No Formula for Faith

Q: What changes have you noticed in people’s religious viewpoints throughout your lifetime? For instance have you noticed people have become more or less self-reliant? More or less communicative? More or less community oriented? Do you think those changes make them pursue religious activities differently or impact their attitudes towards churches differently?

A: I have given some thought to your questions, and my response has to be anecdotal, because I do not have the sociological skills to give a more scientific viewpoint. I have the testimonies of people who believe in God, and I have my own experience and my observations. I did check out a few resources where your interests are discussed, for example NPR has a weekly program with Christa Tippet in which she interviews religious thinkers on such topics. Bob Abernathy has a weekly TV program on public television called Religion and Ethics. You can also check out The Pew Foundation, which does a lot of research and surveys opinions on the topic of religion in America. All three resources have archives which are available to the public.

Now for my own views: First of all, I do not believe you can create a formula that guarantees an outcome of “believing” or “not believing”. Every experience of life is unique. When a person has a spiritual life, it is determined by how that individual engages with the Divine and with other believers. There are commonalities in people’s faith experiences, but there is no formula for faith.

Most believers have a sense of “soul”—an inner sense of connection to God. At some point the believer’s heart or soul was awakened to the presence of the Divine and becomes aware of a spiritual reality. This awareness can bring some very fundamental changes to a person. It gives a basic security about life; the individual feels he or she belongs to the Creator of this vast universe. For some, the quest for spiritual connection includes an intellectual aspect, a rationality upon which to build a life. For others it is primarily experiential—having a transcendent encounter with God and finding emotional peace. These are not mutually exclusive experiences, and they can be complimentary.

Once the soul is awakened to God, a person of faith may choose to engage in service to others, or not; to engage deeply in community, or to engage deeply in solitary contemplation; they may focus more on how they speak about their faith than on their actions, or vice versa. And of course all of this can evolve and change of the course of a lifetime.

For some believers, finding their security in God frees them to give of themselves in service, and the institutional religious body offers such opportunity. Some give themselves completely over to a life of service, (e.g., Mother Theresa, Dorothy Day, and others less well-known.) Joining with other believers gives them a sense of community and strengthens their sense of mission. They may feel that finding a spiritual community enables them go on to become the person God intended them to be.

Not everyone fits this pattern. Some believers cannot fit into the cultural norms of a religious body, so instead they privately expressing themselves in ways that reflect their experience with God. And some believers find themselves in organized religious groups that do not offer real opportunities for service. These communities become overly concerned about doctrinal expressions and thereby ostracize others. Some may have social customs which are treated like religious precepts, which cut others out of their fellowship. Still other groups have moral codes which they feel must be imposed on others, even though the issues are not universally agreed upon.

So to try and answer your questions: it is “yes and no” at every stage of life. Many believers become more community-minded—as seen in the many synagogues, churches, mosques and temples—while others prefer to live isolated lives like the hermits of old. Many turn outward looking to be of service, helping people in their own community, as well as reaching out around the world through relief organizations. But others prefer lives of contemplation, like the monks and prophets of many faith traditions.

The psychologist Dr. Carl Jung once said, “I never met an integrated person under the age of 65”. By this I believe he meant it takes a lifetime to begin to put all the pieces of life together so it makes some sense. As people of faith age they tend to become more accepting, realizing everyone is just trying to figure life out. People who converted in their youth and found great strength in their early spiritual beliefs often later retreat from their insistence that everyone have the same experience. They come to accept other people’s spiritual experiences as valid without feeling threatened, and realize that only God can judge the human heart as to its truthfulness and validity.

There is so much more to say on these issues, but I will leave it to the experts who do the interviewing, tally the results, and write papers.