A Little Summer Reading
Faith in the Public Square
Lompoc Record
July 22, 2007
Summer is going by fast, but there's still time to do a little summer reading, and I have a book to recommend. It's not light beach reading, but it has an important message about how people understand and live their faith. It's the story about a religious pilgrimage informed by conversations with people of faith, some who are Christian and some who are not.
Krista Tippett is the host of Public Radio's Speaking of Faith and author of a book by the same name. “Speaking of Faith” (Viking, 2007) is a relatively brief book, but it allows this theologically-trained (Yale Divinity School) journalist to share with us a model of listening to people as they share their stories of faith in ways that are humble and authentic.
In the course of six chapters that range from the auto-biographical to the analytical, she talks about how she grew up in a fairly rigid Christian setting, abandoned that faith, and then rediscovered a broader more open Christian faith.
Her book helpfully shows us what it means to be religious and what the consequences are of our beliefs and practices. We hear a lot about fundamentalism these days, but what is it? Tippet offers one of the best definitions I've seen yet. It is “that defensive grasp at certainties stoked by the bewildering complexity of the age we live in” (p. 15). Instead of offering a defensive grasp at certainty, she offers a positive, forward thinking, open vision of faith that should be attractive to many who are looking for an anchor in difficult times.
Witnessing the hollowness of East German life in the late 1980s was the trigger that brought her back to faith. Discovering a barrenness of the spirit in her own life, she returned to the Christian faith of her youth, but with a difference. This time she would take her faith journey in conversation with theologians like Reinhold Niebuhr and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. She found a model for faith in the Genesis story of Jacob wrestling with God. In this story, she discovered that being a person of faith, indeed, to be a Christian, is to wrestle with God. Certainty might be nice, but the search for certainty leads to a rigidity that limits our questions and makes it difficult to deal with real world issues.
One reason why I recommend this book so highly is that she offers us a model of listening to people of other faith positions.
Too often we decide for others what they believe, but Tippett encourages us to let people speak for themselves. It is the skills necessary to be a good radio host that offers us a way of looking at life through the eyes of others who might not share our religious beliefs. A lesson learned in her own conversations is that while different religious groups all seem to have aspects of the truth, they tend to take those pieces of truth and then absolutize them (p. 179). Too often we settle for a faith reduced to a formula - believe this and you're in - when what we need is a religion able and willing to look honestly at one's own self. Such a faith is better able to inspire us to repairing the world rather than turning to violence - whether physical or verbal.
People seem a bit apprehensive about entering into open-ended conversations with people of other faith traditions, fearful that such conversations will undermine their faith. But, as Tippett demonstrates, true dialogue doesn't require us to give up our distinctives. It does, however, mean that we must look honestly at our beliefs and we must listen respectfully as others share their beliefs with us. As Tippett points out, we don't have to have all the answers, we just need to have questions. In our search for truth, we must, she insists, do so with humility. Then, when we speak of faith “we speak because we have questions, not just answers, and our questions cleanse our answers and enliven our world” (p. 238).
As I said, this isn't light beach reading, but it's an important word about living one's faith in public. Gracious and inviting, the tone is personal and style is eloquent. Not designed to offer answers, it shows us how to ask useful and productive questions on matters of faith, and if we wish to live our faith in public then this is the kind of book we need to read.
Dr. Bob Cornwall is pastor of First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) of Lompoc (www.lompocdisciples.org). He blogs at http://pastorbobcornwall.blogspot.com and may be contacted at lompocdisciples@impulse.net or First Christian Church, P.O. Box 1056, Lompoc, CA 93105.July 22, 2007
Lompoc Record
July 22, 2007
Summer is going by fast, but there's still time to do a little summer reading, and I have a book to recommend. It's not light beach reading, but it has an important message about how people understand and live their faith. It's the story about a religious pilgrimage informed by conversations with people of faith, some who are Christian and some who are not.
Krista Tippett is the host of Public Radio's Speaking of Faith and author of a book by the same name. “Speaking of Faith” (Viking, 2007) is a relatively brief book, but it allows this theologically-trained (Yale Divinity School) journalist to share with us a model of listening to people as they share their stories of faith in ways that are humble and authentic.
In the course of six chapters that range from the auto-biographical to the analytical, she talks about how she grew up in a fairly rigid Christian setting, abandoned that faith, and then rediscovered a broader more open Christian faith.
Her book helpfully shows us what it means to be religious and what the consequences are of our beliefs and practices. We hear a lot about fundamentalism these days, but what is it? Tippet offers one of the best definitions I've seen yet. It is “that defensive grasp at certainties stoked by the bewildering complexity of the age we live in” (p. 15). Instead of offering a defensive grasp at certainty, she offers a positive, forward thinking, open vision of faith that should be attractive to many who are looking for an anchor in difficult times.
Witnessing the hollowness of East German life in the late 1980s was the trigger that brought her back to faith. Discovering a barrenness of the spirit in her own life, she returned to the Christian faith of her youth, but with a difference. This time she would take her faith journey in conversation with theologians like Reinhold Niebuhr and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. She found a model for faith in the Genesis story of Jacob wrestling with God. In this story, she discovered that being a person of faith, indeed, to be a Christian, is to wrestle with God. Certainty might be nice, but the search for certainty leads to a rigidity that limits our questions and makes it difficult to deal with real world issues.
One reason why I recommend this book so highly is that she offers us a model of listening to people of other faith positions.
Too often we decide for others what they believe, but Tippett encourages us to let people speak for themselves. It is the skills necessary to be a good radio host that offers us a way of looking at life through the eyes of others who might not share our religious beliefs. A lesson learned in her own conversations is that while different religious groups all seem to have aspects of the truth, they tend to take those pieces of truth and then absolutize them (p. 179). Too often we settle for a faith reduced to a formula - believe this and you're in - when what we need is a religion able and willing to look honestly at one's own self. Such a faith is better able to inspire us to repairing the world rather than turning to violence - whether physical or verbal.
People seem a bit apprehensive about entering into open-ended conversations with people of other faith traditions, fearful that such conversations will undermine their faith. But, as Tippett demonstrates, true dialogue doesn't require us to give up our distinctives. It does, however, mean that we must look honestly at our beliefs and we must listen respectfully as others share their beliefs with us. As Tippett points out, we don't have to have all the answers, we just need to have questions. In our search for truth, we must, she insists, do so with humility. Then, when we speak of faith “we speak because we have questions, not just answers, and our questions cleanse our answers and enliven our world” (p. 238).
As I said, this isn't light beach reading, but it's an important word about living one's faith in public. Gracious and inviting, the tone is personal and style is eloquent. Not designed to offer answers, it shows us how to ask useful and productive questions on matters of faith, and if we wish to live our faith in public then this is the kind of book we need to read.
Dr. Bob Cornwall is pastor of First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) of Lompoc (www.lompocdisciples.org). He blogs at http://pastorbobcornwall.blogspot.com and may be contacted at lompocdisciples@impulse.net or First Christian Church, P.O. Box 1056, Lompoc, CA 93105.July 22, 2007
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