Comfortable or Anxious Faith?

What exactly is faith? Throughout Christianity, its adherents have veered between a comfortable faith and an anxious one. When Christianity is the dominant religion, the majority of Christians accept their faith as a certainty. They are not threatened by other religions or contrary movements, and the culture around them breathes the Christian world view. Such was the case for American Christians throughout most of the twentieth century until the last decades.

But when Christianity is a minority religion, it is more likely to develop apologists, those who apply reasoning to persuade others of their faith. During the early centuries of the church, leaders like Augustine wrote “apologies” for the Christian faith. Apology in this sense doesn’t mean sorrow for a mistake, but a defense of a particular belief or way of life. The apologists of the early church did not assume a common acceptance of their faith. They understood that the Christian’s God was not universally acknowledged. They attempted to persuade, not to revive.

During the earlier days of our country, Christianity appeared a more emotional religion, with revivals and calls for repentance. Recently, however, Western Christians have become a minority faith. Thus, people like G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis created defenses of the Christian faith. In more recent times, other apologists have joined them. It is a time of ferment.

A Divide, Not Between Religions, But Religion and the Lack of it.

As religion has become less important in individual lives in Western nations, it has become more important in many non-Western nations, such as Saudi Arabia. According to a recent article in The Economist (July 9-15, 2011, p. 57, “Polling Religion, Unequal Zeal” ), http://www.economist.com/node/18926205
the world’s religious divide is not so much about different religions (i.e., Christianity and Islam) as about “the lack of any religion in the public or private lives of many Westerners.”

When I lived in Saudi Arabia, I worshiped as a Christian in house churches discretely located within housing compounds. Raids on Christian services were rare. Most arrests of Americans in Saudi Arabia were not for religious practices. They were more likely to be for excessive consumption or sale of liquor. The use of drugs and pornography also led to arrests. In short, judging from the arrests, Christian beliefs did not bother authorities nearly so much as behavior against Muslim as well as Christians norms.

The American Christian characters of my novel Singing in Babylon know a sense of exile not only in Saudi Arabia but also when they return to the United States.
http://scribblingsfromexile.blogspot.com/2011/01/christian-exile-in-babylon.html
Though their story is not my own, this sense of exile does mirror my experience on returning from the Muslim-majority countries where I lived. I worshiped as a minority there. So also I do here, though, thankfully, without fear of arrest.

That Saudi Arabia does not allow freedom of religion is certainly a matter of concern, but another concern is how few Americans practice it there or here.

Christendom is Dead

Mohandas Gandhi, leader of the movement in India in the mid-twentieth century to gain independence from Great Britain, is reported to have said, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” Some suggest that Gandhi leaned toward Christianity for himself but changed his mind after observing Christians.

Christianity is alive and well, growing mightily in certain regions of the globe and even among some groups where it was supposed to be buried. Christendom, however, that European-centered common culture that Gandhi probably knew, began dying several hundred years ago. Gandhi’s words hint at the reasons.

The European church in the Middle Ages became increasingly corrupt and power hungry. Those who wanted to purify the church or who believed that the common person had the right to read the Bible in his or her own language were persecuted.

Then the Reformation movements of the 1500’s gave promise of a revival of Christianity in Europe. Instead, that promise was eclipsed by the religious wars that followed. In the name of religion, conflicts killed thousands, led to massive refugee flows, and devastated parts of Europe. Not surprisingly, some began to see religion as the problem and to search for other ways of ordering society.

As Europeans gained world power, they too often exploited native peoples in other regions, as in India. Their practices lessened the impact of Christians who came as missionaries, not conquerors.

We Christians sometimes act as though the truths of our faith are self-evident and that people who disagree with us are either idiots or morally deficient. We have to learn anew that the way we live carries more influence than our words.

