Friedrich Schleiermacher, a German theologian, lived from 1768 to 1834 and is well known for his apologetic lectures that were eventually entitled On Religion: To Its Cultured Despisers. In his talks Schleiermacher argues that his contemporaries are sadly diverted by the extraneous dogma of the Christian faith and should attend to what he describes as its “inspiration” — an intuitive longing for God. The difference, of course, between balancing demands of faith and reason is a razor’s edge. It is possible to jettison so much of what makes a Christian a Christian that claiming the name can only be explained as a fearful or mindless clinging to something one no longer believes.
Marilyn Sewell, a Unitarian minister, was reminded of just how perilous that balancing act can be — not by another minister — but by Christopher Hitchens, well-known author and atheist. Playing Schleiermacher’s card in an interview with Hitchens, Sewell observed:
“The religion you cite in your book is generally the fundamentalist faith of various kinds. I’m a liberal Christian, and I don’t take the stories from the scripture literally. I don’t believe in the doctrine of atonement (that Jesus died for our sins, for example). Do you make any distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion?”
Hitchens responed, “I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you’re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.”
Not surprisingly, Sewell suggested, “Let me go someplace else.”
In the effort to balance faith and reason — as well as faith and practice — the phrase “fundamentals of the faith” may now conjure up images and issues that are of little help in attempting to think, pray, and live in ways that are authentically Christian. We know those debates (or at least we think we do) and we quickly take up one side or the other of a long series of old debates. But Hitchens is right — though it was hardly his point. It is important for Christianity’s cultured adherents to ask themselves in what sense they can still be “meaningfully” called Christians. Without a reflective response to that question, there is no balancing to be done at all.
Great post! The balancing act is a conundrum for liberal minded Christians but one that must be faced. I am finding myself drawn to Karen Armstrong’s attempt to find this balance between the positivists that Hitchens and Dawkins love to beat up on and the “in name only” type to which you refer. In her latest, The Case for God, she argues that it is the religious practices that performatively move us beyond conceptual thought and language into adoration of that which cannot be named. It seems that here is a place where the cross and the crucified God must remain central to any authentic Christian faith and practice. I look forward to your future blogs!
Rick, thanks for this. Karen rightly notes, as do all of the great mystics of the Christian tradition, that we move from words, images, and analogies to that which cannot be articulated when we talk about God. There are those who pit the one against the other insisting that everything we say about God must be measured and qualified. Others in a reaction to what they consider a stifling orthodoxy insist that we can say little at all with certainty about God. I am inclined to believe that we need experiences of God that are framed both by words and by silence, which is why we sometimes “think” ourselves into new understandings of God and at other times, “act” ourselves into those understandings. In both cases our understanding is always fragmentary and incomplete — that, it seems to me, is inescapably a part of what it means to be creature, rather than creator.
Having moved away from my Christian heritage, I find it difficult to relate to a debate about what it means to be truly Christian. After 40+ years of experiencing a broad spectrum of answers to that question, I settled on two other metrics that are most personally relevant: “What is transformational?” And “What is transcendent?”
Answering the first question forces me to come to terms with the daily impact of whatever spiritual journey I choose. I have wasted countless hours and words talking about God only to discover that my life was no different after all. John quotes Jesus as promising that belief in him would lead to “eternal life”, which is better translated as “living a life like God.” From time to time I meet people who live in a way that seems God-like. Only occasionally are they participants in any form of Christian religion.
Wrestling with the second question moves me out of a completely rational and materialistic space. It is possible to enjoy a measure of personal transformation and yet never directly encounter the Divine (yes, I am still a theist but don’t ask me to prove his/her existence . . . :-)) But personal and social transformation that results from a transcendent encounter or a life that engages the transcendent on a routine basis is somehow different. It’s hallmark (to me anyway) is love. And for reasons that are difficult to articulate, that strikes me as a high, if not the highest, value.
So, I guess I’ve capitulated to my cultural surroundings. No church on Sunday mornings; rather, a good cup of coffee and the New York Times. OK, I do say a prayer as the day begins . . .