Aspects of Faith--Community

“Let those who will not be in community fear being in community.

Let those who will not be in community fear being alone.”

 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together[1]

The story goes that evangelist Dwight L. Moody once stopped at a country inn f where one of the patrons tried to engage him in a theological argument.  The man said that he was a Christian, but that he did not believe in going to church.  After all, isn’t one’s religion a personal matter?  Why should we have to be in company with others? 

Moody was too tired to argue.  Instead, he took a poker to the coal fire in the fireplace.  He pulled out one coal and set it on the hearth.  They watched as the coals in the fireplace remained hot, and the one on the hearth turned black and coal.  “That, sir,” Moody stated simply, “Is why we need a church.” 

Community living is like a dance between porcupines—we are drawn together out of loneliness, but we can’t help trading barbs.  It would be easier to live in isolation, but we can’t—we really do need each.  

Robert Bellah wrote in Habits of the Heart,

“We find our (true) selves not independently of other people and institutions but through them.   We never get to ourselves on our own.  We discover who we are face to face and side by side with others in work, love and learning.  All of our activity goes on in relationships, groups, associations, and communities ordered by institutional structures and interpreted by them.” [2]

Kenneth Boa writes:

“Life in Jesus is not meant to be solitary and individualistic but shared and collective.  . . . the nurture of the community of faith is designed to prepare us for our everlasting life with the Lord and with one another.”[3]

Christian community is not a goal to be achieved, but a present reality created by Divine command, not human effort.  We do not “achieve” community—we already are a community. Any effort to “achieve” it is bound to fail, since we cannot do in the flesh what already been done in the Spirit.   Jesus called the Christian community ecclesia, or  “the called-ones.” When anyone responds to the call of God to become a participant in His kingdom through surrender to Christ,  that person, no matter how different they may be from us becomes our brother or sister.  We did not choose who we are called to love. We are called to love all who believe in Him, and so we already exist in community with them.

This must have been terribly hard for the first generation of Christians were common fishermen from the same town—business competitors. Matthew was their tax man.  Simon Zealotes was a member of a terrorist group that murdered tax men.  One of their number was a traitor and a thief.  Some were young and some were old.  Some were married and others single.  Some were wealthy and others poor. Some were educated and others illiterate. Yet Jesus they became closer than brothers, willing to die for and with each other.

Individualized faith isn’t just incomplete, it’s mostly imaginary.  We can’t live as Christians without obeying Jesus’ one new commandment- “love each other.”  Isolated Christians are easy targets for temptations, but joined together we reinforce can have great strength.   Whatever knowledge and experience we think we have, the community has more.  Our combined strength is greater than the sum of its parts.

Living in community keeps our faith real. In it our feelings, attitudes, and behavior are exposed. If we act in any other way than what we proclaim, the community will discover it and we are “outed” as hypocrites. If we are serious about living as a Christ-follower, we will welcome this exposure as a means of purification. But if we keep our faith alone and to ourselves, there is no one to expose the places we need correcting.  When we walk with others we walk in the light and grow strong in our faith. 

The virtues of Community

The first virtue of community is presence. Despite computers and social networks, we still need whenever possible to come together face o face.  A computer screen of smart phone is not sufficient when a person is hurting. Facebook messages and well-meaning texts cannot hold our hands when we are hurting, or hug us when we are feeling lost.   We may be spiritual creatures but we inhabit animal bodies,  and need the touch of other bodies.   There is no substitute for a sympathetic smile, a warm touch, and a listening ear. 

Being in community is messy, but being out of community is worse. Augustine wrote, “Without the church, there is no salvation.”  While that statement may be debatable, it is undeniable that we need each other to lead us to the full life of Christ.  

The second virtue is empathy. Empathy is the ability to move out of our own thoughts and feelings and into the thoughts and feelings of others.  Of all the attributes, of community, this may be the most important.

