Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Anglican Communion

I've been attending the Wednesday night talks at my church the past few weeks, about the situation between the ECUSA and the rest of the Anglican Communion, so I'm going to write about that here. The rest of the Anglican Communion, with the possible exception of the Canadian branch, isn't very happy with the ECUSA. This is because we've consecrated several gay bishops and because we're looking into developing liturgies for blessing of same-sex unions. My parish actually already blesses same-sex unions, and has our bishop's permission to do so, but this is about developing liturgies for the whole national church to use.

A lot of the other churches, particularly in Africa, have much more restrictive views on homosexuality. In their view, the Bible forbids homosexual relationships and that's all there is to say about it. They've been able to tolerate the fact that we have gay priests, but gay bishops are more of a problem because of their broader role. Basically, a parish priest can sort of fly under the radar, but bishops are involved with each other internationally, and it's considered to be more the business of the whole Communion that the bishops are acceptable to everyone.

So now there's a push from the Anglican Communion for everyone to sign a covenant basically saying that they won't consecrate gay bishops or pursue liturgy for same-sex blessings unless and until the whole Communion decides in favor of doing so. If the ECUSA doesn't sign, we might be kicked out of the Anglican Communion, or demoted within it, or something to that effect. This won't have any temporal effects – the member churches are all independent as far as property and being able to ordain clergy and that sort of thing – but it will be kind of sad in the sense that we can't reconcile our differences and stick together.

Even so, I don't think we can sign it. I don't think the grounds for condemning homosexual behavior are strong enough to counter the weight of people's lived experience of being homosexual. We already ignore most of the Levitical code, so finding it prohibited there doesn't mean much. In the couple places it shows up in the New Testament, it's not at all clear whether they're talking about temple prostitution, or whether they're just saying that the existence of homosexuality is a consequence of the Fall (which doesn't necessarily mean that it's immoral in itself) or what. And honestly, even if it was much more definite, even if it said that homosexual relationships were flat-out wrong, I don't know if that would be convincing for me.

I think the Bible is important, but I think it's important as a record of people's understanding of and relationship with God, not as the final instruction manual for all times and places. I do think it can speak to us here and now, but I think it's also important to have a sense of the context of then and there. And I think people could have been mistaken in parts of their understanding of God and that some of those mistakes could have made it into the Bible. It's not that hard for people to take the cultural charactersitics that they feel are important and conflate them with their idea of the divine – we do it all the time!

And I don't see any evidence that homosexual relationships are innately harmful, and I do see evidence that many gay people have loving and permanent relationships just as many straight people do. And I also hear about people's experience of being gay, and how hard it is in our culture and how people feel marginalized and unwelcome. The church should be a place where people are welcomed and accepted for who they are, even if the rest of society doesn't want to accept them. And I see the gay people in my own parish and how they are part of the community and are very important in it, and how much we'd miss out if they weren't there – and I think it's much more likely that God is calling us all to work together, and what business of mine is their intimate personal life?

So I don't think that we can promise not to recognize the permanent families formed by same-sex couples, because I see those families every week, and I see that they are part of this community, part of the Body of Christ. And I don't think we can promise not to consecrate gay bishops because I don't think we can control God and decide who He's going to call. I don't think the ECUSA is out to consecrate gay bishops just to make a point or annoy people – I think it's been done because the people of those dioceses thought they were the best people for the jobs, regardless of their sexuality.

I am sad at the prospect of being out of communion with the other Anglican churches. I don't think the ECUSA should seek to leave the Anglican Communion. But I also don't think we should sacrifice the gay people in our churches in order to stay in communion. To me, that would seem to be taking the easy way out, to give in to pressure to marginalize people who already get enough of that in society at large.

And I do realize that my point of view might be really hard for someone from one of the African churches to understand. I realize that they might truly believe that homosexual relationships are really wrong and that we're making terrible mistakes by condoning this kind of behavior. And it might be that their consciences really won't allow them to stay in communion with us because of that disagreement, even if they might also be saddened by it.

But in that case, I think honesty is more important than communion. If we have to separate for a time in order to follow our consciences, that's better than denying our sense of God's call in order to stay together. My own belief is that homosexual relationships are okay and that God calls us to accept gay people and their relationships and for all of us to be one community. But if I'm wrong about that, and if the ECUSA is wrong about it, I also think we can trust God to get us back on track in His own time. I think it's better to be wrong with integrity than to be right by denying one's conscience.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Is Sin A Useful Concept?

