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.
No comments:
Post a Comment