I find it very interesting that this article topic should come to my attention this week, at a time when I've been spending so much time reflecting on what it means to have faith. It seems to me, as I look at the world, that faith has been supplanted somehow by absolute conviction: a presumed direct knowledge of the intentions of a higher power. The concept of doubt as a necessary part of spirituality has been purged in favor of the idea that it's possible for us as humans to know with such certainty what is spiritually right that some feel justified in attempting to force others into a moral code taken from a book written across centuries in many hands and translated from different languages - often based on copies of copies of copies.
Beyond the writing process that produced the books of the Bible, different minds have determined which writings should be included in the ultimate draft: incorporating some and excluding others. And all it would take to throw the divine authorship of this book into question would be the acceptance that somewhere, sometime, someone involved in these many different drafts of this one book, across thousands of years, sincerely thought he or she was being guided by a divine hand and was wrong. Or even if no one in the process was misguided, could it be considered that a single line of the book was written for the audience of the day and not intended to be followed as written forever after - like an 18th century father who tells his child that it's wrong to fly to the moon in order to stop the child from trying to jump off the roof of the barn every other day? That father may never have intended to say that journeys to the moon would never be possible or just - only that the attempt at the time would be harmful.
I prefer Paul Tillich's analysis when he said that "faith would cease to be faith without separation - the opposite element. He who has faith is separated from the object of his faith. Otherwise he would possess it. It would be a matter of immediate certainty and not of faith." Yet many act as though they possess "the way" because it is all written in its entirety in the Bible. But if we believe that all direction for how life should be interpreted and lived exists in print, within our reach, can we really say that we have faith? I don't think so. To me, that's akin to saying that I have an unerring sense of direction simply because I never venture beyond the streets outlined on a map I have purchased. It's fabricating faith by shrinking one's reality so that every idea must fit within the covers of a book in order to be accepted. I never have to actually trust in my sense of direction, taking a step down a new, uncharted road - with faith but not certainty about where it will take me.
Some might argue that, without the guidance of the Bible or some other written spiritual law, chaos and immorality would take hold, but history doesn't bear this out. Abraham Lincoln once said that "The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession." He was an atheist in early years and rejected organized religion throughout his life, but it would be hard to argue that he was in any way a hedonist or an immoral man. People can find their way to just behavior through many paths; organized religion is only one such route.
This brings me to an interesting experience I had a few days ago. A friend directed me to a video on YouTube of a talk given by the neo-Calvinist minister Mark Driscoll. Mr. Driscoll and I disagree fundamentally on quite a few spiritual issues, but I was interested in something he had to say in relation to sexuality and morality. At the end of his talk, he recommended that his parishioners ask themselves "Is it common sense?" when deciding on a particular activity. His reasoning made me smile. I'm paraphrasing here, but essentially what he said was that he could name 20 things you weren't allowed to do, and somebody would say, "but I just thought of this 21st thing." To me, that covers a lot of moral behavior. Once we know what is legal, and we give thought to whether something is harmful or helpful to us or others, do we really need a very old religious book to tell us whether or not we should do it? Certainly it's comforting to think that way - just follow the instructions and you'll be fine - but does that enhance faith or does it simply offer us an opportunity to opt out of the spiritual struggle that comes in the absence of absolute knowledge?
It may well be that the world of religion will fall through simple minds - or perhaps it will stand unconquered forever. I don't know, and I'm going to resist the natural urge to simplify my spirituality to an extent that I can pretend that I DO know. Instead, I'm going to try to keep the faith.