I'm not at all sure that sin is a useful concept in my faith. At least not in the sense of stuff that you know is wrong but choose with full consciousness to do anyway. So very little of my experience of either hurting people or being hurt by them has anything to do with true malice. Rather, what I see is that most people, most of the time, are doing the best they can at that moment. This doesn't mean that we're making the best possible choices, or that what we do choose is loving or just, but I think it has less to do with the fact that we're evil and more to do with the fact that we're weak.

I get confused and frustrated by the church's traditional teaching that on one hand, sin is a free choice, one that can be avoided, but on the other hand, everyone sins every day. How many people truly do something thinking “I know this is wrong, but I'm going to do it anyway”? It seems more likely that we don't consider the moral implications at all, or that we justify what we're doing based on our own needs. I'm not saying that makes the actions good, but it does seem to change them from malice to ignorance or desperation. And one can make the accusation of willful blindness, but again, how often does someone really say to themselves “I'm going to avoid knowing about the moral dimensions of the world in order to make it easier to focus only on myself”? To me, it seems almost more like un-willful blindness. To use the words of one of the sometimes guest preachers at my church, there's “not enough to us” to will to see the truth. We frequently live in a moral haze because that's the best we can do.

And then when intense emotions get involved it's even more difficult. Who hasn't done things in anger that they've later regretted? As a society, we hold people responsible for their actions in anger, as we must in order to have any sort of useful legal system. But we're all familiar with the struggle of learning to master our emotions: children claim that they couldn't help hitting their siblings or mouthing off because they were so mad; parents counter that yes, they can help it and being mad isn't an excuse. But even as adults we have the experience of losing our tempers and feeling not fully in control, of having our emotions feel utterly overwhelming. And I'm not sure any of us can really be sure how much control we have. We're all familiar with being too stressed, too upset, too angry, too depressed to really connect with other people. We say things like “I really can't handle anything else right now” meaning not that it's physically impossible but that our mental and emotional reserves are strained. Sometimes we successfully go beyond what we thought we could do; other times we stretch ourselves past the breaking point and become emotionally overwhelmed and ineffective. It seems clear to me that our psychological resources are limited, just as our physical resources are. Unlike our physical resources, however, it's very hard to tell, even in ourselves, what's true resource limitation and what's laziness or selfishness. It's hard to tell when we're truly overwhelmed and when we just let ourselves snap. I do think we have some free will, but it's really hard to tell how much, and so it's really hard to tell just how morally culpable we are. Original sin has less to do with fruit and more to do with a brain that's still in beta.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Why Episcopalian?

I came to the Episcopal church in a somewhat roundabout fashion. I was raised Presbyterian and took a detour through Roman Catholicism before landing in the ECUSA. The reason the Episcopal church seems to be right for me is the combination of liturgy, social liberalism, and community and global outreach.

The liturgy is really the thing that took me on my foray into Roman Catholicism and the thing that seemed to be missing in the Presbyterian church. I attended a Roman Catholic church in Cleveland's Little Italy with a friend my senior year off college. It was beautiful – incense, choral psalms, and weekly Eucharist. It was also a church that “looked like a church” - stained-glass windows, beautiful altar and vestments. That's something it had in common with the Presbyterian church I grew up in and the Episcopal church I attend now. I like worshiping in a space that's beautiful and evocative and has the sense of being set apart for worship. I do understand some of the reasoning behind plainer churches – avoiding the risk of idolatry, recognizing the fact that our worship isn't confined to this one special place, etc. But for me the emotional aspect of a beautiful church that feels like a sacred space is more important.

But the beauty isn't just in the stained-glass windows and classic architecture; it's also in the service itself. The music, of course – and for me, that partly means a pipe organ. Probably because of the churches I grew up in, that's one of the other things that makes it feel like a church. But also the pattern of worship, week in and week out – “Blessed be God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And blessed be God's kingdom, now and forever.” The collect for purity, the lectionary, the familiar prayers around the Eucharist, and yes, the knowledge that I'll get at least four hymns, plus the psalm, and the Gloria, and the Sanctus, and the Doxology, and whatever the choir does for an anthem. (It's a bit different at the 9:00 service, but we still get a hymn, a Taize-style chant during Communion, the Sanctus, and music for the Our Father.) It's a beautiful liturgy, it binds the community together, and it feels like home.