Wisdom and Information Overload

In the 1990’s my husband and I traveled through what was formerly East Germany, unified a few years before with West Germany to form a new country. We saw remains of the infamous Berlin Wall, where guards shot those who ventured to flee the East German dictatorship. In the bustling, modern German state, the idea of a government that sought such control over its citizens now appeared quaint and old-fashioned.

I’m reminded of that day when I watch news about the beleaguered country of Syria. The government of Bashar al-Assad seems stuck in the old ways: iron control, no self-determination, no free flow of information.

In the days of the Cold War between the West and the Soviet Union, the United States penetrated the “Iron Curtain” that surrounded Soviet countries with radio programs. People in Soviet countries listened to clandestine radios and hoped no government spies would report them to authorities. Radio information punched the first holes in the Iron Curtain.

The new fax machines in the 1980’s meant one could send documents instantly to another person thousands of miles away. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Boris Yeltsin led a new Russian government, beset with problems but more democratic than the Soviet model. Supporters of the old style autocracy attempted a coup to reverse the process. The coup attempt was defeated, partly because the supporters of Yeltsin were able to communicate by fax.

Fax machines were joined by email and email by cell phones and texting and the new phenomena we call social media. The story is told again and again of the role these new forms of communication now play in the toppling of dictatorships.

Information provides fuel for change, but information is not wisdom. Information may tear down, but only wisdom can build. Wisdom has to do with values and sometimes hard choices after the shouting has faded.

An Age of Doubt? Call It Opportunity

I turned on the car radio when I traveled as a historic preservation planner during that autumn of 1989. The broadcasts crackled with stories of nations tottering out of communism toward—we weren’t sure what. Eventually the Soviet Union split into separate nations: Russia, Romania, Bulgaria, Kazakstan, and a host of others. The Berlin Wall collapsed.

We who had lived with the threat of a third world war between the U.S. and communist countries could hardly believe it. Some talked of a peace dividend. Now, they said, we could use resources committed to the Cold War for domestic needs: schools, infrastructure, and investment in alternate energy to lesson our dependence on foreign oil.

Those days of hope collapsed with the Twin Towers on 9/ll. Today we live in age of doubt. We disagree in uncivil terms on where we as a nation are headed. We Christians have been rattled by the “new” atheism and declining numbers in some of our churches.

Yet a time similar to this one—the Renaissance—spawned the religious movement called the Reformation.

(more on these two movements)

The secular Renaissance overturned previous notions, disturbing the religious hierarchy. By doing so, it cleared the way for radical changes like freedom of religion and renewed faith communities and missionary movements.

We should resist the temptation of an ill-conceived attempt to return to a perceived golden age of “Christian” America. If Christian beliefs were more prominent in days gone by, it is because significant numbers of Americans thought Christianity made sense. If Christian beliefs are not taken seriously by a majority today, railing against unbelief will change few people’s perceptions.

Better to find God’s leadership toward new and renewed expressions of our faith or better yet to new examples of that faith.

What Is It You Want To Do?

The best guides and teachers do more than pass along information. They enable followers to find their own unique paths.

I once worked as a planner for historic preservation in five counties nestled in the north Georgia hills. I guided community groups who respected their historic heritage and wished to pass that heritage on to future generations. I understood my job not as one who merely gives out information, but as one who enables.

Typically, a group of citizens from one of the area’s small towns would call me in for consultations on historic preservation. The main task I performed was to ask “What is it you want to do?” When we had determined that, I would guide them in brainstorming the best ways to accomplish their goal.

I think the idea of enablement has carried into the writing I do, including this blog. The objectives are wider now than historic preservation. My later job as a Foreign Service officer turned me on to the wider world, its cultures, and how we, especially we Christians, relate to it. An ever changing world calls for Christians to explore new ways of dealing with it.

I would like to enable Christians and seekers to think about their place in the seething globe we now inhabit. I want to help them understand world events and trends, then to find their calling.

We no longer can concern ourselves only with this country or its domestic issues. Christ’s call is to go into all the world.