Recently, I met a small-groups director from one of the largest churches in the country,   His job was overseeing one hundred and ten small group leaders—and there were two more men who had his position with just a many groups! He never met the groups—only the leaders.  He was a small group leader himself of newlyweds in their twenties.  It is no stretch to say that these groups had tremendous empathy for each other.  After all, the people in these group shared the same age, views, and social strata.  It’s easy to have empathy for people like ourselves.

My current church is small—fifty or sixty people on a good Sunday—but it is diverse.  Old and young, black and white, rich and poor, new believers and mature believers meet together, sharing the work, the jokes, and the tears.  There is nothing wrong with either church,  but I must ask the question—if our goal is to grow empathy with people who are different, in which one are we most likely to happen—in a place where everyone is the same, or a place where we are forced to listen to people who are different? Empathy is learning to appreciate our differences and see the hearts of people beneath the superficial differences. 

The third virtue is Accountability. We grow in community not so much from mutual enjoyment as from exercising grace through conflict. The sword and the whetstone lie peacefully together only when rusting in the drawer. It’s in the sharp exchange of ideas and feelings that true communities are forged. 

Paul makes it clear that we should value other members of our community as better than ourselves.  Each member, offers something to us, something from which we may benefit. We learn only if we sincerely seek to see their perspectives. This requires a humility, taking the stance of a learner, not seeking to instruct, but to be instructed.  

It’s not always easy to stay together, but that doesn’t mean we should forsake the company of brothers and sisters who irritate us.  Proverbs says “As iron sharpens iron,  so does one man sharpen another” When iron strikes iron, sparks fly.  The only way we get sharp is through tough, honest interaction.  Through argument, emotional response, forgiveness and reconciliation we chisel each other into the shape God intends.  

The fourth attribute is commitment.  Community requires a bond of trust.  There must be no deceit or hidden motives. The higher the level of intimacy required in a relationship, the deeper the commitment we need.  

In Matthew 10: 11-13 Jesus told us “whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it and stay there until you depart.”   In other words, change homes because someone else has a nicer house. Don’t be looking for greener pastures, stay and learn to love who’s here. This is the principle of stability, or blooming where we are planted.

Commitment to a local body of believers is essential to community. This commitment is something we enter not because we deserve but because they don’t. Commitment is recognizing that community is not for us, but for all of us together.

Jesus asked Peter in the last chapter of John, “Do you love me?”  He asked three times and Peterr told Him three times “You know I love you.”  Each time Jesus answered the same way  “Feed my sheep.” They way we express love to Christ is to care for those Have cares about.  We have to see our identity as part a community of faith, and not as solitary individuals. As we feed they those around us,  their faith feeds us, and we grow in faith together.

How about you?  How does your self-awareness connect with the community of faith around you?  How do you keep your connections with God strong through your community with others?  Would you be interested in building connections with other Christians online or in person? I’d love to

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[1] Dietrich Bonheoffer  Life Together (Harper & Row, New York) 1954, p.  77. 

[2] Robert Bellah, Habits of the Heart, quoted in Bobos in Paradise by David Brooks, p.  236.

[3][3] Boa Conformed to His Image, p.

Exploring the Matrix: The Action Balance

The second balance beam in the Christian walk is the balance of witness and submission. It involves the connection of body and spirit.  (for more about the balance beams, go here.)

God reveals Himself to us through physical acts. He gave us physical signs—the sacrifices of animals in the Old Testament, baptism and communion in the New, promising to reveal himself through physical acts to His creatures. He entered our world by taking on flesh.  When He demonstrated His love bodily in the crucifixion. He healed physical ailments and performed miracles.  Through these means He demonstrated that what we do with our bodies matters to our souls.  Physical actions cause us to come closer to God or push us away from Him.

The church calls physical actions that strengthen our relationship to God the means of grace. These include baptism, the Lord’s Supper, anointing with oil and the laying on of hands. Acts of love--such as visiting the sick, praying for the lost, and helping the needy--are also means of grace.  Fixing a flat tire for a stranded motorist, a kind touch on a grieving shoulder, or a well-timed word of comfort also convey God’s grace to others. Deciding to go to church instead of to the store or the golf course are acts of grace as well.

