listening across lines of faith

The argument for faith is spectacularly personal. People on the outside easily attack this, calling it delusional thinking or brainwashing. We want to fit in, so we do whatever we need to. Yet, it is my experience that community is the only argument for faith. It is in community that faith grows and in community that we meet God who is, Godself, community. Being drawn into faith is never a matter of considering facts, but is born out of what I will call seduction. Participation in the body of Christ is seductive. One is drawn into faith if that one’s participation in the body resonates with that person. It is not the stuff of rationality. The theologian Peter Rollins describes this paradigm of faith in his book How (Not) to Speak of God. He likens it to family life. We are first born into a family and are accepted (hopefully). Thus, we first belong. We then start to imitate the behavioral patterns as displayed by the family, so we behave in a similar fashion. Finally, it may be the case that some of us begin to pick up the beliefs of our parents. This is the point where orthodoxy finally arrives. In the end we believe. It is the same with faith. People of faith first belong, then behave, and finally believe. The page number escapes me right now and I do not own the book.

In terms of how I would handle a situation in which I came into discussion about faith with an atheist, I think the encounter would be rather dialogic. I actually relate quite well to atheists. I have many of the same problems with faith that I hear from many of my atheist friends. Faith really makes little sense to me, yet I am compelled to believe. My biggest problem with religion in general is with the violence that has been and is wrought in the name of God. Yet, I see definite redemption in the great good that has been performed in the name of God. The backbone of nearly every successful movement toward justice and ultimate reconciliation has been faith. I firmly hold that religion is a greater instrument for social good than it is for social evil. It is more than the first way we tried to make sense of the world as Hitchens suggested. It changes the very order of the world. Further, like Wilson and Hitchens’ dialogue, my own would not have the final aim of conversion, but of understanding, of broadening worldviews and, perhaps, of changing my own perspectives in light of what I learn from my sister or brother. We must listen to the complaints of atheism and take seriously the cries of people who are affected by our faith as we live it in a very public and shared world.