The binding the community together is particularly important in the Episcopal church because we describe ourselves as untied through orthopraxy rather than orthodoxy. What this means is that we accept that people have different beliefs and different understanding of those beliefs, but we're united by our worship together and by sharing the Eucharist. We say the Nicene Creed each week, but we don't ask each other to put a check mark by each statement or agree on one particular formulation of our faith. Which, now that I think of it, is very Episcopalian – it reminds me of a quote from a sermon: “There are seven sacraments: baptism and the Eucharist.” In a similar vein, we're Catholic, just not Roman Catholic; we're a product of the Reformation, but we're not Protestant. We hold to the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds, whatever they mean to you. Which is why when two or three Episcopalians are gathered, there are four or five opinions.   

Sunday, February 13, 2011

A Very Churchy Weekend

This weekend was full of church activities. We'll see how many I have time to talk about – they were all very enjoyable and meaningful to me. The Sunday service was exciting because a friend of mine was confirmed. This friend was raised in a very conservative tradition (no homosexuality, alcohol, evolution, rock music, or earrings) and because of that had been turned off to religion for a long time. But she knew some people at my church, and we had some good discussions about religion, and she started attending and decided to join. And I got to present her, which was really meaningful to me.

The joy I feel at baptisms and confirmations is interesting and kind of curious to me. I definitely feel that something very good is taking place, but it's hard for me to describe exactly why. I don't believe that by baptizing we're snatching people from the jaws of hell, and I don't believe that Christianity is the only way to live a good and moral life. But I guess I do believe that it's one way, and it's a way that works for me and that I see working for others, so I figure the likelihood of success for people who join is pretty high. That doesn't really explain the joy, though. I think that part must come from the community. When you're part of a community that emphasizes the fact that all are welcome and you see that invitation being accepted and someone new joining, it's very powerful. I'm glad to have more people joining fully in the life of the community because they bring their own strengths and perspectives and make us more than we were. Everyone present, whether I know them or not, enriches the whole community with their unique gifts. Ideally, this is also true in the world at large. I think that's how we're meant to see each other. The thing with church again is that it's a place for us to practice that with intentionality and with the knowledge that we're all kind of on the same page. Practicing community at church helps us to live it in the larger world.

One of the other events of the weekend was a Liberian dinner Saturday night. This was a fundraiser to help support a girls' school in Liberia that my church has established a relationship with and is helping to support. It's our way of responding to the Millennium Development Goals to eliminate global poverty. And it was a great time. The food was delicious and there were lots of people – one of the other parishioners mentioned that it was an unexpectedly large turnout. I invited some friends – a couple and their two little girls – and we had a good time. I like the fact that we can often combine doing good with having fun. One might argue that it was frivolous – why bother having a dinner when people could just make donations to help the school and save the money spent on food and preparation? But again, I think it's about the community. We aren't robots that go around emotionlessly doing good things. We're human beings that need a connection to one another and to the work that we're doing. We love our community and we need to celebrate that – and I definitely felt that joy and celebration at the dinner as the committee members talked about the work that's being done, and as a representative of the Liberian community within the church honored another parishioner for the work that she's done for that community. It was a joyful time, and valuable in and of itself, besides its function as a way to raise money for the school in Liberia.

It also turned out to be an opportunity for me to live out the hospitality I've mentioned in other articles. I'm a bit hesitant to write about this because I don't want to seem like I'm trying to show off or to say look how great I am. But I do want to write about it because it's important to me to understand my experiences in the context of welcome and hospitality. So here's what happened: while I was waiting outside for my friends, I was approached by a man who asked me what was going on at the church tonight. I told him about the Liberian dinner and asked if he'd like to join us. He expressed concern about not being dressed appropriately, but I told him that wouldn't be a problem. And I knew I could to this truthfully because I've seen the way the rest of the parish acts towards people who are dressed differently for whatever reason – with welcome and without any hint of reproach. I got the impression that he didn't have much money – his clothes looked old and he was missing several teeth – so I bought a ticket for him. I had already paid for my ticket, but I went back in and let the parishioner selling tickets know that I was buying a ticket for this man. And again, she didn't bat an eye, didn't give any indication that this was unusual or inappropriate – I can't overstate the importance of even that subtle support – it's part of the whole ethic of welcome that's so relevant and lively at my church – and that's why my writing this isn't about me – many, many people at my church would do the exact same thing. So he sat with my friends and me for dinner. It was a little awkward for me because I hadn't told my friend I'd be having another guest, because I didn't know. But they took it in stride without any indication that it was a problem. It turned out that he was also stranded – had no money to get a bus ticket home and no way to contact anyone – I was able to call his family on my cell phone so he could arrange for someone to pick him up at the bus station, and the rector and I both explained which bus line was free and where he could catch a bus that would take him to the station. The man was grateful, both for the meal and for the help, and I was glad to have been able to help him.

