DON'T GIVE UP ON THE CHRISTIAN FAITH

It is important to affirm the roots of faith. I am a Christian because of the stories, myths, metaphors images, and hopeful dreams which have come to me and therefore define who I am. At heart, these stories are shaped by the life and ministry of Jesus--his story. And Jesus was a story teller.

Every religion has its metaphors. They are the only way anyone can approach the Mystery to which they simply point. They are not proof, but only evidences of that which cannot be proved.

When religious people forget that their holy stories are only ways to approach the divine Mystery, and assume they are literal, historic, scientific facts, the rest of the world tends to be in trouble.

My despair about Christian fundamentalism is the same as my despair about fundamentalisms of any religion--or any economic political, nationalistic air-tight orthodoxy. The belief that the myths of one's tradition are true, and everybody else's only dangerous fantasy, continues to plague an already troubled world. Fundamentalist Christianity, Islam and Judaism, while growing out of many of the same stories, foul the nest when any of their adherents take them literally, and they become matters of doctrine.

Ed Bacon, Rector of All Saint Church in Pasadena, recently said, "Faith is what you are willing to live for. Doctrine is what you are willing to kill for."

Progressives--and I have never been fond of that designation--are committed to a faith growing out of stories, which may point to the truth, but do not define it. These stories are the ship, not the cargo. Their basic use is to transport the cargo from one place to another. To worship the ship is idolatry.

To defend our truth as absolute makes everyone else an enemy, so we support wars against "them". We defend our homes against "them" with firearms. We kill "them" with capital punishment. We legislate our superiority against "them" by manipulating the tax code in our interest. We call "them" heretics or infidels, deviants, unclean, and unrighteous. And we have doctrines and texts to prove how right we are.

Authentic faith grows out of hearing stories of love, inclusion, forgiveness, generosity, justice, compassion for what they are. Jesus not only told stories. but also lived them out. To follow Jesus means to spread our arms as wide as he spread his. So the "them" become brothers and sisters to be embraced, not enemies to be defeat. The political and social implications are enormous!

I am not about to give up on Christian faith because it has been turned into a weapon against whomever the "them" of the moment happens to be. If our stories do not make us more loving, just, accepting and generous, then of what use are they? They are only the seeds of self-righteousness, bigotry and violence.