A disciple duplicates the actions of a master.  A coach runs his team through hours of physical practice. A dancing master does the same for her dancers.  Musicians follow their master, repeating continually the scales, methods, and pieces that made her great.  Martial arts students follow the discipline of their sensei.   In every area of life being a disciple means physical training. Faith is the same; following Jesus means bodily action. 

Willard gives this example.

“Think of certain young people who idolize an outstanding baseball player.   They want nothing better than to pitch or run or hit as well as their idol.   So what do they do?  When they are playing in a baseball game, they all try to behave exactly as their favorite baseball player does.   .    .  The buy the same shoes he wears, the same glove he uses, the same bat.

“Will they succeed in performing like the star, though? .  .  .  The star performer himself didn’t achieve his excellence by trying to behave a certain way only during the game.   Instead, he chose an overall life of preparation of mind and body, pouring all his energies into that total preparation, to provide a foundation in the body’s automatic responses and strength for his conscious efforts during a game.”[1]

 “Being the Son of God clearly did not relieve him of the necessity of a life of preparation that was mainly spent out of the public eye.   .  .  The secret of the easy yoke involves living as he lived in the entirety of his life—adopting His overall lifestyle.”[2]

In Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster writes:

“The inner righteousness we seek is not something which can be poured on our hearts.   God has ordained the disciplines of the spiritual life as a means by which we place ourselves where He can bless us.”[3]

All physical acts start in the mind as an inner choice. When the alarm goes off, we choose whether to get up or to turn it off and roll over in bed.  When the clock says noon, we must choose whether or not to eat. It takes mental energy and will to make choices about behavior.  So God has provided us with an inner mechanism that governs our actions and saves us from the burden of making constant decisions.  This mechanism is called habit.  Habits enable us to choose certain behaviors automatically. Once they are formed, we do things without thinking, freeing up our minds for more important functions and for multitasking.  Habits govern most of what we think and do every day. 

A large part of our spiritual lives are governed by habits as well.  Our morning ritual of devotions, our weekly habit of corporate worship, prayer before meals or at bedtime are not something we think about doing—we just do them.  Fasting, giving, forgiving, witnessing,  helping,  and even silence are habits that lead us closer to God.  Responding in anger to sleights,  overeating,  drug or alcohol use, timidity, worry, timidity, and fear are also habitual responses. 

In order to experience the means of grace, we must learn to master our habits,  both positive and negative.  For most of us, this the hardest part of our walk with God.  Can we learn to master the habits that master us?  Can we make our habits work for us instead of against us? 

Christ has a kingdom--it is wherever He rules.  We have a kingdom, too—it is wherever we are the masters of our own souls. Before we can surrender what we have to Christ, we must possess what He has given us.  Before we can make our souls His, we first must make them ours. 

Habits are means of maintaining our faith on a daily basis are the way we keep a continual commitment to God. The early church understood that, and established a regular system of rituals which continually kept them in contact with and in submission to God.  The inner disciplines of prayer, study, and worship, keep us close to God throughout the day.  St. James wrote “faith without works is dead.”[4]  Inward faith without outward behavior quickly disappears.

In the next several articles, we will be discussing how to balance two kinds of habits—those that help us maintain stillness and attention before God, and those that lead to act in the world on God’s behalf.  These two groups of habits we are calling Submission and Witness.

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[1] Dallas Willard The Spirit of the Disciplines, (HarperSanFrancisco) 1988, pp.  3-4. 

[2] ^{Ibid, p.  6.} 

[3] Richard Foster The Celebration of Discipline (Harper One, New York) 1978, p.  7.  

