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A buddy of mine at seminary and I have been having semi regular bouts of walking and theologizing. We’ve been discussing belief a lot around here. Often this takes a very negative, if comical form. Someone calls someone else a “heretic” because they express doubt about the perpetual virginity of Mary, say, or wonder about the physical resurrection. Theological debate then begins around what constitutes true Christian faith. Do you have to believe in the virgin birth, or the physical resurrection? Is faith the denial of science for the sake of the miraculous? Does that take us all the way to denying evolution?
In the midst of all of this I keep returning to questions of epistemology, the study of knowledge. Where does knowledge come from? What is true? What is belief?
I think we’ve come to associate belief and truth with a scientific process of proving hypothesis in this period of human history. We tend to think that knowledge comes from gathering observable data and testing patterns in that data. Something is true if we can observe and measure it. For most of human history this wasn’t the way of thought. Applying the scientific method to stories in the Bible leads us to wonder if a cold front pushed back the Red Sea or if Lazarus was comatose. We tend to hypothesize about the miraculous.
I think this involves importing a modern view of scientific truth onto a set of stories that weren’t meant to be tested as “data.” For earlier people, truth was narrative. People understood that story, poetic meaning, commitment embodied truth. We were defined through relationship. Truth wasn’t found by testing data, but by finding resonance in poetry, art, story.
Understanding this definition of truth is important as we approach Christian belief. I’m not sure the creeds were set up to say “all the physical evidence to the contrary, I believe…” Believing in the Incarnation may have less to do with wondering how exactly it was that Mary came to be pregnant, and more to do with understanding that God sees humans as worthwhile enough to share life with. Whatever is scientifically probable, the deep truth being affirmed is that God loves us enough to dwell among us. However it is that Jesus is resurrected, the deep truth is that he overcame all barriers, even death, to show his redemptive and liberating love to the world.
God is in very nature improbable.
So what does believing in the resurrection look like? Is it a thought process denying the truth of science, or does it mean we hope against hope for new birth in the lives of the suffering around us? What does faith in the incarnation look like? Does it mean we assert that Mary was forever a virgin in our minds, or does it mean that we stand up to the powers of the world that tell us we are worthless because we trust in the God who chose us as neighbors?
If we hold on to tightly to our beliefs, they become blunt instruments useful for bludgeoning and not much else. If we are able to hold them gently, we might just be surprised that resurrection, incarnation, and miracles, are not stories of old but living truths available in our world. Faith becomes playful rather than painful.
What do you believe? How do you believe?
Playful faith...Seminarians dressed up to watch a VTS soccer game.
For your Lenten Enjoyment!
This is the first time in several years that I haven’t spent March preparing to leave for El Salvador, to be a pilgrim on the road to the tomb of Archbishop Oscar Romero. I’ve been thinking a great deal about pilgrimage lately. As part of a course this January we had to write up a “Rule of Life.” We had to describe the faith practices that give meaning and shape to our life. I included a section on pilgrimage.
Regular Pilgrimage
In addition to weekly worship, it is important for me at least once a year to seek God more deeply through intentional pilgrimage. Whether encountering God on a mountaintop, in a monastery, or among the poor, I find refreshment in leaving behind my daily life in pursuit of the living God.
This need for pilgrimage has been fulfilled for me through travel to El Salvador to visit the graves of the Jesuit Martyrs, killed for speaking their thoughts that the poor are beloved by God, and that they deserved a better lot in life. They were shot in the head to tell the Salvadoran people not to think such radical thoughts. Most palpably in 2007 a group of students and I marched with 20,000+ people through the streets of San Salvador to the tomb of Bishop Romero, who stood up to the Salvadoran government that was murdering its own people to keep the poor from claiming their voice. In one of the last sermons before his assassination, Archbishop Romero promised that “if they kill me, I will be resurrected (reborn) in the Salvadoran people.” Indeed his death caused the movement to foment. (On March 15 the FMLN party representing the ideals of the those who stood up to the powers that be, will most likely claim the office of the president for the first time.
Normally when one thinks of pilgrims, the destinations they have in mind are Rome, Canterbury, Compostelo, Jerusalem. Pilgrimage is thought to be travel to a place where God’s spirit has hovered close. Saints have showed the presence of God in a troubled time. In the practice of ancient Israel pilgrims came regularly to Jerusalem for great festivals. Often while they were in the city they brought their case before the high court in the city. In his article on Psalm 122 in the Interpretation series James Mays writes, “Pilgrimage is a journey in search of justice.”
As pilgrims we walk in the places where God has acted, whether among the poor of El Salvador inspired by the example of martyrs who died on behalf of the oppressed, or on the road to Jerusalem. We draw close to the God who has drawn close to us. This lent, we all walk as pilgrims to the foot of the cross. Let us remember that pilgrimage is a journey in search of justice.