The morning before the Liberian dinner was yet another church experience, this time a planning meeting for Vacation Bible School. One of the other parishioners had invited me to join in since I like kids and like the Narnia books that are going to be the theme for this year's VBS. Five of us met at a coffee shop downtown and had a great time brainstorming and sharing ideas and building on each other's suggestions. I had been uncertain whether I would have anything to contribute, and I was delighted to find that I did. It was a wonderful, dynamic, cooperative, exciting meeting. The VBS my church runs is free and open to the community. It functions both as something fun for children of the parish and as an outreach to the downtown Durham community for kids that might not have as many opportunities – and last year the mix was about half and half parish kids and larger community kids.

So in case you haven't noticed, I love my church and I love the work we do together.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Unity of Creation

One of my most central beliefs is in what I like to think of as the fundamental unity of creation. What I mean by that is that I believe that ultimately humans aren't in opposition to each other or to the world, or at least that we don't have to be. Or put yet another way, life is not a zero-sum game. I believe that ultimately, what's best for me, and what's best for other people, and what's best for the world will turn out to be the same thing. It seems to me that belief in the goodness of God demands that this be true – otherwise we'd have a situation where God would have to preference some of His children over others, to choose which ones got the best and which ones got the less good.

Looking at the world we inhabit, though, one might wonder how this could be true. Clearly there are plenty of people who whom the way things are isn't what's best for them. Many, many people simply need more of basic necessities, just for starters. And, given that the planet is finite, for others to have more may mean for me to have less. It's obvious to me that this is just – correcting the distribution of wealth in the world would definitely mean that me, and many Americans, would live differently. But I also believe that this situation would be best for me as well, independent of the fact that it would be an improvement for others. I guess not completely independent, since part of the benefit to me would be the peace of knowing that I lived in a just society and that I wasn't taking more than my share. I suspect, though, that there would be other benefits in terms of my growth as a human being and my ability to find contentment in simplicity. And I definitely think I would be happier in a society that valued social justice more highly – I think the kind of changes that would make a more equitable and sustainable culture would also lead to more free time and closer community ties.

If I really believe that this is what would be best for me as well, then why am I not doing it? That's a fair question, and my answers are inadequate. Part of it is that I lack courage. I'm not sufficiently confident in my beliefs to make huge changes in the way I live – nor am I sure what those changes would look like. Should I be better at living out my beliefs? Absolutely. But I'm not. Maybe someday I will be – but I think I'm more likely to get there by changing where I can do so joyfully and by trying to listen for other opportunities for change than by condemning myself and talking all about how bad I am for not completely changing all at once. I do still feel a sense of urgency – there are people suffering now, some of whom will be dead tomorrow and beyond any help I can give. But I'm also not infinite in my capacities. The best I seem to be able to do is to try and walk the line between what's too complacent and comfortable and what's too much too fast for me to handle, and try to challenge myself and hope that God can work with that to move me further. I don't know if it's enough – I don't think I can know.

Part of the other reason for why I'm not doing more is that I think some of the problems are societal as well as personal – that making some of the changes doesn't seem worth it unless the society around me is changing in the same direction. It would be a whole lot easier for me to give up driving if there was much better public transportation. And I can vote based partly on that, especially in the local arena. I could also be more of a political activist, but I don't think that's my role. I would rather support the work of the activists and have my own work be more specifically in understanding and conserving the diversity of life on this planet. I think both roles (and many others) are useful. In a similar fashion, I think that giving up economic growth as an ideal and focusing our society around something other than consumption would be a good step towards a just culture. But I can't do that alone either – so I do what I can, as far as asking myself to consider my consumption – do I truly need this or will it truly increase my happiness in a significant way? Is there a way I can get it used or recycled? How can I reduce the impact of meeting my basic needs? It's a long way from perfect, but it's where I am now. Hopefully I'll see my way forward to improving and living more in line with what I believe.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Duty, Motivation, and Joy

Some kinds of religious writing talk a lot about ideas like duty. You go to church because it's your duty to God; you're honest in your dealings with others because you have a duty to do so; you go visit your aunt in the hospital because it's your duty. It sometimes makes religious life seem like a set of rules: go to church on Sundays, give to the poor, volunteer, be honest, put yourself last. The problem for me of putting things that way is that it sounds so dreary! It makes life seem like a series of unpleasant chores that you have to just grit your teeth and get through. It does not sounds like a life of joy and love. Rather it seems like a life that would take the terror of hellfire to make someone embrace it. I'm not convinced that that's what God intends for us.

