Video for September 5th, 2024
Hello everyone and welcome to this week’s video and welcome back after what I hope has been a good summer for everyone.
It may seem obvious to say it but Christian faith is faith in something. The Greek word ‘pistis’ that we translate as faith has much more of a sense of placing trust in something than it does in mere intellectual assent. In that sense it is a very different thing indeed to modern ideas of spirituality. Spirituality quite rightly recognises that there is a further dimension to life than we perceive with our five senses. Many people of all faiths and none report a sense of the numinous, especially, but not exclusively in response to the wonder of the world we live in. James Marriot said that “Liberal commentators…are missing something obvious, blinkered I think, by the assumption that the advance of secularism is a historical inevitability and faith axiomatically a thing of the past. In fact, the future may be more religious than we suspect.” However, I observe that today spirituality is more often a branch of well-being, seeking personal fulfilment rather than loving engagement with the world. It can be highly subjective and have an aversion to dogma or truth claims. It acknowledges the ‘deep magic’ as CS Lewis described it, but recoils from any definition.
There is much that we would affirm in such sensitivity whilst continuing to assert that Christian faith is indeed faith in something. That ‘something’ is the truth – the truth, revealed to us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is historical reality; a reality that gives us a lens through which we read the revelation of God in the physical world and to the Jewish people over the centuries and recorded in the Old Testament.
It is fascinating that a change is afoot in the academic world regarding Christian faith. There is a growing openness to the claims of Christian faith. Tom Holland’s book Dominion which proves how essential Christianity is to the development of western culture is a case in point. Having heard him speak a number of times, it is heart warming to see how that intellectual appreciation is evolving into personal faith.
Even the disciples of Richard Dawkins, the high priest of atheism are not immune. Ayaan Hursi Ali, a Somali cultural Muslim and close associate of the new atheism movement from the beginning, announced in November 2003 that she had become a Christian. She said this, “I would not be truthful if I attributed my embrace of Christianity solely to the realisation that atheism is too weak and divisive a doctrine to fortify us against our menacing foes. I have also turned to Christianity because I ultimately found life without any spiritual solace unendurable… indeed very nearly self-destructive. Atheism failed to answer a simple question: what is the meaning and purpose of life?”
Even Richard Dawkins himself has softened a bit. He said recently, “If there is a God, I hope he is the Christian one!” I hope that this might give us a little more confidence in the faith on which we are building our lives and communities. I realise that many people are not living with an existential void and that the power of distraction, entertainment and consumerism keeps those deeper questions well anaesthetised. I wonder if Karl Marx were reflecting on contemporary culture today whether he would have said that consumerism, rather than religion, was the opium of the people. We should have more confidence in the enduring power of the Gospel to give meaning, purpose and power to transform individuals and communities.
But as I have said before, all of that is for naught if it isn’t true. Older writers like Sholto Douglas described all faith as a form of ‘psychic illusion.’ If there is no God and therefore no meaning, and therefore no compelling reason to behave well other than self or clan interest, and therefore no way of discerning right and wrong other than the expedient or the democratic, we would be left with counselling Ayaan to just live with the disappointment. But we continue to proclaim Jesus as the way the truth and the life. Over the next few weeks as our year of faith draws to a close, I’m going to record a series of videos on the Apostles creed which is an irreducible statement of just what it is we are putting our trust in. I hope that will help our confidence and also demonstrate its enduring relevance as we, together proclaim Christ and grow disciples.
+Richard