THIRD SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
Prayer of the Day: All-powerful God, in Jesus Christ you turned death into life and defeat into victory. Increase our faith and trust in him, that we may triumph over all evil in the strength of the same Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
“But just as we have the same spirit of faith that is in accordance with scripture—‘I believed, and so I spoke’—we also believe, and so we speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will bring us with you into his presence.” II Corinthians 4:13-14.
“I was there when you were but a child, with a faith to suit you well in a blaze of light you wandered off to find where demons dwell.” Borning Cry, John C. Ylvisaker, Evangelical Lutheran Worship, Hymn #732.
Paul speaks of a mature faith in Jesus’ resurrection and our own. But people do not typically come by such faith apart from a torturous journey through doubt, questioning and growing pains. I came to faith through the community in which I was baptized as an infant. I was raised in a loving and secure home. My family was part of a community of believers who cared for one another and modeled, however imperfectly, the way of life Jesus taught. I had every reason to trust both them and the God they proclaimed. I learned stories from the Bible as they were read to me by my Mom from Elsie Eggemyers Bible Story Book and illustrated on the flannel board in Sunday School. I took everything I learned at face value, as most five to seven year old kids do. At this point in my life, I had a faith that “fit me well.”
But all of that changed in the fifth grade when I came upon a book in the school library about our solar system and how it was formed. There I learned about the formation of stars and galaxies as well as the immense periods of time in which these processes take place. I was fascinated. I began seeking out other books and articles about cosmic origins and even checked out a book on cosmology from the public library that was far above my reading and compensation level. Though the physics and chemistry were quite over my head, the basic concepts of the “big bang” and the “expansion” of the universe tantalized me. It did not even occur to me until I was well into this learned tome that there was no role for God in all of this. The God I learned from my home and church, so intimately involved in the creation of the world, seemed altogether absent from this scientific account of origins. Somehow, though, I was able to hold these conflicting understandings together in my young brain without much need to reconcile them.
Things came to a head, however, when in the eighth grade I was introduced to the theory of evolution, again, by way of a book I found in the school library. My first reaction was fascination. Fascination led to further reading, questioning and a growing interest in biology and living things, which I continue to hold to this day.[1] I might have gone on for some time living comfortably with the disconnect between my faith and my interest in science. But I was abruptly brought to the brink of existential crisis by my pastor’s confirmation lesson on creation, wherein we were told that evolution was a false and godless doctrine entirely irreconcilable with Christian faith. At that point, I could no longer deny the disconnect.
Pastor Schmidt (not his real name) made a point of meeting individually with each of his confirmands prior to the public confirmation ceremony, where we would each confess our faith and be accepted into full church membership. My meeting was initially uneventful. Pastor Schmidt asked me a series of basic catechetical questions, all of which I must have answered to his satisfaction. He told me what a pleasure it was having me in confirmation class, asked me whether I had any thoughts about what I wanted to do when grown and whether I might consider seminary (I think he asked these same questions of all of us-though I am sure the last was directed only to boys.) Then he asked me if I had any questions for him. Part of me wanted just to say no, thanks just the same and take my leave. But the stronger, more curious and impulsive side of me won out. I took a deep breath and asked, “Pastor, do you think it is possible for someone to believe in evolution and still be a Christian?”
There followed an uncomfortable silence that I am sure seemed to last longer than it did. Obviously, Pastor Schmidt was deeply uncomfortable with my query. In retrospect, I can better understand that discomfort. He had already told us (and probably the whole congregation) that he felt evolution was incompatible with the Bible and faith in Jesus. That being the case, he was likely wondering how he could in good conscience confirm me if it turned out that my hypothetical “someone” turned out to be me. Yet, knowing that my father was an elder and my mother a teacher and musician in the church, he probably wondered as well how he could possibly refuse to confirm me. Finally, he sighed and said, “Well, Peter, I can’t answer that question without knowing more about this person. But it seems to me that when a teaching, whether in science, religion or any other area of life conflicts with the Bible, a true Christian has to side with the Bible.” There followed a lengthy lecture on the need to uphold the infallibility of the Bible. After all, Paster Schmidt argued, if you doubt any single biblical assertion, you cast doubt on the basis of our Christian faith. If the Bible lies to us about the age of the earth, the creation of humanity or any other particular, how can we be sure that it isn’t also deceiving us about Jesus’ resurrection from death, the forgiveness of our sins or the promise of eternal life? At the conclusion of our meeting, Pastor Schmidt gave me a booklet published by what was then called the Creation Science Foundation and urged me to read it. “Not all scientists reject the Bible,” he told me.
It did not take me long to breeze through the booklet given to me by Pastor Schmidt. The arguments made therein were too lame to persuade even my eighth grade mind. I was well on my way to rejecting the faith in which I was raised. I knew the parting would be painful. The biblical stories, hymns and teachings of my church played a formative role throughout my childhood. But I now felt that I had outgrown my faith. It no longer “fit me well.” If keeping the faith came at the cost of shutting out the wonders of the universe I was just beginning to understand and suppressing my curiosity about the diverse and wonderful varieties of life on this planet, the price was just too high.