I'm not claiming that we shouldn't worship together and give of our time and money and live with integrity. I definitely think that those are very good things. But I find that if my reason for doing them is only that I think I should do them, that's just not enough motivation. I need to care about what I'm doing for its own sake, not just for the sake of doing what I should. In psychology, the distinction is sometimes made between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation: intrinsic motivation is the motivation to do something just because you want to, because you find it personally satisfying. Extrinsic motivation is the motivation to do something because you will be rewarded for doing it or punished for not doing it, like doing a job to get paid or paying your taxes to avoid the IRS. People will act from extrinsic motivation, certainly – having food to eat and not being thrown in jail are highly motivating. But it seems that people get joy from intrinsic motivation. And, interestingly, there is research that seems to indicate that extrinsic motivation kills intrinsic motivation for the same activity. So I'm not entirely alone in finding duty to be a poor motivator – though I can imagine that there are people who find it personally satisfying to see themselves as dutiful and therefore are intrinsically motivated to act according to what they perceive as their duty.

For someone like me, though, duty mostly means doing stuff you don't want to do because some authority says you have to. Getting duty mixed in with my worship or volunteering tends to make me feel resentful and insecure. Certainly it kills the idea of living from the abundance that God has given me. I also have a tendency to absorb ideas from my surroundings unless I aggressively challenge them. At some point, this led me to an idea of church as duty, which made me not want to go to church, which led to my mostly disappearing from the church for most of a year until I realized that I did actually want to be there. (Oddly, this particular idea of duty didn't come from my church or my family. I'm not sure where I picked it up).

One of the challenges I faced with throwing off the ideas of duty was the question of how I would still be a good person. How would I still care about the world and contribute if I didn't have a sense of duty making me do it? In my particular case, I had to take the risk that maybe I wouldn't – I decided that actually being myself, whatever that was, was more important to me than being good. This seems very much less like a “surrender to God” sort of decisions and more like a “throw off your shackles” sort of decision, but in this case I think it was actually the decision that brought me closer to God. By throwing off all my ideas of what I should be and do and want, I was able to find out what I actually wanted. And I learned that I do want the church. I want to sing and pray and break bread with other people; I want to think and write about how my faith informs my life; I want to be part of a community that welcomes everyone; I want to help change the world; I want to live as if love and joy and hope are more powerful than fear and death. I want to do these things not because I'm afraid of being punished if I don't or because I'm trying to earn a reward, but because the attempt to do so is satisfying and meaningful here and now.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Radical Hospitality

One of the phrases that's used a lot at my church these days is “radical hospitality.” I think this is a really important idea, and I think it's a key part of God's kingdom. To me, radical hospitality means welcoming and entering into fellowship with people who are different from oneself, listening to each other's stories, honoring each other's points of view, and remaining together in community even if we disagree or have vastly different backgrounds or wouldn't necessarily be friends just based on our interests and personalities. I think it's fine to have friends in church. I think it's great to have friends in church! But expecting everyone in your church to be a close personal friend I think would require a very small church – which would totally defeat the purpose of this radical hospitality I'm talking about. I think part of the whole point of the idea of church community as family is that you don't choose who's in your family – and you don't choose who's in your church. You might visit several churches until you find one where you feel you belong – but once you're committed to staying, you're thrown in with a bunch of other people all trying to do God's work together. And, of course, you're part of the whole big universal church – you definitely don't choose the people there. My phrasing here is starting to make it sound like the purpose is to not have a choice and just put up with people. That's not what I'm trying to say at all! It's more like the reason you don't choose is that you choose everyone. Church is a place where we practice understanding and living out the fact that everyone is uniquely precious to God. Of course, we ought to be trying to live that out in our weekday lives too – but it helps to have a place where everyone's on the same page with that idea. Our culture seems to be much more about defining who's in and who's out, who's a winner and who's a loser – and the idea that in order for there to be a winner, there has to be a loser. The church turns that upside down and says that we rise or fall as a community. At its best, it says to the world that it doesn't matter if you don't fit in, or if you're unattractive by society's standards, or if you struggle with mental or physical illness, or if the culture says you're unacceptable because of your ethnicity or your sexuality or where you were born or what language you speak or how you dress or your financial state or whatever – there's a place for you here. You are welcomed, and you are needed – there's work to be done.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

