The source of faith

I recently had a conversation with a colleague from work who expressed to me that there is no true religion. "How can there be?" she said, "There are so many!"

From her perspective, religion is an annoying crutch on which the weak lean in times of trouble. From my perspective, times of trouble force people to pause and look beyond their own immediate surroundings, allowing religion to find room. It's not that problems cause people to seek religion, it's that religion calls people out during times of trouble.

She replied, "Well, if you already believe in something, then you're obviously going to answer all questions from that perspective." And yet, atheism is a perspective as well, one that she was obviously answering the question from.

The question of how many religions there are is irrelevant as to whether one is true or not. Truth is not bound by how difficult it is to decipher nor by how many people believe in it. Truth is truth. A believer does not subscribe to religion merely because they hope to be a "better person" or to summon "strength" but also because they believe it to be true. That is the very definition of faith, yet it is not only the faith that is important, but also the truth.

Today, while perusing through some of my high school journals, I found this lesson posed just so:

If a man has great faith in thin ice, he will still drown. If a man has little faith in solid ground, he will still live. Therefore salvation does not depend on the amount of faith, but on the basis of that faith. My faith is in the Lord, the true and only God.

As Christians, we choose to build our faith on Christ, because we believe his words to be true. Without God, without Christ, there is no Christianity.

MATTHEW 7 (NLT)

Building on a Solid Foundation

²⁴ “Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. ²⁵ Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock. ²⁶ But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. ²⁷ When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.”

²⁸ When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, ²⁹ for he taught with real authority—quite unlike their teachers of religious law.

God of our understanding

As part of my community health course at school, I've been spending quite a bit of time attending sessions at or related to Alcoholics Anonymous. AA is a pretty unique program geared toward helping alcoholics overcome their addiction. It's laid out as a twelve-step process, supported by other alcoholics. Abstinence to AA is a lifelong and life-changing road. Recipients of the fruits of the program in turn give back what they have gained through sponsorship of other alcoholics, their time, and their commitment.

To AA, recovery is a spiritual process requiring a "psychic change" or radical shift in the way an alcoholic perceives the world (a Christian might call their initial state a "hardened heart"). It requires that they accept that they alone are not in control of their addiction and require a power outside themselves. The often controversial third step of the twelve step program is as follows...

[We made] a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.

The words "as we understood him" are key to modern AA practice. While AA claims to be a spiritual organization, it does not purport to be a religious one. Today, the "God of our understanding" signifies a power beyond ourselves. Some people understand this to be the God of a particular religion, others a general energy force guiding the universe, and still others attribute this to be the power of the group itself.

This raises a number of interesting issues. Firstly, despite its non-religious underpinnings, AA feels familiarly church-like. Meetings generally begin with a prayer (the Serenity Prayer) and key doctrinal readings to AA (the Twelve Traditions and Twelve Steps). These are followed by announcements and then by a speaker. The meeting welcomes newcomers and then closes with a prayer (often the Lord's Prayer).

THE SERENITY PRAYER

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Despite the recognizable structure (akin to opening prayer, scripture reading, announcements, sermon, welcome and introductions, and closing prayer) and even the recital of Jesus' own prayer, AA is a non-religious entity and will remain so.

Speaking to a fellow believer about the church-like feel of AA meetings, they commented, "It feels kind of incomplete to be approaching so close to the truth, yet to shy away from it."

I understood the sentiment. Alcoholics Anonymous had formed under the auspices of the Christian faith, recognizing the effectiveness of that faith yet with the laser-like focus of attacking alcoholism. But the purpose of AA is to treat alcoholism, not to proselytize for Christ or any particular religion. If faith in one particular God is a barrier to helping others overcome alcoholism, then it cannot be integral to AA. It is our job as the church to spread the good news of Christ.

MATTHEW 28 (NLT)

¹⁹ Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

An interesting dialogue arose during the sharing of an alcoholic at one of the AA sessions I attended. The alcoholic in question was of the impression that God did indeed exist, and he made the following statement:

Religion is man-made.
Spirituality is God-given.

I found this to be an understandable statement, though I disagreed with it. Religion as an institution is man-made, yet the foundation of religion are claims of truth brought to man through revelation. If spirituality is God-given, that is if God exists to share of himself and his nature with us, then it makes sense that God would reveal to us things spiritual. That is what religion is: knowledge about God, and life, and goodness revealed to man through a spiritual interaction with God himself.

JOHN 16 (ESV)

¹² "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. ¹³ When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. ¹⁴ He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. ¹⁵ All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

Perplexing, though, was that the same man then followed up with this anecdote:

One day we were going over the third step, and my sponsor said, "Oh, you think I'm going to give my life over to just any God? No, I don't think so. I'm going to write the job description for God. And my God is going to be better than any of your gods. He's going to be omnipotent, omniscient, he's going to have a sense of humour..."