[4] James 2:20

How People Change Faiths

Our "faith matrix" is either formed by nurture or conversion. Nurture means we learn it from our parents, our religious culture, childhood rituals, and the stories we learn from childhood. We never question our faith, since it is deeply ingrained in who we are.
The child  is taught the faith of his or her parents, but only when their parents teach it.  Parents teach by word, deed, and example.  Through their influence they  overcome the voices of the world around them. A faith that is consistently taught becomes stronger as we grow older, deepening into a lifelong sustaining faith.
But when the faith does not grow or if it is inconsistent, then will often fail us later on. When this happens, we don't actually “lose” faith, but we change the ultimate concern of our faith to something else.  When our old faith fails, and we find another.  This is  conversion-- the move from one ultimate concern to something else. If we don't have faith in something, we can't function in the world.  Faith isn't an option for us, since we all need faith to survive.

But the move from one faith to another is rarely quick or easy.  It takes time to fully  shift from an old faith to  new ones. People flirt with a new locus of faith, before they adopt it. We may exist for a time, caught between one faith system and another,   But eventually, we commit ourselves to one or the other.  Elijah asked the Israelites “how long will you hop between two branches?” This the limbo between worlds as we seek a new direction.
 The process of change begins with disillusionment. Disillusionment isn't always a bad thing, but the beginning of change as we give up our old illusions. Christians call it conviction of sin.  We grow weary of a dual citizenship in heaven and earth, and admit that what we known, felt or did is wrong, and needs to be changed.  Disillusionment is necessary if we  seek to have a pure and undivided heart.
Disillusionment leads to searching.  We look for new answers.  We read books with different perspectives.  We build new friendships.  We try on new ideas seeking a new ground to stand upon.
Watching a person's progress at this time is like watching a spider moving between two twigs on a tree.  One by one, they let go of their old faith as they find security in the new. They do not simply jump from one faith system to  another, but gradually adopt one as they put away another.
This is the time of our greatest vulnerability. If a crisis hits our life, we may be torn in two,  because we do not stand on solid ground.
Sometimes, people get stuck between two faiths, without fully committing to either.  I think of people who have told me they were Christian Buddhists,  Christian Muslims, and even Christian atheists.    They seem unaware of the inconsistencies between these belief systems. What they fail to recognize that taking a stand for many faiths at the same time means that they make themselves their one true faith.  We alone become the judges of these faiths. We cannot serve two masters,  rather we seek to make these faith systems serve us,  picking and choosing the parts that suit us.  we are seeking to make God bend to us, not we bend to God.  If we are the judges of God, then we are own true god, or ultimate concern.  Our true God is what we serve--He does not serve us. .
True searching leads to confession.  This is when we finally admit to ourselves and others what our true faith is.  We make a choice, and stick with it. 
This happens not immediately but after a long process of small changes.  Like a spider moving first one leg, then another to a new branch,  our lives move one segment at a time from one faith to the next.
There are eight dimensions of our soul that need to line up in order to have a true and solid faith. These are,   (1)what we base our knowledge upon, (2) where we look for emotional fulfillment (3) what we submit ourselves to in self-discipline and habit (4) How we act in the world (5) the source of our self-identity (6) the community to which we perceive ourselves belonging (7) the tradition and heritage we embrace as our spiritual genealogy, and (8)  the source of our future hope.
Every change in any one of these is a move towards our faith or away from it. This move happens in small increments. When a new Christian moves towards Christ, they first move on wobbly legs. They wonder whether it is all real.  Christian fellowship seems forced.  At first, the things they read in the Bible may make no sense.  That is because the new matrix is not yet formed. In time,  the elements of Christian life and behavior become part of us as we live in a new reality. 
When a person leaves the faith,  they move the same way, first dropping Christian fellowship,  dropping out of church,  growing cold to the passions of faith that they once enjoyed. At first, they revel in their newfound freedom,  being free of those old "legalistic" restraints that they felt their faith imposed. They become critics of other Christians and complain about their judgmentalism and hypocrisy without realizing that in doing so they have become hypocritical and judgmental. They insist that the no longer need the "old myths and stories" to worship God, and feel superior to those who believe.  They throw off traditions they never understood,  and begin to see themselves as higher and more sophisticated to simple believer.    They do not realize that they are adopting a new god,  a god of self,  and are in the process of enthroning themselves above the heaven.  It all feels natural and right,  and they dismiss any feeling of discomfort as  just "old hang-ups that need to be exorcised.  Without themselves knowing it, they are slipping from a believing state to an unbelieving state.
It is important that whatever our faith may be, that it lines up together. Whatever we do, we should do it with our whole heart.
We need to look at ourselves--does our walk and our talk match?  Are we building habits based on our central core beliefs, or are we divided.
The pursuit of faith and faith formation is learning to line up our lives with our ultimate concern, which for a Christian means with the image  of Christ.

