At my church this morning, they were talking about Father's Day and giving advice on how to be a good father, etc. All around, I think it was a good and valuable sermon. But one thing that one of the pastors said in the middle of it really disturbed me. He was talking about a local church that asks as one of its fundamental questions, "What about God the Mother (as opposed to God the Father)?" And this pastor said that even asking that question is offensive because it somehow implies that fatherhood is an insufficient role for God to be put into. Now, beyond the substantive problems with that statement (i.e. All of humanity was made in God's image, both male and female, so of course the question "What about God the Mother?" is not only valid but vital), the statement that "even asking the question is offensive" places the entirety of faith and religion inside of a tight little box, never to be shaken loose, pondered, or questioned.
But I have to ask, how can you have true faith without doubt? What is the point of trying to live for Christ if the way you live and the beliefs you cling to reject so many of those whom Christ reached out to the most?
The central passage of today's sermon was found in Deuteronomy 6 which urges the Israelite nation to follow God with their whole heart, soul, mind, and strength. But what does it look like to love God with all that you are? We talk about parents being consistent and involved in their kids' lives, but what kind of message does it send to your children when the religion you cling to, the faith you base your life and belief system upon is immovable?
Your faith shouldn't be immovable. It should be ever-changing, ever evolving. God is not stagnant, so why should we allow our faith, our belief systems to sit still, growing stale from lack of challenges, questioning, or doubting?
The sermon focused explicitly upon how parents should raise their children. And you can be the best, most loving and godly parent in the world, work yourself ragged to instill what you believe to be the appropriate Christian values into your children, but if you teach a rigid, immovable faith that has no room to breath, what is the point of it all? Can there be such a thing as true faith without being willing to doubt and question? How can a child learn to grow without these crucial aspects of having faith? And how can your children have anything close to true faith without being taught that it's okay to ask the tough questions, to not know all the answers, and even to buck tradition if you feel God leading you in that direction?
I don't believe that faith exists absent questioning and doubting.
Faith shouldn't be blind. It should live and evolve and grow and be challenged and break and change and, most importantly, be filled with love and grace.
I have always been taught that the Word of God is infallible. But what does that tenant say about our faith? This rigid clinging to Scriptures, blindly accepting everything it says (or everything we are taught that it is supposed to mean) as incapable of corruption or misinterpretation or mistranslation?
I believe that clinging to this notion with such a tight grip denies so much of the expressive work of God in our lives. If the Spirit of God leads us to a conviction or even just a thought that seemingly challenges a verse or passage of the Bible, shouldn't we have enough faith to be willing to question, to doubt, to wonder, to challenge?
God is more powerful than our belief systems, than our rigid clinging to the Bible. Yahweh wrote this Book, it's true. But He also entrusted into the hands, words, and voices of fallible man. So if we cling so tightly to this human-entrusted work, we are making the Bible our idol instead of worshiping the Creator of both man and the Word. Jesus is the Word, so it is Him we must follow more so than the human-entrusted Scriptures.
"One way to guard against [making the Bible an idol] is to realize that while the Bible may be at the centre of matters of faith, it must also be in 'conversation' with tradition, experience, and reason" (Rev. Mona West). We must realize that the Bible was written at a particular time, within the traditions, contexts and mindsets of its many authors. We must also realize that when we, as humans, read the Bible, we read it from the prisms and mindsets of our modern lives. And just as within the past couple centuries specific Scripture passages were used to justify the institution of slavery because of the context (time, place, and mindset) in which it was being interpreted, so we, today, read and interpret the Scriptures in the context of the world in which we live.
We no longer view slavery as a Biblically acceptable institution. So, knowing that the Bible has been used throughout history to rationalize injustices that were viewed as socially acceptable at that time, so the Bible, today, can and will be used to rationalize philosophies and beliefs that history, and even the church, will look back upon as unjust. We are fallible people, reading and trying to interpret the Bible through the prisms of our own lives and experiences.
We must recognize this simple fact: we are fallible. We must therefore hold our interpretations of Scriptures loosely, realizing that we may and will be wrong about some of our views. We cannot rely entirely upon the teachings of the modern church about how individual Scripture passages should be or have been interpreted. Because the church has been and will be wrong about some of these interpretations. That's the nature of having a human-led church.
So let's stop making the Bible our idol. Let's stop holding so tightly to our beliefs, rationalizing the idea that our traditional beliefs are, by the very nature that they are traditional, correct and infallible. Instead, let us use our ability to reason and philosophize and question and doubt and wonder. Let's not forget that we can and will be wrong. And that's ok. But let's pay attention to the leading of the Spirit in our own lives, instead of just the guidance of tradition and church history and interpretation as the sole authority for our lives. When Jesus left this earth, He told us that He was sending us a Counselor to help us navigate this world. So let's stop idolozing the Scriptures and instead listen to the Spirit and be willing to ask the tough questions, not afraid to go against tradition, but instead check everything we believe against that voice of the Spirit inside each of us.
