Now What?

Some of you - like me - grew up going to church every Sunday. And some of you - also like me - have concluded that the "faith of our fathers" is totally insufficient to sustain any sort of modern faith or meaning.

My parent's faith was nothing like the faith of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - a faith that sustained him through threat of death and, finally, one would hope - death itself.

My parent's faith was not a biblical faith, but rather a culturally - and distinctly - Southern one. My parents believed negroes - although surely God's children - had their place. My parents believed that the only real Bible was the King James Version - and that "idle hands are the devil's playground."

My parent's voted against "Liquor by the Drink" - back when Nashville was a dry county and when the speakeasy was known about - but never acknowledged in public by the God-fearing.
So as you consider the photograph I posted, do you think this is a sunrise or a sunset? If you know the place in which it was taken - then you will know the answer. But without that knowledge, it is hard to tell, isn't it?

Life is like that, sometimes. And I think as I consider my own faith and doubt - my own struggle with depression and meaning - as I approach the age when my parent's life was winding down, I feel strangely invigorated. I feel almost as if I am fully living my faith and my values - in a way much more meaningful and in a way much Better - than in those days when I was an approved member of a major Protestant Denomination.

Much has been said - much has been written - about America's place in the world. Our 45th President was elected on the promise to "make America great again." I think this resonated with my father and many of his generation.

To these people, America was great when blacks knew their place - women new their place - and children never talked back - or got tattoos or body piercings. Their recollection of America is flawed in that it never really existed - except for middle-class, white men. For everyone else, America's greatness was merely an aspiration.

I think a common thread in all of these considerations is a crisis of belief - a crisis of "faith", if you will. With the "old ways" fading into oblivion, what ways will replace them? We know - or think we know - what the present and the recent past were about, but what is coming? Will it suffice? Will it make do and give meaning to our rushed, stressed, and many times anxious lives?

Viktor Frankel in his seminal book "Man's Search for Meaning" drew from his experience in - and survival of - the horrendous Nazi concentration camps. He considered why some died and some survived. He also considered the almost unspeakable cruelty of (previously) every-day German citizens. It is instructive to remember that some Nazi soldiers were also faithful Lutherans. What did it mean? What does it mean? Can we even make sense enough to know?

And although many of us no longer darken the church door as we did as children, if we are honest, we still struggle with those aspects of the human condition that - in an older and simpler time - religion and doctrine helped to provide an answer.

The answers of old-time religion were not always perfect - they were not always fully sufficient - but to many people, they were a comfort in those "dark nights of the soul" that all of us experience.

But now. Now those answers for many of us are no longer even passably sufficient. Now, they are almost completely and totally insufficient. Inadequate. So, now what? How do we answer those questions of meaning? How do we continue in those dark days when nothing seems to matter? How do we believe in goodness when all we see is evil, mendacious, and rage-inspiring?

How do we not become cynical, angry and withdrawn from the communities in which we live? Certainly technology has enabled us to configure our own personal fortress of meaning. We no longer need to frequent the movie theater, as our own homes many times have better sound, better amenities, and more convenience. Social media allows us to "feel connected" - almost 24/7 - even though we many never spend a moment of physical proximity to all of Facebook "friends". But is it really enough to sustain and satisfy our soul's needs?

As Francis Schaefer asked in his 1970's book, "How Should we then, live?"

The old theological concepts of sin and guilt, judgment and forgiveness, condemnation and redemption - most religions deal with these basic human conundrums. But if we have rejected religion - if it no longer adequately answers our questions, what now?

For those of you that know me well, you know that I was that faithful, compliant child who - in spite of ADD and dyslexia - worked to become an honor student and (many times) a teacher favorite.

You would also know that I have several times considered "the ministry" and enrollment at seminary. And yet, in the end, those considerations resulted in a path outside of liturgy and clergy - a path my father would certainly deem heretical.

But for me, I have lately experienced this odd sensation of deja vu. And if not deja vu - then certainly that vague familiarity one feels when visiting a childhood destination - where memory is fuzzy and perceptions malleable.

At this odd age I have come back to a faith that - although resembling Christianity - one that many Evangelicals would reject as acceptable. I do not blindly accept either the Virgin Birth or the Bodily Resurrection of Jesus. That, alone, certifies my heresy.

And yet, I firmly could be called Pauline (i.e. - of or pertaining to the teachings of the Apostle Paul) in that I fervently believe in the concepts upon which he expounded in the Book of Romans. Those concepts concern us all - even if we are not aware of their relevance. The concept of sin or "falling short" - although we may not consider our failings as "sins", per se, we have all experienced the regret - the pain - the bewilderment - of letting someone down when they needed us most. We all - if we are honest - have felt deep guilt or shame when we failed to follow our own "moral code".

Because we all have a moral code - even if we do not call it such. We have those things we think unforgivable - those things that cannot be undone. And whether perpetrated by others or ourselves - those are the things that haunt us when we are alone - when we are lonely - when we are discouraged.

So, if the old answers are insufficient, now what?
In his excellent book The Courage to Be, the German Theologian, Paul Tillich, considered that very question - now what? In the book's introduction, the fellow theologian Peter Gomes writes:

This "death of God" might lead some to the despair of atheism and meaninglessness, but for Tillich it leads to a greater and deeper faith in a God beyond and above all that we doubt. This new faith is grounded in the God who remains after all other Gods have proven themselves inadequate. In other words, there is a God who emerges from the other side of doubt, and from that God we take courage.

So this is the place to which I've come. Much of my upcoming book - Confessions of a Heretic - will address this life-long struggle of mine.

I hope there are others who will join the conversation. I hope there are others who - like me - still believe, nay still need - the grace once provided by religion. Because even in darkness - especially in darkness - we need something to sustain us. There must be something beyond reason - beyond convention - that will enable us to - get up yet again - to rise from either the ashes or the pit of despair that so many of us experience.

In this my 60th year, what I have recovered - what I have rediscovered - is my faith. Not the faith handed down to me by my father and his friends. It is not a faith I recognize in anyone else.

My faith is as much my own as is my body. Strong in some places. Weak and scarred in others. But by god, you cannot take it away from me - because I have forged it - I have fought for it - I have earned and won it. It is mine - and it is precious.

Let me share the words of Tillich, to comfort and possibly encourage you.

Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual, because we have violated another life, a life which we loved, or from which we are estranged.

Quoted in The Essential Paul Tillich: An Anthology of the Writings of Paul Tillich

For me, that Grace has saved me - not only from the sufferings and failures of my own life - but also from despair and the loss of hope.

That Grace has enabled me to forge my own faith - enough to accept my own acceptance.
Again the words of Tillich that are so meaningful to me - and possibly for you, too.

You are accepted. You are accepted, by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted! If that happens to us, we experience grace.

Quoted in The Essential Paul Tillich: An Anthology of the Writings of Paul Tillich

And all the congregation said "amen". And I, too, say "amen".

dg

2/5/2017

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