Where are you in the process of faith formation?  Are you changing, or are your growing deeper and more committed?   What do you perceive as your true and ultimate  concern?

Faith Versus Belief

Faith and belief are terms that are usually used interchangeably.  However, they are not necessarily the same.  You can believe in something without having faith in it.  You can also have faith in things you do not actually believe. 
Belief is what we suppose in our minds to be true. To believe in something is to acknowledge that it exists in a reality outside ourselves. To believe in God, for example, is to accept the idea of a Higher Power above and beyond ourselves.
Faith is an hold on to something to with our minds, our hearts, our wills and our emotions.  Believe is intellectual assent; faith is our personal foundation. 
Our beliefs may or may not have anything to do with how we live. Many of us have beliefs which have nothing to do with our everyday lives.  If we do or do not believe in aliens or Sasquatch, it will probably not have much bearing on our family lives or our choice of occupation.  It is an intellectual choice, not a life-supporting foundation.
Belief in God is for many people little different from belief in Bigfoot. They accept the concept of God, but that is all. One can believe in Jesus' existent, even in His resurrection and divinity, yet it makes no difference to them in their everyday lives.  A person may believe in God, yet cannot point to a single life decision or personal habit influenced by that belief.  They may as well believe in the Loch Ness Monster.

Faith can exist where there is no belief. We can build our lives around things that we know to be fantasies.  It is living in the subjunctive case.  We ask "what if this were true" and construct imaginative views of life around it, until we forget that it is merely a supposition, not reality.
Think of a person who plays the lottery every week, and fantasizes about winning it.  They become so focused on the dream of lottery winnings that they sell all that they have and buy tickets. It is still a remote fantasy, not as likely as being struck by lightning on a cloudless day, yet they have built everything around it. Intellectually, they know the odds. They know the difference between truth and fiction, yet they choose to define themselves by their allegiance to willful fantasy. emotionally, they have bought into the dream so deeply that they do not care.  That fantasy has become the basis for their life. 
Belief is what we hold in our mind.  Faith is what gives meaning to our existence.  Ardent sports fans,  movie buffs, re-enactors, serious gamers may just be part-time hobbyist, but at least a few become so engrossed in this that it becomes a faith, not a hobby.  They look to their heroes and imaginative fantasies to give meaning to our existence. In the age of virtual reality, this becomes more and more common.
"Fantasy religions” which Adam Possami labels “hyper-real religions” are increasing.   In Dunedin, New Zeeland, nearly two percent of the population listed on a census their religious preference as “Jedi Knight.” Often these religions start out as a joke, but over time they develop real belief systems, code of ethics,  fellowship,  and rituals.  Some start out as serious attempts to build a moral philosophy on fictional stories.  There are religion based on the movie The Matrix, Start Trek, the novels of H.  P.  Lovecraft and Robert E. Heinlein. It does not bother their followers that they have a non-real mythology--any more than(as G. K. Chesterton suggests in The Everlasting Man) the ancients always believed the myths and stories of gods and goddesses were true. In postmodernism,  the actually reality of the narrative that shapes our lives is purely incidental.  Apparently, knowing that something is unreal is not necessarily an impediment to having faith in it.  
While it is possible to have faith without belief, it is not ideal.  When our faith is challenged by real-world problems, unreal forms of faith tends to fall apart.  Even a child knows enough not to point a toy gun at a real robber.  We cannot continue to play games when our lives take a somber turn. 
As inadequate as faith is without belief, having belief without faith may be worse.  When we believe one thing and live another, we are live a lie without uttering it.  For such a person, belief exists but it impotent. We have denied the link between the head and the heart.  A person who is mistaken may be corrected, and that correction can change their lives, but one who knows the truth and does not live it is like a person with nerve paralysis.  They have severed the spinal chord of their lives, and no longer respond to the mind.  A hyper-real religionist may be following fiction, but they can change through confronting reality, but the non-following believer is inoculated against reality,  severed from the real, and cannot be persuaded by it.  Only the most desperate of circumstances can bring them to seek the power of true belief.
Belief and faith are not the same, but they should stay together.  Together, they enable us to withstand the challenges of life.