A Tablecloth, Syria, and the Arab Spring

While working in the Middle East, I purchased a tablecloth from Syria, famous for centuries for its lustrous damask fabric. After reading of current atrocities committed in that country, I pull it out and examine it. Cerulean and gold threads form geometric figures against the white background. What has happened to the weavers, I wonder.

Damascus, the capital of Syria, where damask was first produced, is one of the world’s oldest cities. The apostle Paul was on his way to Damascus when he experienced his dramatic conversion (Bible, book of Acts, ninth chapter). Christian tourists still visit the street called Straight, where Paul lodged afterward.

Under the dictatorship of the Assad family since 1970, the country lately has been affected by the Arab spring, the demands for change in other Arab countries. The Assad family’s responses to the uprisings in Syria are especially brutal. They include jailing merely for demonstrating and torture, even of children.

Different ethnic and religious groups inhabit Syria, making the outcome of the rebellion hard to predict. Christians have lived there since Paul’s time. Today they are estimated to make up about ten percent or less of the Syrian population. Despite the Assad family’s harsh rule, Christians have generally been protected from persecution. If the Assad family loses power, what will happen to them?

A hard decision for Christians to make: should they support an inhumane dictatorship in order to preserve their tenuous place in society? Or should they support change, hoping and working toward a more just society when that outcome is not guaranteed?

It is not the first time for Christians to choose between their own comfort and the risk of speaking out against injustice.

Baseball Teams and Nations

A baseball team is more likely to win when its members seek the goals of the group before their own. For a nation to be successful, a significant number of citizens must seek the common good above their individual interests.

When citizens believe their country is in peril, they sometimes sacrifice a great deal for its survival, as Americans did during the Second World War. Things fall apart when a shared dream dies.

When elite groups choose to gather riches and power for themselves through corrupt or merely selfish practices, ordinary citizens begin to question the justness and fairness of the system. Communist movements grew in the United States in the 1930’s during the Great Depression, when unemployment resulted in growing poverty and despair.

Communism ceased to be attractive to most Americans during and after the Second World War. Jobs and prosperity returned. Higher education became possible for more Americans through programs for returning GI’s and others that made such education affordable for ordinary citizens. Most believed in the American dream, that if they worked hard and lived decent lives, they would be rewarded with a good life.

Perhaps hope is the most important ingredient of successful baseball teams and nations, the reason their members sacrifice for them.

The Parent Divide

We played board games today, a young family and I; father, mother, and two elementary school-aged children. Games are a favorite past time with them. From games, the children have learned skills: fair play, mental and physical dexterity, waiting their turn, and honesty, even if it means they lose sometimes.

Before the girls learned to read, their parents daily read stories to them. Now they enjoy reading for themselves, which carries over into both the pleasure of losing themselves in a good book and into academic skills. They sometimes write stories of their own.

Other activities fill their lives: sports, church, visits with friends, and sometimes travel to a new place.

I’ve heard of the digital divide, the advantages of children who grow up with computers versus those who don’t. While watching that family today, I thought of the parent divide. I wish all children had the advantages these have: parents who love each other, love their children, and take responsibility for raising them.

Surely, the most important task in the world for parents, relatives, and communities is personal nurture of the young. How well does our current culture encourage this work?

A Sure-Fire Way to Beat Obesity

The article in the Sunday paper dealt with obesity, especially the growing evidence of obesity among American children. It outlined efforts toward healthier eating habits: more healthy foods in schools, more fresh produce in lower income neighborhoods, and more emphasis on exercise.

Though such efforts appear to have limited success at present, backers hope that over time success may accumulate. They point to the time it took before the anti-smoking campaigns led to a significant drop in the number of Americans who smoke. This may well be true.

The sure-fire way to lose extra pounds, as we all know, is to eat less unhealthy foods (most of us know what they are) and eat more healthy foods (we know what these are, too) and to exercise more. Lack of knowledge and the ability to obtain healthy foods are not the major problems. Certainly, medical personnel should be aware of the facts. Walk into most hospitals, however, and notice the vending machine offerings: heavily geared toward fats and sweets.