What I Do Believe

Last time I talked about the Nicene Creed and threw out about half of it as uncertain/unnecessary. So today I'm going to try to define what I do believe. Belief in the religious sense is a strange concept to me. I'm not able to say that I'm certain of anything about God or that I know anything. As I've said before, there are too many ideas and experiences and not enough clarity in how to evaluate them. So for me, in religious terms, a belief basically means a working hypothesis. A hypothesis because my ideas could eventually be disproved, though I don't expect that in this life, nor do I expect enough evidence to be able to move from hypothesis to theory. It's important to my sense of intellectual honesty that I maintain the awareness that my beliefs could be totally wrong. It could turn out that there's nothing, that the existence of the universe is a chance event. It could turn out that the divine being is actually a giant interdimensional badger. I don't think these are likely, but I can't say they're impossible.

But anyway...that explains the hypothesis part. And then working because for me the point of religion is to inform the way I live my life, to give me a perspective that makes life more than just a series of events, to help my life be about something. (I'm not claiming that religious belief is the only way to give one's life meaning – there are many ways to anchor one's life – this is just the one that works for me). So I guess for me a religious belief is an idea about the divine that, if it were true, would affect the way I live my life, and that I attempt to live as if I know it to be true, while recognizing that I don't actually know that. This gives me some difficulty distinguishing between faith and hope, which Paul delineates as separate things.

Because I think of my beliefs primarily as the things that inform my life, there's a lot of stuff that's part of the traditional Christian faith that I don't consider myself to believe or disbelieve because it doesn't seem to affect my choices. Things like: the circumstances of Jesus' birth, whether he was conceived of a virgin or the traditional way, whether God exists as a trinity and the details of that, whether Jesus was God from all eternity, whether and how the biblical miracles happened, even whether there was a literal bodily resurrection – these are all things where waiting and seeing seems to be adequate.

So, on to what I do believe. I believe that there is a God who created the universe out of love and holds it in being. For me, this manifests as a sense that the universe is trustworthy, both in the consistency of natural law, and in the intuition that everything will be set right one day. At the same time, I'm aware that it's far easier to see the universe as trustworthy when one is healthy and well-fed and safe and loved. People really are crushed by hardship and injustice, and I can't blame someone in those circumstances for deciding that the universe isn't so trustworthy after all.

I believe that God loves each person uniquely and individually, and also loves His natural creation. This is where all ethics come from (for me, not for everyone). Not just that God loves everyone, therefore I should too – but that God loves everyone, therefore there is something there to love in everyone. This means approaching the world with an assumption of goodwill, giving people the benefit of the doubt, trying to look beyond my own prejudices and first impressions, meeting people where they are. I fail at this all the time, sometimes because I just can't seem to get past my own emotions, but more often because I forget to try. I think one of the dangers of our fast-paced, results-oriented world is that in the need to get stuff done, we run the risk of not seeing people as people, but as tasks to be accomplished or obstacles to be overcome. The fact that it's a societal problem doesn't make it okay for me to fall into those traps, but it does raise questions about whether we as a society ought to reprioritize. And society certainly isn't to blame for all of it – I also fail because I'm tired or preoccupied or angry or nervous or fearful.

I believe that God is patient with human failings. If I didn't believe this, I simply wouldn't be able to function. I have my ideals, but I also have my tiredness and impatience and self-centeredness, and a brain that's the product of evolution and frequently seems to still be in beta. It's hard for me to distinguish when I've failed because of being truly overwhelmed or because I just chose not to try hard enough. Sometimes it's clear-cut, but more often it isn't. And so I have to believe in forgiveness – I have to believe that God won't write me off but will allow me to keep trying and furthermore positively wants me to keep trying – because the alternative is just to give up. Of course, I also ought to remember this when I'm dealing with other people and their failings and try to be patient with them as well. And sometimes I succeed at that, and sometimes I fail.