Here's some questions  for discussion:

Do you agree that it is possible to have faith without belief or belief without faith?  How important do you think it is to have your faith and belief together?
Do you think in you own life, your beliefs and your faith match?  Do you depend upon your beliefs to form the basis of your everyday life decisions?

Three Kinds of Faith

All people everywhere have some system of faith, whether it based on the truth or not.  Without faith in something,  life would be impossible.  Not all faiths lead to heaven, nor do all people believe in heaven. We can build our lives around all kinds of things. 
 It is not always obvious what category a person’s true faith lies, not even to the person themselves.  Many people who profess a religious belief,  do not hold that religious belief very strongly.  The center or their being is not located in religion, but in the pursuit of something else. This is what the Bible calls idolatry—worshipping a false god rather than a true one, or worshipping a true God without sincerity. God is merely a means to serving something else, though what we serve may be unclear. Their spiritual selves are double-minded and confused, and moral choices or necessarily belief becomes difficult.
Generally, we can divide these faith systems into three broad categories—self-based, community-based, and God-based. 
Self-based faith
Self-based faith finds its meaning in a person’s inner being, not in outer relationships.   No exterior standard or truth is necessary.  The poet William Ernest Henley in this kind of faith in his poem Invictus:
            “Out of the depths that cover me

Black as the pit from pole to pole

I thank whatever gods may be

For my own unconquerable soul.”

Or as Frank Sinatra put it,
         “For what is a man what has he got? If not himself then he has not.
            The record shows I took the blows and did it my way.”
In self-based faith, doing it our way is all important. Self-fulfillment or self-actualization is our ultimate concern.
This kind of spirituality goes all the way back to the ancient Greeks. Hedonists and Epicureans taught that the ultimate goal of life was personal pleasure—not the passing desires of the flesh, but the higher pursuits of the human spirit, which included personal self-discovery, self-expression and well-being.  This is not necessarily a selfish faith since love is usually considered one of the highest personal pleasures. A person can be loving and generous to others, but they do it to make themselves feel good. 
Another variant of self-spirituality is the modern “self-esteem” movement, which puts our own personal growth above everything else.  Getting in touch with our “inner selves”  is the same as getting in touch with God.  Relationships and activities that do not bring us self-fulfillment are considered detrimental to our spirits. 
 C. K. Chesterton wrote in Orthodoxy.
That Jones shall worship the "god within him" turns out ultimately to mean that Jones shall worship Jones. Let Jones worship the sun or moon - anything rather than the Inner Light; let Jones worship cats or crocodiles, if he can find any in his street, but not the god within. Christianity came into the world firstly in order to assert with violence that a man had not only to look inwards, but to look outwards, to behold with astonishment and enthusiasm a divine company and a divine captain. The only fun of being a Christian was that a man was not left alone with the Inner Light, but definitely recognized an outer light, fair as the sun, clear as the moon, terrible as an army with banners."
Self-based faith is its lack of outside checks on morals or behavior. The only true discipline is self discipline. The only true morality is being true to ourselves.
 In anxious times, self-based faith easily becomes sheer selfishness. If we are on a sinking ship, why should we obey the cry “women and children first” if self is our own ultimate good?
The other problem with self-spirituality is that it has no real mirror.  Other people give us a measuring stick that helps us see ourselves. If we are absorbed totally pursuing our own self-esteem, we cannot discover our true selves.  We are like a person, living in a room without a mirror, who cannot see our own faults, or even our own beauty. We need other people to help us realize our own best interests.   
Community-based faith
Community-based faith finds its meaning in relationship to a community.  This community can be very large or very small--It can be all of humanity, our family, country, ethnic group, circle of friends, or even one other person.  Being part of any other set of individuals, losing our identity in a group, is the essence of community spirituality. Nationalism, patriotism, regionalism, racism, family values, and school spirit are all expressions of this kind of faith.