An alcoholic feels miserable when first deprived of the substance that wrecks his life. The same with the smoker who first abstains from nicotine. We eat unhealthy foods because they give us more pleasure than the healthy foods which would benefit us. Exercise, which also benefits us, means giving up other activities that we judge more fun.

The idea of giving up present pleasure for future benefits appears to have escaped us lately. Witness the burden we now carry because we bought on credit rather than saving for houses, cars, and baubles. Witness the broken relationships because we were unable to remain faithful in our marriages. Witness the number of unmarried young who unintentionally become parents because they, in the best tradition of their parents, choose an immediate pleasure, an intimacy better reserved for mature, committed relationships.

What the Apostle Paul, Johnny Cash, and C.S. Lewis Taught Me

Christians sometimes seal themselves off from the arts, the sciences, academia, and other pursuits not overtly religious. The apostle Paul did not shut himself off from culture; he invaded it. He went to Athens and spoke to pagan philosophers and thinkers about their altar to an unknown God.

When country music singer Johnny Cash died in 2003, Time Magazine ran a special report on “The Man in Black.” Cash would never have been so well known for his Christian faith if he hadn’t first become a great musician.

C.S. Lewis is quoted as saying, “We don’t need more Christian writers. We need more great writers who are Christian.”

Christians must prepare to compete in the marketplace and academia and the public sphere. We must strive to be among the best.

Christians may rail against much that they see in today’s society, but such admonition is useless to a non-Christian who sees Christians as being mostly against things he has no problem with. We may not agree with today’s standards of right and wrong, but, for many reasons , the Christian world view is no longer the dominant one in our culture.

In the past, we’ve had a lot of hangers-on when it was popular to be a Christian. Now the hangers-on are leaving.

Christians now will be respected for who they are rather than what they say.

Roads, Schools, and Health Care

The presidential election campaign for 2012 appears to be in full swing despite the election being almost a year and a half away. Health care looks to be one of the issues.

Just over six years ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. Because I’ve been blessed with good health insurance, regular checkups are paid for, and the cancer was caught early. My treatment was a simple operation to remove the cancerous tissue, but I did not have to undergo radiation. I thank God that I have had a blessed six years with no recurring cancer.

This is not a plea for a particular political party’s health proposal. I only wish, after my experience, that all had the medical blessings that I do. I think of Jesus, who healed all who came to him in faith. He was touched by physical suffering, as his followers have been ever since. Healing was a gift given to some of the early followers. Medieval monastery hospices ministered to the sick. Many of today’s modern hospitals were begun by Christian groups.

Reasonable health care also might be seen as an investment. We make investments in roads and bridges and other infrastructure that we all use, regardless of how much we pay in taxes, because we know our economy functions better with such infrastructure. We invest in our schools and educational systems for the same reason. Public education is open to all Americans no matter how much their families pay in taxes because we believe an educated population is necessary for an effective and productive democracy.

Our country will better function if our citizens enjoy good health. Access to prevention-based health care leads to less illness, less expense, and less stress on families. Done correctly, it is an investment.

Finding Community on a Bus

I read a news article a while back about a popular bus route in the city of Seattle. Passengers, the article said, enjoy the mix of nationalities and languages and the diversity of those riding with them on that particular bus.

We encourage the use of mass transit, of getting people out of their cars, by appeals to environmentalism and the greater good. How would the appeal of community play?

The car is the ultimate expression of our individuality. In the process, we’ve lost much of our togetherness. As home foreclosures, job layoffs, and a generally depressed economy cut into our resources to buy the latest automobile, perhaps the local bus may become a symbol of finding community again.

Science and Will

Science is a wonderful servant but a terrible master.

Science gave us antibiotics. We use them to vanquish horrible diseases and save lives. We overuse them and create superbugs.

