Faith and Religion

Don: It is a key theme of the New Testament that faith connects Man to God:

For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. (Romans 12:3)

Jesus perfects that measure of faith:

…fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2)

Grace seems easier to understand than faith, perhaps in part because it’s a free gift from God and we are not required to do anything to get it. Faith seems to have something to do with our own action. We are unsure about that action, but we feel some action is necessary. Grace seems to be qualitatively uniform—its quality (though not its quantity) is the same for everybody. But faith seems to vary in its quality: Great faith, little faith, strong faith, weak faith, mature faith, childlike faith,… How does the quality of faith affect our consideration and development of it?

If faith is what connects people to God, then the question is which God? And which people? For example:

1. A baby girl born to devout Muslims in Cairo will be taught to pray five times a day, fast during Ramadan, and memorize long passages from the Koran. Her God is Allah, which she is taught is the only God, and she is taught that Islam is the complete and final religion and that the Koran is the very word of God, in Arabic, miraculously transmitted through an illiterate Prophet who could neither read nor write, as the finall message to Mankind. She is also taught that only Muslims will reach Paradise.
2. A baby boy is born to devout Catholics in Rome. They go to confession weekly. They recite the Pater Noster and the Hail Mary. They believe that the Bible is God’s holy word, though they do not read it extensively. They pray to Mary and the saints. Their God is a Trinity. They believe that only Catholics will go to Heaven.
3. A baby boy is born on a native American reservation in Montana. His parents follow the shaman. They worship Nature—the sky, the heavenly bodies, the mountains—and see God in everything around them. They pray for favorable omens, weather, and health. They have no holy book because, to them, no book can faithfully convey the message they receive from the heavens and the earth all around them. It is in the cry of every bird, in the shape of every cloud, in the rising and setting of the Sun. Theirs is a direct, unfiltered communion with God. The afterlife can be achieved only by those who achieve complete harmony with this environment.
4. A baby girl is born in Bangalore. Her parents are devout Hindus. She will perform daily pujas (prayer ritual) at the shrine in her home. She will come to know a pantheon of gods—a destroyer, a nurturing god, a god of good fortune, a god of wealth, and more. She reads about them and sees their colorful mythological depictions on television. She reads gitas, but for her, the medium is the true message. She is kind to all living things since she believes in reincarnation and could come back as any of them in the next life, as she transitions through multiple incarnations until she reaches the seventh heaven—Nirvana.

If we are all connected to God, to which God are we connected? Will our four babies be connected to the same God? Is a singular faith driving the connection? Why should all four end up believing that only they know the way to heaven?

Do the faith hall-of-famers in Hebrews 11—Abel, Daniel, David, Enoch, Noah, Samuel, Gideon, Abraham—all share the same faith? Their faith ran the gamut: From Enoch, who got to heaven because he walked with God by faith, not by sight (i.e., not in any physical sensory sense), to Gideon, who needed multiple sensory reassurances before his faith could become strong. Was their faith the same?

If faith depends on where we are born and who our parents are, what role does religion play? Is our given religion (given according to the accident of our birthplace, parentage, etc.,) equal to the measure of faith given to all Mankind? Is the Muslim more fortunate than the Hindu?

Faith seems to rely on revelation, but what kind of revelation? Is it contained in one of the holy books (or some of them, or all of them)? Is it inherent in Nature? Is it inherent to all of us as the holy spirit within? Is it all or none of the above? Is faith as the access point to grace the same for all of us? Does faith require an active effort to seek God, or is it enough to passively let God find us? What is the role of religion in all of this?

Donald: Faith is an active human response to a seeming requirement, that seems dependent on birthplace and parentage and so on. Is faith God’s requirement of us, or our own requirement of ourselves? The unifying thread in the four scenarios Don painted is that all human beings require faith in something beyond themselves. We believe that Christianity leads to that faith, but is that just an accident of our birth? Even within the SDA Church, we could probably come up with four faith journey scenarios based on different backgrounds and circumstances. We try to convince others to see our faith through the optics of a background and circumstances they cannot share.

John: The scenarios are about four different systems. Our church, our faith, our system becomes bland and irrelevant if we do not expose ourselves to other systems of belief. It is easy to be faithful within a faith group—the more fanatical, the more faithful!—but harder to remain faithful when outside it. To go out to witness is not easy, but faith is irrelevant if we don’t try, and the reward for trying and failing is God’s grace.

Donna: Faith is not religion. Faith is within us at birth. A child born into a non-practicing Catholic family still has God present in his or her life, because God is present—and can be sensed—in all of us. We can sense God when we are alone in the dark. We all have that seed of faith, no matter our religion. Religion is about nurturing that faith.