One of the most striking expressions of community-based spirituality I ever saw was while I was traveling in a van from Moscow to Bryansk, Russia.  Along the road was a monument to a battle fought in World War II. A woman in a wedding dress was there, stopping traffic. She spoke to our driver and we drove on.  The driver explained that in this province, brides on their wedding day stop cars at war monuments to remind people of the men who died, who never had a chance to marry.  

 It’s hard to imagine American brides spending their wedding day doing something patriotic. But in her mind patriotism came before marriage. Personal lives are secondary in Russian culture to the welfare of the whole, even on your wedding day.  

Conservative talk-show hosts talk about “family values,” as if family and God are the same.  Liberals talk about community values in the same way. We put American flags in our sanctuaries and national anthems in our hymnbooks without ever thinking that patriotism and godliness are the same thing.  Holy days like Christmas seem more about family and the universal kinship of humanity than the incarnation of a transcendent God.  Christmas stories like The Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life that are more about loving others than meeting Christ. 

Community-based faith produces altruism and self-sacrifice more easily than self-based faith.  But it creates problems. What happens when the many different communities of which we are a part do not agree with each other? When we have to choose communities which one comes first?

Another problem with community-based faith is how we treat those not in our community.

 In the Godfather movies, Michael Corleone chooses loyalty to his family (the Mafia) over life as a law-abiding citizen, and destroys his family in the process.  Soldiers like Irwin Rommel fought for the Third Reich because they believed that their country came first. Marxism, which claims to stand for uplifting of the common person, has produced more bloody dictatorships than any ideology in history.  Community-based faith can deny the value of those outside our community, even when it claims to serve all. Those who do not go along with community values are usually treated as enemies to be crushed. Morality is situational, absolute, based on what one community views as “the greater good.”

In the end, community-based faith has no outside source of morality, patriotism devolves to nationalism, creedalism become oppression, families become clans, and churches become cults. 

 God-based faith

God-based faith finds meaning beyond self and community in an all-wise Creator Who is the source of all truth and goodness.   God judges the actions of all countries, communities, races, and families.    

God based faith does not have all the answers, but it at least acknowledges the fact, which community and self-based faiths do not. When our ultimate concern is something in this world, we can only make moral choices based on what we see around us and the needs of the moment. But God-based faith looks for truth beyond ourselves, which keeps us humble.

One drawback to God-based faith, is that in order to have it, you must actually believe there is a God. Not only that, but you must believe He has spoken. Not only that, you also have to believe He is still speaking.   If we are not sure, or if we believe He is not speaking, there is no   lreason to make Him the central concern of our existence.  Deism, which believes God started the universe but is now has nothing to do with it, rarely produces anything like real faith.  If God is absent from the world, then there is no reason to base our lives around Him.  God may be our Creator,  but He is an absent one, and or no real value in our daily living.  Without faith in God,  we necessarily fall back on self-satisfaction or community life as the reason for existence.

Here are some questions to get you thinking:

Is your ultimate concern in life God, some community, or yourself?  Which one  do you serve on a day-by-day basis? If you had to live without self-fulfillment or family connections, could you find fulfillment in life?    If you believe in God, do you serve Him so you can be a better person or have a better community, or do you seek to be a better person or have a better community so you can serve God? 

Write a comment and share what you think.

What is Faith?

In the movie City Slickers, Billy Crystal asks and old cowboy "What is the meaning of life?"

He holds up a finger. "One thing," he says.
"What is it?"  Crystal answers.