Scientific advances gave us the automobile, which allows us undreamed of independence. It also leads to increased isolation of the elderly, the young, the handicapped, and the poor, who have less access to automobiles.

Science deals with physical processes. What we do with those physical processes and the decisions we make that lead to good or evil are determined by our morality, by our faith in what we cannot always prove.

Some would say that education and reason are the tools for deciding what is right. But none of us has perfect knowledge. At some point along the continuum, we have to jump off into faith.

And even the best of us react first in our own interest if what we value is threatened. All of us act unreasonably at times as far as the common good is concerned.

We often know what we should do. What we lack is the will to do it. Some process other than the material has to transform our will and give us the ability not just to know right, but to do it.

Love more than any other force I know has the power to transform the will to act for the good of all, not just for ourselves.

The Tolling Bell

The latest headlines tell of yet another weather-related tragedy. Over a hundred people were killed by a tornado in Joplin, Missouri. We feel sorrow for the affected individuals and families, as we felt for the victims of tornadoes in Alabama and other states a few weeks ago.

When those earlier storms missed the people of Joplin, surely no one would have blamed them for experiencing relief, but now this second wave of fierce tornadoes has hit their city.

At the moment, I’m sitting in my “safe” home in the Pacific Northwest. So far this year, our main complaint is the cold, rainy spring. But I know disaster could strike here, too. In a moment or two, nature could unleash tragedy: earthquake, tsunami, or perhaps a volcanic eruption.

What’s the message for us when we read of tragedy in another part of the country or the world? The message is that those people are us. Because one day it will be us, if not in some natural catastrophe, then a personal one. No one who lives an average life escapes “storms.”

We help victims with prayers, money, and other resources as we are able and as appropriate. More than this, we understand our own vulnerability and are inspired to live our short span of life as unselfishly as possible.

The poet and priest, John Donne, wrote:

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

Them and Us

President Obama gave a major speech on U.S. foreign policy this past week. He chose the U.S. State Department as the location for the address, because the State Department is headquarters for our country’s relationships with foreign countries. Our diplomats (Foreign Service officers) carry out our policies in well-known places like Baghdad, London, and Tokyo. They also serve the United States in cities and towns like Peshawar, Skopje, Ulan Bator, Djibouti, and Bridgetown.

Several protagonists in my stories work as Foreign Service officers. I have learned to introduce their jobs slowly, because few Americans, I have found, have any idea what diplomats do.

In my own fourteen-year stint as a Foreign Service officer, mostly in the Middle East, I issued passports to U.S. citizens living there, documented their children as American citizens, and interviewed foreigners who wanted to visit, study, work, or immigrate to the United States to determine their eligibility.

When an American citizen in my district died, usually in an accident but sometimes as a victim of a terrorist attack, I notified the family in the States and documented the death. If appropriate, we arranged for sending the body back to the U.S.

I visited American children living with a foreign parent from whom the absent American parent (usually the mother) was divorced. I reported on the child’s well being and development to the absent parent. We worked to secure visitation rights for the American parent to that child.

I visited U.S. citizens detained in foreign prisons, then updated the families in the States on their condition and passed messages back and forth.

Other colleagues carried out different functions: political, economic, administrative, development, commercial, agricultural, and related tasks to advance U.S. interests.

Even with our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Americans appear to have little interest in other cultures and our dealings with them. Unfortunately, such ignorance may lead to tragedies like September 11, 2001.

When the Olive Tree Fails

What are black swans? No, not the movie and not the waterbird. The term “black swan” is the current buzzword for those catastrophes that occur once in a lifetime, or once in a hundred years, or once in a thousand years or maybe even for the first time ever.

Black swans cannot be predicted in any definite sense. They can be natural like the earthquake in Japan or the recent Southeast tornadoes or the Mississippi floods. They can be economic like the Great Recession that began in 2008. They can include violent solar storms on the sun which may interfere with electric grids on the earth.