A good many people with whom I grew up parted company with the church and the faith it proclaims for the same reasons I almost did. But others followed the lead of Pastor Schmidt. If science tells us the universe is thirteen billion years old and that human beings evolved from other life forms, then the scientists are God denying atheists whose words must be rejected. If medical professionals tell us that same sex attraction falls well within the spectrum of normal human sexual behavior, then they must have been corrupted by politically powerful forces with a malicious, anti-Christian agenda. Sex is for married people only and marriage is between a man and a woman. “The Bible says it, I believe it and that settles it.” These folks spun around themselves a cocoon of junk science, conspiracy theories and religious propaganda to protect a faith they had outgrown and must have known deep down could not withstand the scrutiny that inevitably comes with learning, growth and maturity. Their frantic efforts to protect their fragile beliefs have given us the book banning and educational censorship we are seeing throughout the country. As between faith’s deserters and those who sacrificed their intellects in order to remain faithful, I have the greater respect for the former.
So what kept me in the fold? Fortunately, Pastor Schmidt was not the only spiritual mentor who guided me. When he took a call to another church, our congregation was served by an interim pastor, a Navy Chaplin whom I will call Chaplin Bob (not his real name). Chaplin Bob took the time to listen to my concerns and gave me a different perspective. “Science and the Bible are not enemies,” he told me. “They just have different purposes. Science tells us ‘how,’ and that is a wonderful thing. There is nothing wrong at all with asking questions about how the earth came to be or how life came to be on this planet. I think God made us curious for a reason. But the Bible tells us ‘why.’ That’s a different kind of question. The Bible guides us in figuring out how we ought to live in this marvelous world full of the wonders science shows us. You can ask both ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions without rejecting either science or the Bible.” You might object that this explanation is a little too simplistic and that the whole issue is more nuanced. Still, it gave my eighth grade mind new conceptual tools for addressing both my interest in science and my faith. Chaplin Bob helped my faith to grow to the point where it fit me once more.
Another mentor of mine, a rabbi from whom I took a class in Biblical Hebrew, once remarked that he had a hard time understanding Christian fundamentalism. “When we learn something new that conflicts with the Torah, we don’t deny what we have learned or reject the Torah. Instead, we take our new knowledge back to the Torah and ask, ‘what did we get wrong here? How do we understand the Torah now that we have this new information?’” That, I think, is the right approach, though not the easiest. It is far easier simply to dismiss one’s faith tradition than to re-evaluate it, let go of its comforting but misleading conceptions and enlarge it to encompass the wealth of knowledge and understanding one attains with growth and maturity. It is easier to ignore, reject or deny uncomfortable facts that challenge our most cherished beliefs than to let them change minds and help us to grow. But Jesus never promised to make anything easy.
So how do we prepare children with childlike faith to grow into faith that can support them “where demons dwell.” First off, as much as I love this hymn, I think that particular line is unfortunate. When our children graduate from high school, head off to college or move into the world of work, they are not entering into the haunt of demons. They are setting out into a world that belongs to the Lord (Psalm 24:1) and is “full of the steadfast love of the Lord.” Psalm 119:64. To be sure, this is a fallen world and there are demonic forces at work that would rip it apart. But as Saint Paul reminds us, creation is held together against those forces by God’s incarnate Word, Jesus Christ. Colossians 1:17. What our children need is not “demon repellent,” but a maturing faith that is flexible, curious and courageous enough to make sense of a world that is wondrously complex, mysterious and full of surprises.
Though my church was for me a caring community that mirrored life in Christ, its pastor and his theology failed me miserably. Thankfully, Pastor Schmidt was not the only source of instruction and pastoral advice I received. If we are going to produce mature and faithful disciples, we need a theology capable of opening up the world for us rather than trying to shut it out. I do not believe, however, that faith capable of growth and maturation can be instilled merely by instruction. It is altogether pointless to attempt preparing young children to confront and deal with issues they are not yet capable of understanding and in which they have no interest. It is critical, though, to develop relationships of trust with young people from early childhood. It is important that children be taken seriously at all stages of their development and that their concerns be dealt with honestly, sensitively and compassionately. It is important that they know there are people in the church to whom they can talk freely and confidentially without fear of judgment, criticism or punishment. Only so can we help their faith to grow up with them.
Here is a poem by Charles Oluf Olsen about a faith that failed to grow up.
Stony Faith
“I kept the faith,” he murmured piously
As he sank to his pillow with a sigh.
“I kept the faith,” -as if the formula
Was one to vindicate or justify.
He did not realize, the bitter faith
Which he had kept intact through stubborn years
Had grown old-fashioned now, as out of date
As the quaint hour-glass that fed his fears.
Source: Poetry, December 1930. Charles Oluf Olsen (1872-1959) was born in Denmark and came to the United States at the age of 16. He worked as a cook, blacksmith, salesman, and lumberjack. Olsen was also an amateur photographer. His photos include gritty scenes of life among the homeless and workers in the logging industry throughout the northwest. He eventually began writing for newspapers and magazines, including the Oregonian and the Oregon journal. He published several poems and some articles of fiction. You can read more about Charles Oluf Olsen at the Archives West site.
[1] Though I ultimately pursued other career paths, I never lost my interest in biological science. To some degree, I re-visit this “path not taken” vicariously through my son who earned a masters degree in evolutionary biology. Together we tramp through the woods turning over logs, staring into kettle ponds and tide pools admiring the diversity of the biosphere and the wonderful creatures with whom we share it.
Peter's Outer Cape Portico 