Faith Into Action

Ok, I read The Spiral Staircase by Karen Armstrong in less than half a day. I couldn't put it down. I think I'll have to re-read parts of it again a few times just because they resonated with me so strongly. I still have a lot to think about based on what I read.

I think the closure of the book for me was the different ways in which to view faith, and how faith differs from belief. 1) For some faith is something you believe in, doctrines, mythology, or both. 2) For others faith is a conscious choice apart from ascertainable fact, and yet 3) for others faith is not what you believe or choose but rather what you do. I personally feel I'm vacillating somewhere between a choice and action. As a matter of fact, I just cannot drink the kool-aid anymore. So I'm struggling to choose faith despite the head-on collision with reason.

Karen's illumination of modern Jewish and Muslim traditions really helped to illustrate how faith is an action even more than a belief. Neither she nor I am trying to say that Jews or Muslims do not believe, because certainly they have strong religious convictions. The way that I understand her point is that for Jews right action took precedent over right belief, although following the law was a means to right action. The end product of behavior was the final determinant of right religion. I also understood her to be saying that the Seven Pillars of Islam place emphasis on action over belief also. Something akin to Jesus saying where your treasure is your heart will be also. Not that belief doesn't matter for Muslims but perhaps that belief will follow action in time. Far too long fundamentalist Christians have been trying to shove a semi load full of infallible doctrine down our throats that stand in direct contradiction to science and modernity.

I'm not sure that belief will come naturally later on down the road for all. I'm beginning to think that if your particular faith positively improves your interaction with others then it is noble, regardless of what differences we have in beliefs. Perhaps the greatest commandment is the only commandment that we should love God with all that we are and love our fellow man as we love ourselves. I'm beginning to see some light from the far end of this tunnel.

I'm humbled and appreciative of her observation:

"The best theologians and teachers have never been afraid to admit that in the last resort, there may be Nothing out there. That is why they spoke of a God who in some sense did not exist."

I have realized in recent years that at the end of the day I might indeed be wrong and others be right. What a strange irony that in losing hope we may find a way forward. That in losing our life we indeed may find it at last.