After a black swan event, the lives of those affected may change drastically. Such a catastrophe can change whole countries, as the earthquake did in Japan.

Some believe that efforts to avoid the natural rhythm of ups and downs make the inevitable event more catastrophic than it would have been. Flooding from the Mississippi River is supposed to occur fairly regularly, these people say. To attempt to prevent all flooding on the great river only assures that eventually a massive flood will sweep away even the flood controls.

The attempt to prevent all forest fires only means that a huge conflagration eventually will destroy a larger area than would many smaller fires.

Attempting to prevent all business collapses only leads to larger business collapses in the future, so the thinking goes.

I don’t have the expertise to judge these ideas, but I do wonder if we have come to believe that nothing bad is ever supposed to happen. We are never supposed to suffer, never supposed to be depressed, never supposed to be denied our wishes. We have difficulty accepting conditions like unhappiness, old age, death.

To accept that we are finite and vulnerable surely is a mark of wisdom. Spending our resources to fight winnable battles is worthwhile. To think we can conquer all misfortune with material wealth, however, is absurd. Better to invest in our spiritual lives and in our relationships with our families, friends, and communities. These will be of value when the next black swan visits.

Life and Death and Grace

I recently was hospitalized for knee surgery. It is almost always successful. As a writer, however, I am gifted or cursed with an imagination.

Suppose they damage my brain with too much anesthesia? Suppose I’m cut off from oxygen too long? Suppose they slip while cutting whatever they have to do to fix the knee? And so on.

The hardest is the point of no return. The anesthesiologist has politely explained exactly what will happen. He appears to be competent, but what do I know? I tell my husband goodbye. They wheel me down the hall. I remind myself that friends and loved ones are praying for me. I try to develop one of the characters in my latest novel in progress to keep my mind off what I have chosen to do. Then I fall off the cliff.

The next minute, as it seems to me, I’m waking up. They are cheerily asking me questions. I appear to be alive and in my right mind. My leg is still there, swathed in bandages.

Later, wheeled to my room, greeted by my husband, who tells me everything went splendidly, I am overwhelmed with gratitude. I thank God that I have access to competent physicians and to health insurance that means the access is affordable.

I am grateful for God’s gift of life. Yet, I ponder, as one is wont to do when confronted by unmerited grace, on both death and life, how one is more certain than the other, when we consider our life spans.

One day the operation won’t be successful or one night I shall go to bed and not wake up or I will be in an accident or my health will finally decline into death. When my time comes, I do not want extraordinary measures. In other words, while I rejoice today in my “new” life, I also know that death will be the final result of having been born.

Yes, as a Christian, I believe I shall live eternally but confrontation with my mortality in this life still sobers. God has given me a gift, a gift to be used, not squandered or buried in fear. Used as the good servants did in the parable of the talents, in risk and joy. The time is short.

The Cult of Death

Osama bin Laden’s obituary was featured in The Economist this past week. The article mentioned bin Laden’s famous dictum outlining the fundamental difference between his followers and Americans. Americans love life but his followers love death, he said. Apparently he believed this love of death would defeat those who love life.

Are those who love death stronger than those who love life? The signature act of death worshipers is the suicide bomber. Is this activist a type of courageous martyr, who also makes unwilling martyrs of those innocents he or she kills?

Viktor Frankl, a Jewish psychiatrist, survived a Nazi concentration camp. Like the victim of a suicide bomber, he suffered because of a fanatic’s belief that his life was not of value. Frankl learned much from his concentration camp suffering, but he wrote in his classic Man’s Search For Meaning: “But let me make it perfectly clear that in no way is suffering necessary to find meaning … To suffer unnecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic.”

Jesus did not wish to suffer on the cross. He did so because of love, because he wanted others to live. To die so that others may enjoy better lives, it seems to me, is the only reason to choose death. To love not only our life but the life of our neighbor is the beginning of the strength that defeats evil.

Ann Gaylia O'Barr

Culture and World Events from a Christian Perspective