to resolve every single problem; unfortunately it creates more problems than it solves due to the inadequacy of the unsatisfactory answers), I understand that at the same time I name God, I must engage in a process of de-naming God so as not to create a conceptual idol (think of the contrast between “our father who art in heaven”—the familiarity of a dad to “Hallowed be they name”—actually God’s not like a dad, he’s also wholly other). Does that make sense? So fundamentalism can be looked at as a particular way to believe rather than referring to the content of beliefs.

Fundamentalism can be said to be a particular way of believing such that you exclude all other people who believe differently in accordance to the amount that their beliefs differ than yours. Rather, I try (key word is try, I also fail) to include everyone especially those that differ the most from what I believe understanding the belief isn’t central. To put it another way, fundamentalism is believing in what you believe. Because I know the current picture I have of God is wrong (though I don’t know what will improve in the future), I, rather, disbelieve in what I believe. I love that, and I thank Rollins for that thought. It’s so true.

So no, I don’t get mad at a friend becoming an atheist. I understand many of those friends were driven there by reinforced hurtful images of God manifested in us. Rather, I try to love those especially and increasingly in correspondence to how much the beliefs of others differ from me.

FAITH

I recently held a doubt night with a group of men I was in charge of helping to lead. They wanted to discuss the topic and I was to facilitate the discussion on doubts. I started a few weeks earlier and had them write down all their doubts about God, Christ, religion, this life, this world. They looked something like this.

I don’t get the Trinity. Is it even real?
How can God have done all those miracles in old times but I don’t see any now?

To this. . .

If it’s as it says in the Bible, how come scientific evidence points to the earth being much older than how I read Genesis through the appearance of Christ in the New Testament?

If evolution is wrong, why is there scientific evidence pointing towards the probability of evolution?

And this. . .

How can a Good God send people to hell?
Why doesn’t God step in and stop the suffering in this world—the violence, wars, diseases, natural disasters, hate, etc.? Why? It doesn’t make sense. What kind of God is that?

To this. . .

Why did my aunt die? She was a good woman, and she died. Why?
Why would she leave me if I gave her everything? Where is the God in that?
Will I ever find a job?

So we sat down and I prepared some worksheets to allow them to work through some thoughts and study on their own, then in small groups, then in a bigger group and then altogether as one group. It was interesting especially because the previous meeting I was preceded by a facilitator (famous guy who runs a large church out of Seattle) who argued that it was important to have a right belief in order to have truth faith.

Well, you know me . . . not that I like to challenge, but . . . perhaps it comes naturally. We explored the role of doubt and we found that doubt was central. Far from being something that was removed by faith, it was mixed with faith, necessitated faith and wasn’t diminished in the presence of it. We first looked at the refrigerator.

If I have an unreasonable phobia preventing me from opening refrigerators I seek counseling to get help because it prevents me from eating and I go out a lot (thankfully I have roommate). Bobby on the other hand, has no fear of opening the refrigerator. Now, does it take courage for me to open the refrigerator? For me, the person with the phobia? Everyone agreed it did. Does it take courage for Bobby to open it? People thought for a moment (they were in small groups), but everyone agreed it really took no courage for Bobby to open the refrigerator. I asked them (through the worksheet to come up with a definition of courage using the word fear). They had different versions, but the definition was something like “courage isn’t the absence of fear; courage is the triumph over fear.” Later on in the worksheet I had them write an analogous definition of faith using the word doubt. Faith isn’t the absence of doubt; it’s the triumph over doubt. It’s not the best definition, but it works. :-)
We then talked about relationships. I gave an example of a couple, a man and a woman, who were thoroughly and utterly convinced and convicted that they were perfect for each other in every way and would have a long and lasting marriage. In the context of their conviction and belief, there was no decision to be made at all. It was clear; they needed to continue their loving by being married. Now I mentioned another couple. Imagine a second couple. This couple facing family opposition, various challenges, and is plagued by an uncertainty future not sure of where they will be or if this will work out in the end. Now it’s here that a real decision has to be made. Far from doubt taking away the chance for faith, doubt is the very place and sacred site where faith is forged.

It’s in this situation that the couple must decide to 1) not get married or 2) go forward and get married. Now I have sympathy for people who fall into #1 because it’s a hard decision and scary. I understand, though (for a good woman) I may not have chosen that option. But I admire and am more like people in #2. Those are they who took a chance in the context of doubt and allowed faith to be forged (assuming it was a relationship in which faith was implicit, infused, and inspired and which inspired faith in all those around them). That’s a real decision, that’s real faith. And it’s hard to find that these days.

Strangely but honestly enough, many of the guys disagreed when I asked the question of which situation requires a decision. Some said both situations, both couples had to make a decision. It was hard for them to understand the subtle point of what I was suggesting, that a real decision (and therefore a real choice and therefore real faith and therefore real LOVE) was only required in the second. A REAL decision that required faith.

I’ve been working on faith for a bit, but it’s been working on me for much longer.