And I thought to myself, that's a great idea. So I took that God as my God. Then I added the most important characteristic of my God: That he loves me and wants nothing bad for me.

Two reactions hit me at the same time. Firstly, this description of the ideal God fit the God of Christianity to a tee. He is omnipotent, omniscient, creative... and he is love!

1 JOHN 4 (NLT)

⁷ Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. ⁸ But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

Secondly, by setting out the job description for God, you are setting limits on a being that you already believe exists. That is man-made. If God exists and is empowering you, then imagining your own set of characters for God to possess if futile. God is who God is. I am reminded of the song Who? by the Newsboys:

How we gonna work this out?
To fabricate a God like this no doubt
We'd end up worshipping a Christ of our own design
But Jesus doesn't fit that profile
His ways aren't mine

I'm not following a God that's imagined
Can't invent This deity
That's why Jesus is the final answer
To who I want my God to be
He's who I want my God to be

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God is beyond our understanding or our imagination. Were it not so, how could he be God?

EPHESIANS 3 (NLT)

²⁰ Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. ²¹ Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.

I'd like to share one last anecdote. When asked what kind of experiences led him to believe in God, the speaker shared a story of how he had been drunkenly driving one night, speeding toward a motel to get laid. Losing control of the car, he swerved into the opposing lane. If there had been any traffic in the other lane he would have been dead on impact, but luckily he had caught the opposing lane on a red light. This was not the only instance where such an incident occurred. He expressed an inability to explain these blessings without a greater power looking after him.

During the break, when the speaker had exited the room, two of my colleagues began discussing the experience. One began:

Red light? He had a 50/50 chance. What about that 50% that didn't survive to tell the story. God? Come on!

I found this attitude somewhat disconcerting. Sure, there were certain odds at work. (The fact that this had occurred on more than one occasion probably means the he beat the odds by quite a bit!) Certainly, survival does not and cannot prove the hand of God. True, people die everyday. But what this man believed - that he had survived by the grace of God and that he had been in that positive 50% because of the hand of God - true or not, is not ridiculous. It is not impossible. It is not absurd.

ROMANS 8

²⁸And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

God exists. He is unchanging and beyond our capacity for invention. He calls to you and to I. He loves us, and desires to do good to us and through us.

Good without God

On my way home the other day, I happened by an advertisement by Humanist Canada, it read:

You can be good without God.

It was an interesting statement, seemingly meant to espouse the atheist philosophy, much like the controversial "There's probably no God" advertisements. I can only imagine that such advertisements seek to negate the need for God because, well, an atheist can be just as good as a Christian can. Where then does God factor into that?

And it's true, an atheist can be as "good" as a Christian can. So can a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Shintoist, and a Jew. Most major religions lay claim to moral codes, and these moral codes usually hold similar values at heart - for instance, the condemnation of murder. An atheist who upholds a similar moral code and works fervently to act upon it, can be just as "good" as any religious individual. They can aspire to be loving, kind, and forgiving. They may make donations to the poor, solve conflicts with patience, and treat others as they would be treated.

Yet even so, even the best of us are partial to anger, selfishness, pride, lust... In other words, even though we try to be "good", we're never perfect.

ROMANS 3 (NLT)

²³ For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.

But in focusing on the pursuit of righteousness, one is missing the point. Faith in God is not about being good, but about seeking truth. Indeed, a desire to improve ourselves may come about as a byproduct of our faith, but that faith is rooted in something deeper. Christians do not believe in God because they think it will make them a better person (though it may, in the process, do so) but because they believe that God exists, that he is real, and that the Bible is true.

Their own attempts to be good or inadequacy at achieving better results than their atheist neighbour does not make God less relevant. In fact, it makes God more relevant. Because in acknowledgement that we cannot achieve "goodness" beyond that which any other man can achieve (which is not all that "good" at all) on our own, we recognize our own weakness and need for salvation. Christianity offers this salvation in the form of Christ Jesus, who sacrificed his life that we might be reconciled with God. He claims more than just a path to "goodness" but a way back to God, life eternal, and truth.

GALATIANS 3 (NLT)

³ How foolish can you be? After starting your Christian lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort?

JOHN 14 (ESV)

⁶Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Indeed, Romans 3, which I cited above, continues:

ROMANS 3 (NLT)

²³ For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. ²⁴ Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. ²⁵ For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, ²⁶ for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he declares sinners to be right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.

I'm reminded of a song I first heard many years ago (Never Gonna Be as Big as Jesus by Audio Adrenaline), which went on to say:

I could be about as good
Good as any human could
But that won't get me by

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"You can be good without God." Is this true? To a certain perspective it is. By our own efforts, we can be no better than any other human being. But we trust in God because we believe his message to be true, and our faith then leads us toward salvation and transformation through Christ Jesus our saviour. It is He who makes us truly "good", but more importantly sets our sights beyond this life and toward eternity.

EPHESIANS 3 (NLT)

²⁰ Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. ²¹ Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.