I sincerely empathize with Jared, the author of the Washington
Post article, who says “I’m not passing my parents’ religion on to my kids,
but I am teaching their values.” He is expressing some of the disappointments
he has experienced with the church and his father especially, who he
said lived a lie. He lists some of the reasons why he lost faith in his
faith to include too many unanswered questions, too many problematic absolutes,
too much fearmongering, too much hypocrisy and the priest sex-abuse scandal, “a
scandal the scope of which we’re still learning about” he adds.
My aim is not to castigate the author or join issues with
him. However, knowing fully well that there are many people who may be on the fence
who have not “lost faith in their faith” yet but may already be in troubled
waters because of their peculiar experiences, I intend to respond to the issues
Jared raised.
First, let us deal with his reasons for losing faith in his
faith and see how inadequate they are.
“Too many unanswered questions” – life and earthly existence
pose many difficult questions and you cannot disappear from the earth because of
them. Does losing faith in your faith answer the unanswered questions? By the
way, having many unanswered questions does not mean that there are no meaningful
answers out there.
“Problematic absolutes” –this is an ambiguous phrase as it
is subjective. We need some specificity in order to deal with this very well. However,
even the materialistic worldview forms its own absolutes and exclusivity. When you
give a ‘yes’ and ‘no’ answer to anything, you tend to exclude something. What if
I consider your ‘yes’ or ‘no’ problematic? The author tends to desire his
children to have some moral values, but the question is how can you have moral
value without a moral law? And how can you have moral law without a Moral Law
Giver? Without moral absolutes of some sort, how can you or your children
differentiate between right and wrong?
“Too much fearmongering” – faith by its nature tends to
confront fear and it’s difficult to understand how ‘fearmongering’ will make
you lose faith in your faith if what you actually had was faith. Anyway, that
is Jared’s experience.
“Way too much hypocrisy” – the author said that “for a
religion that placed such a premium on loving thy neighbor, it sure had a lot
of restrictions on whom you were allowed to love.” I agree that we often have
this challenge even in the church, which is really quite unfortunate. We have
to repent in every area we are found wanting because discrimination is not part
of Christianity. Having said that, the mistake we often make, and is evident in
this case, is not being able to separate the teachings of Christ from the
failings of humans that profess Christianity. For example, when a Christian or a
religious leader for that matter, place restrictions on whom you are to love,
it does not mean that Christianity, or the teachings of Christ has placed such
restrictions. In the Christian worldview, we believe in the total depravity of
the human heart until it is surrendered to Christ. We equally believe in the
continuing work of the Holy Spirit in sanctification in the heart of the
believer as he progresses until its consummation. Anytime a man steps outside
Christ, there is no measure of wickedness he cannot perpetrate despite his
profession. But in Christ also, there is the wonderful experience of
forgiveness and restoration when we come to God like the ‘prodigal son’. If the
author’s accusation against Christianity comes from his father’s experience who
died a gay, even though he
lived in denial throughout his life, then that is understandable even
though unfortunate because Christianity teaches love for a sinner but disapproval
for his sins. If we preach that people should repent, then there must be
something to repent from.
These are not enough to lose faith in your faith if what you
had originally was faith at all. The Christian worldview is the only worldview
that answers the four basic questions of life, where do I come from? What is
the meaning of life? How do I choose between right and wrong? And where do I go
when I die? I refer the author to RZIM
where there are a lot of resources that will help him answer some of his
unanswered and difficult questions.
As I conclude this response, I submit that Jared sounds like
someone who does not adequately understand Christianity even though he was
raised in the Catholic church. Like so many, he seems to believe that being baptized
with water makes you a Christian. But that is not what the Bible teaches. God sent
Jesus Christ, not so that we can keep some sets of laws or rituals, but for us
to be able to enter into a living relationship with Him whereby we can personally
call Him ‘father’.
When Jared said “we want our kids to have a solid
understanding of all religions. Just as importantly, we want them to have
respect for what others believe. After all, the Golden Rule is something that
should be instilled in all children, regardless of their religion or lack thereof”.
Where does this value come from? It is like wanting to eat your cake and still have
it at the same time. The moral values he intends for his children, and all
children as a matter of fact, comes out of the moral framework of the Christian
worldview which he claims to have lost faith in.
I consider his closing line as what most journalists do just
for popularity sake when he said “in the end, actions will always speak louder
than words, even the words of the Bible”. Yes, actions speak louder than words
but it becomes a contradiction of all he has argued for value, when he says
that the actions that are propelled by biblical values are separate and stronger
than the biblical values themselves. Reaction cannot be separated from the action
that caused it.
What I see conspicuously missing from Jared’s discourse is that
he is not able to take responsibility for the condition of his own heart. He seems
to blame his father for hypocrisy, blame the priests and some Christians for
their hypocrisy, but has not seen the hypocrisy of his own heart. Like the
prodigal son, (Luke 15), we ought to come to Jesus with all humility and seek
for the transformation of our own hearts. This is because, “blessed are the poor
in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” Matt.5:2. Only with such
poverty of spirit can our restless hearts will find rest in Him.
