Paradox Redux

Reading over my earlier post on the article from Harpers made me want to discuss my feelings in a little more detail and with a little less bile and vitriol. Particularly with respect to this statement I made:

Anyway. The fact of the matter is that a lot of Christians just don't know their faith as well as they think they do. Oh, they go to church, boycott laviscious and demonic books like Harry Potter, and try to keep their kids from dating until they're 40, but at the end of the day, just how much do they really know about the teachings and philosophy of Christ? Would they actually want to know, or would they feel more comfortable believing that the Bible tells them that it's okay to be rich and greedy with no compassion or sympathy for those in need?

Most of my exposure to "real" Christianity really happened when I first got connected to the internet. I guess that when it comes to being online I'm what you would call a "late bloomer", but nevertheless, from talking to people via ICQ, MSN Messenger, AIM, or on the many list-servs that I belonged too once, I quickly discovered a sort of recurring pattern in the pattern and behaviour of the Christians I met. Chiefly, it was, for lack of a better word, a very simplistic view of scripture and of God and Christ. My Grade 13 English teacher (a Jew, no less) really pounded home in my mind how beautiful the Bible is, not just as another religious treatise, but as a work of literature. She taught me to see the Bible as an array of allusions, metaphors and similies, more than a puzzle, but a journey that would challenge your way of thinking. The "gaps" in the Bible, weren't gaps per se, but rather ways to engage your mind, to really understand what God was trying to tell you through all of the ambiguity and confusion. I came to the realization that nothing in the Bible is ever obvious, and no matter how well you think you've understood this passage or that phrase, there's always more layers of history and sociology to understand, more complexity to comprehend, and while it always intimidated me, I always ended up feeling just a little more enriched, spiritually.

So with regards to what I said earlier, I think a lot of people don't understand their faith at all because there's just so much to go through in scripture. There's so much to discuss, debate, meditate over, and write about -- and it's never, ever easy. In fact, it's bloody hard. I think that the most challenging aspect of my own faith, even more than my own struggle grappling with sin, or the constant tirades of the Christian Right, has been the Bible itself. You think you've got it all figured out, when the reality is that you've only just scratched the surface.

And understandably, a lot of people aren't ready or willing to cope with that. Far more easier to rely on someone else to tell you what the Bible says rather than to figure it all out for yourself. We're much too busy, much too harried, much too time-constrained to do that. And on top of that, it forces you to think about your faith, your beliefs, and your actions in a way that's 180 degress from what you're comfortable with. The Parable of the Good Samaritan is a good example of this. I for one, would place myself with the people who'd pass him by. And why not? He might have been bait for a trap by other highwaymen, or he might have been feigning his injuries and be carrying a knife underneath his garments. There are countless rationalizations that we can think up to pass him by, and I know all about them. I think of them whenever I pass a homeless man begging for change in my neighbourhood. "What if he was going to buy a pack of smokes with the money I give him? Or booze? How do I know that money's really going to his family?"

What I'm trying to say is that no matter how much we think we know our faith, there is so much that we don't know that we have left to discover. My education as a biologist has already made me realize that the ratio of what do know to what we don't is astonishingly, jaw-droppingly low. Scientists aren't content to just sit back and let other people tell us what's out there...generally, what scientists do is to try to figure out what it all is for themselves. Why shouldn't Christians do the same?

The common fear is that by challenging our faith, by opening ourselves up to asking questions about our beliefs, is that we'll have our faith undermined by The Evil One. However, that then carries the implicit assumption that your faith really wasn't anything of substance to begin with; that it's better to have your faith remain in a state of stasis, being locked in a protective bubble, than to challenge it and give it an opportunity to grow. In my time at university, I've met a lot of wonderful people from all manner of racial, religious and sexual backgrounds, and all of those people have led me in one way or another to rethink what I thought I knew about my faith and my beliefs. Did they ever make me think about dropping Christianity for atheism? God No! As I've said before, if there's any one group of people who have time and time again made me seriously consider dropping my faith, it's other Christians.

So I think Christians shouldn't avoid the chance to question their faith, but instead should welcome them. And as I've always believed, the best way to know your faith is to question it. The risks are great, to be sure, but the benefits make the discomfort and the potential dangers well worth it. As one Buddhist parable so eloquently puts it, "The Journey Is the Reward."