I believe that God will set all things right eventually but that He also cares about the present. Without the belief that goodness and justice will win out in the end, I don't know what I would do – my best guesses are either suicide or a totally self-centered life. The reason is that the scale of suffering and injustice is simply overwhelming, and I don't think humans are likely to be able to totally resolve it. Plus there's nothing we can do for those who are already dead. Fixing a little piece of a really big problem does indeed have value, but it's still psychologically difficult to tolerate the fact that you're working on a problem that you'll never be able to solve. Without the belief that it will be solved eventually, the temptation to just give up would be too strong. At the same time, with the belief that it will be solved, there's a temptation to just not worry, to sit back and let God take care of it. And I think this is also a mistake. The work we can do in the world might be incomplete, but it's still real. Yes, all will be well in the end, but the end isn't the only time that exists. Suffering that we alleviate now is still alleviated – sooner is better than later. Maybe all the extinct species will be restored in the new creation (wouldn't it be cool to have dinosaurs in heaven?!?) but if we preserve them now, their continued existence also has meaning. I don't know why we're given this tension between now and in the fullness of time. My best guess is that it has something to do with giving us some space to work with free will, maybe to let us fiddle around with it before we get down to using it in earnest. I sometimes question whether this is worth the cost in suffering and bad decisions, but I have to assume that God knows what He's doing or I have nothing left to work with.

There are other things I believe, but I'm out of time to write, so that'll be it for today. Maybe sometime I'll put up a sequel.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Nicene Creed Dissected

I say the Nicene Creed in church each week as a reminder and affirmation of how we're bound together in a community, but in fact I'm unsure about almost all of it. This doesn't give me problems with saying it because I believe in what it stands for, but it took me a while to get to that point.

“We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen” - This part I'm pretty much okay with, at least as a working hypothesis. My intuition that God exists is strong enough to be called a belief.

“We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, one in being with the Father” - This part I don't know about. I don't know whether Jesus was God from eternity, or whether he became the Son of God in an adoptive but no less real sense after having been human in the usual way, or whether he became one with God at some point so that it makes sense to say that he's God now even if he wasn't always, or if he was a human person who had such a close understanding of God that for all practical purposes if you understand and follow him, you understand and follow God.

“Through him all things were made” - depends totally on what the nature of Jesus is, which I don't know.

“For us and for our salvation, he came down from heaven” - depends on whether he started out in heaven, and also on just what salvation means. But I think the salvation part is true in some sense – the question is just what are we being saved from – I'm not so sure that hellfire is it.

“By the power of the Holy Spirit, he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary and was made man” - there was a human person Jesus who had a mother that we traditionally call Mary. Whether Jesus was conceived with or without sex, I don't know.

“For our sake he was crucified under Pontious Pilate; he suffered death and was buried” - the historical records are pretty clear that the crucifixion did happen. The 'for our sake' I think is true in a sense, but I don't know whether it's that his death was necessary in and of itself or just that it was an inevitable effect of the other work he had to do.

“On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures” - maybe, maybe not; one way or another, something happened that allowed the church to take off and last where most mystery cults didn't.

“He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father” - I'm pretty sure that if Jesus is anywhere now, it's with God, and since my understanding of God is largely through Jesus, the 'right hand of the Father' makes sense

“He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end” - I expect some sort of judgment, if only in the sense of coming to understand the truth about what my life has been, and I hope for an eternal kingdom of God. As far as the 'coming again in glory' we know that one way or another the earth has a finite lifespan; whether it'll keep going until sentient life dies out or the sun goes red giant, or whether God will step in and call it done before then, I have no idea.

“We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son” - I sometimes experience the presence of God as here and now and within me and within those around me in addition to being out there beyond the sky; maybe this is what is meant by the Holy Spirit.
“With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified” - no problems there.

“He has spoken through the prophets” - and continues to do so.

“We believe in one holy, catholic, and apostolic church” - I believe wholeheartedly that the church is one whether it likes it or not; catholic just means universal, and I certainly believe that the church is for any who want it; holy in the sense that I find God there and I believe that we work for the kingdom of God; apostolic to me is just a historical fact.

“We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins” - I don't think much of God if He's so into red tape that you have to undergo this specific ritual in order to be forgiven, but I do find baptism deeply meaningful as a way of welcoming new people into the community.

“We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come” - I hope so, and I hope so with enough intensity that I seek to work my life around this hope.