"That's for you to find out," he says.
The "one thing" of our life is our true faith--our real god.  It is the thing that gives our life meaning, hope, and stability.  Paul Tillich calls this our "ultimate concern." (The Dynamics of Faith, page 4) It is the basis for our continued existence. 
Faith has been called a crutch--it's really more like a skeleton. Everything we say, do, feel, or hope connects to it.  Faith is our orientation towards a single object, which is the organizing principle behind all our actions.  Faith and spirituality are the same thing.
None of us can say we hold to our faith object perfectly. There's an element of hypocrisy in the best of us.  Our lives are at times a soup of conflicting loyalties and half-realized certainties.  But nevertheless, there is always one thing we value more than all others. It shapes our thoughts, feelings and habits. That is our true faith, whether we realize it or not. It is our true object of worship, our real god.
 “No one can serve two masters," Jesus said in Matthew 6:24. "Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money." He could have said God and country, God and family, God and personal fulfillment, or anything else, and it would have been just as true. Our faith is our master, whether it be self,  community, or God. It is the single thing that brings fulfillment and strength to our lives. 
The worth of our faith comes out under pressure.   We may go for years without thinking of God or faith.   Then we suffer a shocking tragedy—a divorce, or a terminal illness.   Suddenly we need a reason to endure.   Like a student who has never studied, we are unprepared for the final examination.   The dimly recalled beliefs of childhood are not enough.   Our faith needs to be able to accommodate loss and death.   If we do not have mature, thoughtful answers, we may find no reason to continue.One way of describing how faith works is to imagine our lives as having three sides--our mind, heart, and habits.  Faith stands behind all three, lending strength to each part.  Faith stands behind our beliefs, and lead to our adoption of a belief system. It provides a filter for assessing information.  It stands behind our emotional life, too, regulating, restraining, and encouraging our feelings of love,  disgust,  fear, and courage.  It stands behind our habits also,  giving us the motivation to develop some habits and suppress others

Jesus illustrated this with a parable in Matthew 7:24-27:
“Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.   The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.  
 “But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.  The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.
Wind and rain represent the stresses of life—illness, death, change, or trouble.   If our spiritual base is not adequate to cope, then our lives will collapse like a house without foundation.
We can illustrate faith this way. 
Imagine our lives as a triangle. three sides--our Mind,  Heart, and Habits hang together in mutual support.  Our faith object is the center of them.  It is what gives shape to the others.  Our faith interacts with each side. To our minds, faith gives reasons for existence and a basic mental architecture that enables us to cope with new information. Our faith is strengthened by knowledge, even while it gives us a structure to assess right from wrong.  To our emotions, faith provides a filter and a reason to restrain and encourage. We hold back our tongues from hurt,  deny our tendencies to give up or be depressed,  as well as encouraging love, tenderness and praise, based on our relationship to our object of faith.
To our actions, or habits,  it gives us a reason for breaking bad habits and developing good ones.  Our faith  is strengthened by developing habits of worship, and weakened by habits that run contrary to our beliefs.
When stress comes into our lives in any of these areas,  our faith pushes back, as we see in this second illustration. When questions arise that we cannot answer,  faith pushes back.  When faced with overwhelming emotions such as grief or anger, faith gives us stability, and holds us strong. When the force of our negative habits threaten to ruin our lives, for example, when dealing with addictions of various kinds, our faith provided a "higher power" to break free.,
Without faith, we face breakdown and collapse. 
We need to know our faith--our true faith, not just our professed faith. We need a faith that tough enough to stand firm when the storms of life come raging.
So far, we have nor talked about any particular faith, but the function of faith in general. Right now, we are just talking about the role of faith in general. In later blogs, we will zero in on one particular system of faith, the Christian faith. But for now,  it is important to understand how faith works, and what it does.
Our "one thing" may be our religion, or it may be something different entirely. In the next two blogs, we will talk about the relationship between our faith and our belief.


Let me know what you think:

How does faith work in your life? Have there been times in your when faith has helped you survive, ?when your head, heart, or habits were challenged?
What do perceive is your real faith?  It is the same are your religion, or is it actually something altogether different.

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