“Some people need faith.” I heard this phrase while my son was dying and while we planned his memorial service.
“Need faith,” I thought. What does that mean? Is it like needing insulin or Valium? Is it some special treatment (like dialysis) but for the gullible and naïve? Or is it something to be grown out of, like belief in the tooth fairy or Santa Claus? Maybe (a la Marx) it is “the opiate of the people” — designed to keep miserable people content, waiting for “pie in the sky when they die.”
This is a common view of religion, particularly Christianity. I got used to it when I was doing my PhD at the University of Minnesota and teaching at Kalamazoo College. In these settings, other religions were fine — you could be new age, Wiccan, Hindu etc. But Christianity had the ugly face of fundamentalism slapped on it. Forget the formidable educational institutions, influential activism (against slavery and apartheid for example), and centuries of mystical insights — all this Christian legacy was stashed behind a visage much more easily dismissed.
Some of this is Christianity’s fault for being so willing to grab the coattails of societal trends — whether royal hierarchies or an appealing prosperity gospel — and losing its edge as a radical movement. Some Christians’ groups simplify the faith, so that all is clear and certain. Like atheism’s dogmatic claims, any “faith” that promises utter clarity should be suspect.
So, I can understand why people would say they don’t “need” faith. Simple, complicit faith — nobody needs it!
But I need my faith, much like I need friends, community, and beauty.
I “need” faith because it reminds me I don’t know everything and can’t control much. By faith, I affirm the cracks in the world, pointing to something beyond, and allowing fragments of light to slip in. By faith, I recognize how limited my understanding is. (Some contemporary physicists argue that time is an illusion we use to orient ourselves – perhaps in the economy of God the idea of someone “dying young” as my Steve has — is nonsensical.) By faith, I recognize the limits of human language and symbols, so that my most eloquent speech is “stammering” as C.S. Lewis puts it.
In fact, “faith” becomes more like trust — closer to the original meaning of the word — when “I believe” meant something closer to “I put my trust in.” Faith calls me to remain open to those with whom I disagree; it places me in a long line of people who have attempted to live for something bigger than themselves.
Do we “need” faith to face death? Must we have a firm set of beliefs in streets of gold and thrones? I don’t think so. After all, all any of us have — faith or not — is now for living and loving.
Perhaps I choose faith, just as I choose friendship, community, and beauty. Even as faith reminds me that I don’t know, it pushes me to be part of a community. It calls me to place myself within a tradition, to entwine my roots with the roots of others in different times and places, to express my faith sacramentally. Either choosing or needing faith calls me to join with others who are trying to live God’s life in this world. My “need,” my “choice” has given me a loving community to turn to when the crap hit the fan: people who help me to keep striving toward the stars.
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month’s contributor is Mary Ellen Ashcroft, Vicar of Spirit of the Wilderness Episcopal Church.
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