A Spiritual Walk Together

This site presents spiritual ideas and theological concepts and ruminations as derived from experiences within religious communities formed by covenants and shaped by the Western tradition of liberal religion in general and Unitarian Universalism in particular.

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Location: Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States

Visiting Professor of Liberal Studies at Grand Valley State University, Michigan

Friday, September 30, 2011

What If It Doesn’t Matter So Much? Part 1

What if it doesn’t matter so much what we believe? We Unitarian Universalists assume that it does. It is often the first thing we want to know about a new friend-in-the-faith, asking what “ist” they are, humanist, atheist, theist, etc. Individual belief means so much that ministers preach on how you don’t have to believe certain tenets to be a member of a Unitarian Universalist Church! "We will not be restrained in our beliefs." Admittedly, it is how we delineate the faith perspectives of others whom we meet. We even have a reading that survived two hymnal commissions, “It Matters What We Believe,” by Sophia Lyons Fahs.

Yet, what if it doesn’t, or, at least, doesn’t matter in the same measure we give credence to it? What if belief isn’t solely or even primarily what identifies someone from a religious standpoint? What if our basic assumption is taken to be that, an assumption, and that other assumptions might be even better taken as foundational to faith identity?


Historically, in the Christian tradition out of which we come, belief was the question mark of orthodoxy, and common belief the declaration of a creed. So, why would we adopt this assumption as so central to our faith, while at the same time taking great pains to differentiate from those “others”?


Any observer of religion in the early 21st century sees how competing beliefs fare in the family of humanity. In religion, beliefs translate into truths. Truths are claims to how reality really is and how it operates. When we give supremacy, ultimate or proximate favor to the idea that religion is primarily or exclusively a matter of belief, aren’t we adding fuel to an already raging fire, even though we can claim in the same breadth, that we value all accelerants?


And how has seeing religion through the eyes of belief helped us gain a sense that when we are together, something is shared, like identity?


Maybe it is time to do away with the assumption itself or, if not outright discarding it (which I would not recommend), at least demote it from CEO of our identity, and send it back to middle management.


So, what could be an alternative? Well, the academic discipline of Religious Studies offers some. But, to see why this field has left “belief” at the altar, some history of the long courtship is in order.


And that history begins with the breakup. Postmodernism gave the study of religion two gifts, one which was accepted and the other which was outright rejected. First, the rejection: Postmodernism’s insight – that everyone looks upon phenomena with different eyes yielding a different picture – doesn’t necessarily mean that nothing of substance can be said or studied about anything, like religion. Because everyone has an opinion does not mean that everyone has developed a point of view; or, that all points of view are equal in depth. Postmodernism rightly pointed out that every point of view has its limitations and boundaries, is born of a subjectivity. But, that does not mean all subjectivities have an equal claim to validity or relevance.


We who study religion think there really is a discernible and distinct object of study to look at and understand. That is our assumption. And, whether we can say anything “normative” about religion - which, it is true, we cannot say about religious belief! - there still is this behavior. People keep going around being religious! They have experiences they claim are religious. The sacred keeps in-breaking into people’s lived experience. They display behaviors, conduct activities, and create communal forms that have something to do with what they cannot see, but appear to hold in reverence. And that, in and of itself, is interesting and worthy of notice and study.


The one gift postmodernism gave Religious Studies that it readily receives is that each person has a perspective, boundaries to what they see and know, a point of view which is rooted in assumptions which arise from a context. Thus, it is imperative to know both assumptions and context, because they most intimately shape point of view. And the context for the concept of “religion” as it has been largely understood and used the past century and a half in the West, is intimate with the concept of “belief,” and in some instances seen as synonymous with it. This “concept of religion” has its contextual origin in Western Christianity, with lesser links to Judaism and Islam. In other words, to insist on the use of beliefs to define one’s or another’s religion, is to use an old concept rooted in the context of Christianity, with assumptions derived from that context. It is an ill-fitted lens to see and understand Buddhism, Hinduism, the world’s other major faiths and minor expressions of the link between the sacred and the profane.


If we no longer assumed belief to be a useful description, what would better serve to give an identity to this “religious way of human being and existing”? Hmmmm...

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