David: I agree wholeheartedly. The element common to the scenarios Don gave is in-born personal belief in a higher power—in God. External forces—usually in the form of religion—then work on that inner belief and seek to direct it toward an exclusive God. We talk about the Catholic faith, the Mormon faith, and so on, and perhaps that is what they aspire to be. But it is wrong: These are not “faith”—they are religion. Faith—a connection with God—is a matter between the individual and God, regardless of human religious groupthink that tries to suggest or even dictate otherwise.

Reinhardt: Those of us born into a Christian community came to know God through the Christian religion. My faith grew through my religion. I feel fortunate to have a family that knows God. It is up to others to believe what they believe based on their own circumstances. Religion is not divorced from faith, it seems to me.

Dave: If religion can enhance faith, can it also do the opposite?

David: To me, to claim that one discovered God in a church or through a religion or sect is tantamount to denying the God that one was born with. It might be that religion can awaken the latent faith / God within and in that sense be helpful, but if it smothers that latent faith then it is a stumbling block, to put it mildly.

Robin: Religion should not be used as a club nor as a measuring stick. Religion is a community. God raises up people who appear to found religions, but in fact even Jesus had no intention of starting a religion: He only wanted to correct the misinterpretations of the religion of his day and enhance the faith of people in the God of love. People start religions, sometimes unintentionally.

Mikiko: I was born into the Shinto-Buddhist-based culture of Japan, which has a pantheon of gods. When later in life I studied the Bible of the Christian religion, I found the evidence that there is only one God—Jehovah.

Jay: Faith and religion may be separate but are not mutually exclusive. Faith automatically results in the development of religion, by which I mean individuals’ constructs of God. Such constructs could be as broad as “God is love” or “God is goodness”, or as specific as those espoused by some denominations. Those constructs are strongly shaped by faith in the existence of an unseen higher power. We can’t enhance that faith other than through our construct of that higher power. Problems occur when the construct begins to obscure the faith, but that is not necessarily inevitable.

Don: Is faith the same, regardless of the construct?

Jay: If it is faith in the existence of an unseen higher power, then yes. If it is faith in the construct, then no.

Donald: What then should we be witnessing? Our construct? Do we support SDA institutions out of faith in our SDA construct or out of faith in God?

Jay: The construct provides the individual with opportunities to witness faith in God and thus serve my fellow Man. It may not be the only construct that provides such opportunities, but it is a valid and valuable one nevertheless, and since it is the one I know, it is the one I encourage my children to adopt also. It is a slippery subject, since it can lead to clubishness and exclusivity,

John: The Bible says Jesus is the only way to heaven. The Bible makes its construct exclusive. People who spend a long time within an exclusive construct and suddenly find themselves outside it can feel a great sense of freedom.

Robin: Is a denomination an institution, like a hospital? Both have a good purpose. While faith is for individuals, not for institutions, to hold, the institution may provide opportunities for the individual to grow in faith and to serve—as Jesus wants us to do. He does not want us to live in a cave.

John: Sometimes you have to go to the cave to escape the people trying to serve you!

Donna: I have studied with several religions and feel I have grown as a result. To stay solely within one focused religion may stunt one’s growth. Religion is a road to growth but not the only one, and it can turn into a road to stagnation.

John: Religions can be OK—it’s the people who run them that tend to cause problems!

Michael: Faith may not depend on religion, but is certainly influenced by one’s background.

Mikiko: Most people have faith but some don’t know what they have faith in! There are many denominations in Christianity. Is it because we interpret the Scriptures differently?

Chris: Faith is personal. It’s not tied to my religion. It is just one component of my relationship with God, along with grace and love. But as human beings, we need structure around us, and I think God understands that. Problems occur if our structures limit God and inhibit His relationship with people. I don’t feel that Adventism has inhibited my relationship with God in any way.

Don: In what ways are our individual faiths different?

Jay: If we define faith as belief in a higher power, then I think our faith is universally the same. But not everyone—perhaps, not most people—would define faith that way. For them, faith is defined much more narrowly by their religion.

Donna: We may be approaching this issue from an intellectual standpoint when it is really a spiritual matter. Religion is more of an intellectual approach to God.

David: Jesus is the ultimate witness. He touches the heart. But he was not a witness for a Christian religion, as someone has already pointed out. Rather, through his parables and through his own example, he was a witness for a higher power of goodness and love. One of his parables, the Good Samaritan, is a story of a religious pariah (from a Judean perspective)—a Samaritan—witnessing directly to that higher power by serving his fellow man in need. It seems to me that if that parable touches one’s heart, then one has faith in the higher power—in the Good—in God, whether one knows it or believes it or not. It doesn’t matter.

Jay: While Christ did not come to establish a religion, I think it is important to note that he did not come to tear one down, either.

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