Diocesan
Life Columns
Bishop Paul V. Marshall
Bishop Paul's writes a monthly column for the Diocesan Newspaper, Diocesan
Life, edited by Communication
Minister, Bill Lewellis.
For more features from the life of our diocese, check Diocesanlife....ONLINE; and Bethlehem
News.
We Need To Speak Words That
Liberate
Bishop Paul V. Marshall
Diocesan Life, April 1999
I have a friend who freezes up completely when it comes to saying
yes or no on issues of faith or morality. He grew up in a time
when religious leaders reacted to new ideas and freedoms by tightening
restrictions on what could be said, done or thought. The only way
he could live was to reject religious thinking that was too organized
or that tried to set standards for moral behavior. His own children
have appeared on the scene as young adults largely undeveloped
morally and spiritually because he is frightened of reproducing
the repressive religion of his youth. How can we speak a liberating
word of faith and morality without creating a new rigidity? One
safeguard is suggested by an observation that has been haunting
me: Faith is what you would die for; dogma is what you would kill
for.
I have this friend who is paralyzed because of the carelessness
of others. He walks and talks perfectly, but he freezes up completely
when it comes to saying yes or no on issues of faith or morality.
He grew up in a time when religious leaders reacted to the explosion
of new ideas and new freedoms in the general culture by tightening
restrictions on what could be said, done or thought. The result
was that the only way my friend could live in the in the last quarter
of this century was to reject entirely religious thinking that
was too organized or that tried to set standards for moral behavior.
Trying to make those decisions, even, when it is especially necessary,
floods him with painful memories. He cannot bring himself to a
place where he can draw boundaries.
His frustration is poorly disguised as being "open" or "non--judgmental." I
see his anguish, however, even as he makes those claims. He does
not want to hurt others as he was hurt, but ends up depriving others
of his wisdom.
Actually, I have many friends who are like this man to one degree
or another. Their suffering is real. They are deep and careful
thinkers who are frightened of reproducing the repressive religion
of their youth. As a result, their own children have appeared on
the scene as young adults largely undeveloped morally and spiritually.
We read every day about the suffering this situation produces.
There has been a good side to this paralysis. My friend and people
like him keep the doors open in many expressions of Judaism and
Christianity to new thinking and to the very old thinking of other
spiritual traditions. We have a better idea of what is generally
religious and what the distinctive insights of our own faith traditions
may be. Religious leaders have as a result often gotten better
at listening, have had their perspectives broadened, and have been
able to learn from as well as give to people whose experience would
have been completely ignored by another generation.
I once asked a professor if some religious practices and attitudes
that people were busily stripping away from my own tradition had
not in fact been very helpful in their day. He shot me one of the
meanest looks I have ever received and said curtly, "This is not
the century to ask that question."
So twenty years later I find myself joining the line of all those
who have tasks for American religion in the century about to start.
For the sake of those who have grown up with little or no moorings,
it is time now to gather what we have learned from many voices
and teach religion in a way that the great mass of people who were
not Religious Studies majors can put to work in their lives. It
is time to speak again, and to speak clearly and definitely.
But how do we do this without creating a new rigidity, without
creating more paralytics in a generation or so? One safeguard is
suggested by an observation that has been haunting me for some
time now. A wag once observed, in summing up the history of all
religions, that "Faith is what you would die for; dogma is what
you would kill for." Certainly, this statement is an exaggeration,
but there is enough truth in it to lie heavily on my mind.
The opportunity of the new century may be to for religious persons
to get better at stating what they would die for - and to do so
in the language of testimony and invitation. Moral and spiritual
teachings that are based on faith's deepest convictions sound quite
different than those that come from a need to punish what one fears.
In both cases one might say, "Thou shalt not kill," but the commandment
sounds different when it comes from reverence for life and its
creator on the one hand, as opposed to fear-filled police work
on the other.
I firmly believe that Christians are bound to the teachings of
the scriptures, but I must therefore always say that in a way that
reflects my faith, nor my anger - or fear.
Fear asks, what ideas would we kill for? That is
another way of saying, what ideas make us truly afraid?
When religious (and secular) communities and institutions have
the courage to ask that question honestly, their response to what
brings the fear can perhaps be more reasoned and compassionate
than those over-reactions that have created generations of paralyzed
believers.
This is not to say that wrong will become right, but that moral
principles based on the need to kill what one fears are far less
helpful (or convincing) than those that go beyond the fears to
speak from what we trust and rejoice in.
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