The thrust of this series so far has been that in an increasingly digital age--in which almost every image or video we see, and every song we hear, has been broken down into one's and zero's by computers, and perfectly reconstituted for our eyes and ears--it's important to remember that our experience of life and faith is analog. It's unified and interconnected. It's too rich to be broken down into billions of "yes" or "no" questions. I've already talked about this principle as it relates to our experience of God, as well as our experience of worship.
Time to talk about analog faith. Let's start with what I'd classify as the "digital" approach: breaking things down into tiny bits, and reconstituting it in a supposedly "perfect" form. Again, I use the word "digital" metaphorically here, because this tendency has been around since long before computers. In fact, for as long as there's been faith, there's been the attempt to break it down into component parts, 1's and 0's, "yes's" and "no's."
The first three centuries of Christian spirituality were a wild, chaotic weed patch of different beliefs about Jesus. A wonderful theology professor of mine who has now passed on, Walter Bouman, once said, "You can't invent a new heresy...just read your church history and you'll find it back there somewhere!" But even the term "heresy" is anachronistic, because it implies somebody with power deciding what was the "right" thing to believe, which originally there wasn't. Everything was growing up together. Almost any theory about Jesus you've ever heard someone come up with after a beer or two, chances are, somebody thought of it in those first couple centuries.
But in the fourth century, and particularly after the Conversion of Emperor Constantine, church leaders became very uncomfortable with the weed patch. Through a centuries-long series of ecumenical councils, arguments and fistfights (no joke), a lot of what most "orthodox" Christians believe was set in motion. Now, no honest historian will claim that this process embodied Christian love and unity. Far, far...far from it. Believe me. But I'd still argue that there were some arguments the church kind of needed to have, and by the Spirit's power and despite ourselves, I believe we emerged with some great ideas about God.
But immediately, these ideas were no longer ideas. They were "orthodoxies." They became "yes" or "no" questions, to determine whether you were "in" or "out" of the church. They became "one's" and "zero's," by which, theoretically, you could burn perfect digital copies of the faith of fourth-century bishops, unto the ages of ages, world without end, Amen.
And the Reformation, for all its benefits, kind of cemented that "digital" idea of faith. With the dawn of the printing press came opportunities for scholars like Martin Luther to make exact copies of the "one's" and "zero's" of Christian orthodoxy for every single household, simply cutting out the "middle men" of church hierarchy. And it worked so well that almost five hundred years later, we're still using some of those same books, pretty much word for word, to teach our children the "yes's" and "no's" of faith.
Even in our sacrament of baptism, we ask the parents and sponsors a series of "yes" or "no" questions about their faith and intentions. Then, assuming the kids stay part of the church, we have them memorize a whole bunch of facts about the Bible, Jesus, the Law, faith, and then we stand them up and ask them all the same "yes" or "no" questions again so they can answer for themselves, and if they say "yes," then that's faith...right?
Well, we've managed all too effectively to convince the world it is. So much so, I would argue, that even some agnostics and atheists have bought into the same "yes" or "no", all-or-nothing narrative still touted by many Christians today: that faith means being able to say "yes" to a series of intellectual questions about God, Jesus, the church and the Bible, and not have to cross your fingers. Since they can't say "yes" to them all, they assume they must just not be Christians. If you're not a perfect digital copy of a fourth century bishop, or a sixteenth century professor, then no church for you.
But that was not how Jesus taught faith. Not once, in all four Gospels, does Jesus ever call a disciple by saying,
"Hi there: I'm Jesus, the 100% human, 100% divine Son of God, second person of the Trinity. You may remember me from such historical events as the dawn of time, and the redemption of all humankind. Now if I could just get you to check "yes" here on the clipboard to all that I just said, you'll be all set."
Not once. Not even close.
Mind you, I'll still make the case that all that stuff about Jesus is in the Bible. But what Jesus said was, "Follow me." The disciples learned from simply being with Jesus, and watching and listening for what mattered most to Him. This was an analog approach: a unified experience of the presence of Christ, which, by the Spirit's power, enables disciples to seek God's truth, and see it revealed. A relationship of trust, beginning with our letting go of what we think we know and believe, and handing it over to our Rabbi.
This relationship makes an impression on us. It cuts deep grooves into our souls. It teaches us how to live more fully as the people God created us to be, trusting that God's Spirit will guide us into all truth.
It's a very intuitive model, because for better and for worse, it's exactly how young children learn. From simply being around parents and caregivers, a child learns in her first year of life whether the world is a safe place, and whether others, including God, can be trusted. Every single child learns it, and not always because we set out to teach them.
The same is true with faith: the old cliche is, it's "caught, not taught." It comes from the experience of living in the Body of Christ, seeing and hearing and studying and experiencing what disciples of Jesus do, what matters to them, and what difference it makes. It isn't being able to check "yes" for a bunch of orthodox boxes. It's trusting God enough, so that your life is a "yes" to the way of Jesus. It's going around and around in our own scratchy, imperfect rendering of a disciple's life, trying to play back for others the experiences we've had of Jesus, which have cut deep grooves in our souls. It's messing up, and asking for forgiveness, and picking up the needle to try to play it again.
Digital faith demands perfection in every theological detail, or you're out. Analog faith means you keep coming back, you keep searching for Jesus, not just in church but everywhere you go, because you trust that in Him is life, and that life is the light of all people. You entrust Him with more than just a few lines of code in your intellectual, metaphysical framework, but with your entire being. It can't be done perfectly; but He doesn't want perfection. He wants us.
No comments:
Post a Comment