Questioning Faith

As regular readers know, I am a staunch critic of blind faith. I understand that, as human beings, we have a need for faith: the child has faith that the parent will be loving and caring; the employee has faith that the employer will fulfill his obligation to deliver an honest paycheck; the accused has faith that he will receive a fair trial; and so on.

But the dangers of blind and obsessive faith are both real and terrifying, and we can see them every day in the ghastly quagmire of hatred that's the Middle East, and in the profoundly disturbing beliefs of hard core racists, white and black.

I ran across a very interesting short article in this morning's newspaper while eating breakfast. In a feature called "On Faith," the paper ran an excerpt from an internet discussion on the topic, "What is the place of questioning in faith? Does questioning tenets or traditions make your faith less valid?" The following excerpt from the respose of the Reverend Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, is one of the finest discussions of this issue I have ever run across, and I reproduce it here (or you can read it yourself on page B9 of the June 16th issue of The Washington Post):

"If questioning exposes truth, let us question. A faith that is threatened by doctrinal inquiries and evaluation of certain tenets is no faith at all. A faith that blindly demands belief [and] obedience, and subjugates the very inquisitive sould that God gave us, disqualifies itself from being faith and more accurately falls under the category of a cult. True faith welcomes questions; false faiths discourage and prohibit them.
"Yet at the end of the day, let us not forget that if all the questions are answered and proof silences and satisfies all the inquiries, then no longer do we have faith. For faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen, Hebrews 11:1."

Some good words to think about as you approach your religious and political beliefs. If you think you have to kill someone because his faith is different from your own, it's time to question your own faith.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo