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Either/or and both
During seminary, I was immersed in a sea of new ideas, concepts and ways to think (methods not ideology.) Sometime during the end of my first year or the beginning of my second, I threw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater. I rejected everything the church, Sunday school and my family had taught me about God.
My family and church community lamented, "we knew that would happen if you went to one of those liberal seminaries." The 'fault', however, couldn't be laid at the feet of my liberal professors. Nor could the church or my family be blamed for my 'chucking it all.'
At fault was my intolerance for paradox. Somewhere along the way, I'd bought into the notion that there was only one answer. You were either right or wrong. Everything was either black or white, true or false, yes or no. If my professors were right (and some of them seemed quite convinced they were,) then all my previous teachers must have been wrong. It was, essentially the same message I continued to hear from my family and church community, "liberal seminaries take away your faith" (i.e. they are wrong, we are right.)
I've since spent a few years walking around under the window, looking for "the baby;" reconciling the truth of my adolescence with the truth of my seminary years. Sometimes those two truths are in tension, standing on opposite sides of my mind. At times I'm tempted to evict one or the other (or both,) I've come to appreciate the tension as part of my "inner teacher."
I don't think the threat to an individual or an "organized community of faith" is an "inner teacher" as much as it is their unwillingness to embrace paradox. "This is what we believe," does not have to mean, if you don't believe the same thing, you are: wrong, a sinner, a heretic, an enemy.... Doctrine, theology, collective belief systems and the like are partners in the journey, not gods to be worshipped.
The tension of paradox cannot survive long in an either/or belief system, which may be why so many mystics were declared heretics. That's how it is when we cannot believe that there are at least three truths: my truth, your truth and the Truth.
May your heart be courageous enough to let your mind be open enough to hold your truth and "my truth," and may the tension of two show you the Truth.
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"My truth" is based on a book, accepted by my "inner teacher", which answers most of the paradox questions with both/and. There is no conflict between science and religion, or even most of the sticky points between religious groups, and the "problem" of bad things/good people is not a problem. But there is no reason to try to convince anyone else of "my truth" because I respect their own reference points. Unless someone is really searching for a different answer.
ReplyDeleteI think so often it is felt that you must have the "right beliefs" or "right doctrine" to be "saved" - as if God's grace depended on our understanding. What we believe is important but only so far as it leads us to treat God's whole creation with love and acceptance, only so far as it leads us to be forgiving and gracious to ourselves and to others.
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