Faith is a Verb, Not a Thing

January 1, 2006

When I made the decision at the age of 40 to return to graduate school, the first step in seeking ordination within Christian ministry, I opted to attend Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California, graduating with a Master’s of Divinity in 2003. I chose this particular seminary because I knew it was a liberal academic Christian institution and having been raised and later licensed to full-time ministry within conservation Christianity I wanted the chance to be challenged in my theology and to better understand the larger context of what it means to be Christian in our world today. I knew it would stretch me, upset me, challenge me, and shape me but to what extent I had no idea.

In both my Old and New Testament survey courses I found myself confronted with information pertaining to the Bible’s history and development that bothered me. I didn’t feel comfortable with the uncertainty that arose when considering contradictions and conflicts within the Bible or how familiar stories I had always believed to be literally true echoed of mythological tales that long pre-dated the Biblical narrative. On the day my Old Testament professor suggested the Bible was the human attempt to understand and explain God rather than a God-inspired, God-breathed text I went on a crying jag that lasted well into the night.

Why all the turmoil and tears? Simply put, I was afraid if the Bible wasn’t truly the inspired and infallible Word of God then I would have nothing to believe in. What would be the point of Christianity if the text central to my religious tradition was in error? Without the firm foundation of the Word then where did I stand in my faith? Where was my assurance? What would I believe and how would I ever know whether it was true if the Bible couldn’t even be trusted?

And yet, at a time when everything seemed so uncertain there remained certainties that carried me through. A certainty that God was there and God loved and cared for me. A certainty in an intimate and active relationship with Jesus Christ whom is my Savior. And yet, even in these things I called certainties there was an element of each that could never be fully certain because they could never be proven and that is the wonder of faith…staking my life on the unknown, the unseen, the mysterious…God.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for
the evidence of things not seen.

Hebrews 1:1-2Hebrews 1:1-2
English: American Standard Version (1901) - ASV
The Epistle to the Hebrews ^{1 1} God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, ² hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in [his] Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds;  

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Believing that God loves me isn’t dependent on the theology of the children’s Sunday School song because “the Bible tells me so.” Instead I know God loves me because I have felt God’s love. I have experienced God’s love. I have seen God’s love. As the writer Kathleen Norris observes in Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith, “faith is best thought of as a verb, not a ‘thing’ that you either have or you don’t.”

For many years my faith was in the Bible as the accurate and fully revealed Word of God and yet by the very definition of the word, it takes no faith to believe in a tangible thing that can be held in the hands and observed with the eyes. It’s no act of faith for me to walk on the sidewalk and believe my feet will find steady ground. The cement is right there under the soles of my shoes. I can see it and feel it. I’ll tell you what faith is. It’s stepping off a rocky ledge and believing I’ll sprout wings and fly or that the air will solidify and suspend me above the abyss. It might be foolish faith but it’s faith all the same. It’s faith that hopes and believes in the unseen. This is the faith God calls us to, not faith in a book but faith in a relationship with the living God. And yet many within Christianity seem to have confused God with the sacred text that points to God and in doing so they’ve made a god out of a book. I say this void of judgment since I spiritually bowed in worship to the biblical text for much of my life. I understand the desire to hold something up as a tangible expression and testimony of the existence and direction of God. I know how shaky things can sometimes seem without it and so because I know God is infallible the Bible must be infallible and because I know God is Absolute Truth the Bible must be absolutely true. Though I never would have articulated it this way, my thoughts revealed that I held up the Bible and God as the same, so how was it that I blurred the lines between the Creator and a book created by human hands and limited to human language?

Imagine I was somehow able to convince you the Bible wasn’t the Word of God but was written in the sixth century by a monk with too much time on his hands, a powerful imagination and a pocketful of “thee’”s and “thou’”s. Would God cease to exist for you? Would you no longer experience God in your life? Would you stop loving Jesus and no longer feel or know His love for you? Would all those miraculous moments in your life ease? Would God no longer be present for you in creation? I doubt it. I doubt it because you would still have your experience of God, the action and presence of God in your life. That is where our faith rests, not in what others have told me of God but in what I know personally of God. Jesus is alive because I have felt His love and not because there’s an empty tomb in a far-away garden or words on a page that proclaim His resurrection. Those only confirm what I already know to be true. Isn’t it the same with you?

And so it is, when I come to the important questions, such as those concerning Christianity and
Homosexuality and their compatibility, I don’t limit my exploration to what the Bible might or might not say according to this or that interpretation but I look within, to this one Christian that is me and to the Spirit of God that inhabits this one heart and life. Be assured, I weigh seriously the scriptures but in the end the answer isn’t found alone in printed words but in the Living Word, made alive in us, experienced in our days, and known by our spirits. In a faith that’s ultimately proclaimed as one centered in a personal relationship with God through Christ, that’s where I go to find my answers.

I hope your journey takes you on the same path and leads you to a place where God is more mysterious and more awesome than could ever be revealed or contained in the pages of any book, even if that book is the book.

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Posted in Bible Inerrancy, Faith, The Bible and Homosexuality