Believing, We Do Not Believe

Harry T. Cook
By Harry T. Cook
7/26/13


Among the many readers of these essays are a number of older, mostly retired members of the clergy. They are Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, several rabbis and others who can no longer identify fully -- if at all -- with their religious pasts. Most of them I do not know, but certainly wish I did.

 

To the person, they share with me disillusionment with the various traditions from which we have emerged into what one confrere called "a heaven on Earth." He meant by that phrase, as he later went on to explain, the freedom retirement brought from having to stay uncomfortably close to the line between truth and nonsense.

 

For some of those readers, I do not go far enough in the critique of contemporary religion. A few of them have become convinced that, for example, most of the Bible is pure myth. I think they are wrong about that, but the point is that they had to deal with biblical passages for their whole ordained ministry and evidently felt constrained to treat many of them more or less as historical reportage. Some of them express relief at no longer having to put on such an act week after week.

 

One colleague told me he is ashamed now for having taken so readily an ordination vow requiring him to affirm belief that "the Holy Scriptures contain all Doctrine required as necessary for eternal salvation." As over the years his life as a priest ripened, he came to see such a statement as -- in his words -- "Gobbledygook and pure fantasy."

 

I recommended that he read Elaine Pagels book Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas/1 -- in particular the first chapter in which she makes a personal reflection on her life and its sadnesses as seen through the prism of an impromptu visit she made one Sunday to an ornate Episcopal Church in New York City.

 

Pagels soon became captivated by the music and drama of the liturgy going on within. That was not her last visit to the Church of the Heavenly Rest, as it is called so preciously. For years one of two or three top New Testament scholars and historians of early Christianity, Pagels had long since seen many church doctrines for what they are: supported neither by science nor reason. Withal, she fell in love with Heavenly Rest.

 

I suggest the Pagels book to my disillusioned clerical sisters and brothers in the hope that her widely acknowledged scholarship and familiarity with the biblical texts they know so well will help them see that they can still appreciate the church in the same way she does: by ignoring its Queen of Hearts-like pre-breakfast impossibilities.

 

That well-educated and erudite clergy, after 40 years in the harness, can end up cynical about the company line they were supposed to have been toeing is an indictment of the institutional church. Some of us just went right ahead to divide the word of truth/2 as best we could, given what we knew and were continuing to discover.

 

Some of our eminent forebears pointed the way: Bishop John A.T. Robinson (Honest to God), Bishop James Pike (If This Be Heresy), Hans K�ng (My Struggle for Freedom and many more), Gustavo Guti�rrez (A Theology of Liberation) and Thomas Altizer (The Gospel of Christian Atheism) and the entire Jesus Seminar consortium.

 

One of our current heroes is Bishop John Shelby Spong (Why Christianity Must Change or Die and Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World). He continues to write and lecture, thus encouraging us. In the Jewish world, the late Sherwin T. Wine hacked through the underbrush of his own tradition and came up with secular humanist Judaism -- a deliverance if ever there was one.

 

None of those mentioned above quit organized religion. They simply chose different paths within it. Mostly outliers, they abandoned theism/3 and were content to extract meaning out of the metaphor of religious texts using reason and analysis. In so doing, they demonstrated that church and temple have plenty of wisdom left to share with the world and, within their traditions, the wherewithal to help society do justice and make peace.

 

Neither have I departed the institutional life of organized religion. I have found community in a congregation of humanistic Judaism as well as in a Catholic parish. In both places are people who -- as I have done -- some time ago off-loaded the excess baggage of cumbersome pre-Enlightenment theology. Withal, we have found it both possible and desirable to embrace the scripture of our traditions -- not for the answers its texts allegedly provide but for the profound and pertinent questions they raise.

 

We are non-believers in the sense that we do not base our participation in the institution on what was geschrieben or on the vera doctrina. We are more interested in exploring what it can possibly mean in the second decade of the 21st century to take part in Shabbat services on Friday night or go to mass on Sunday.

 

We, like Willa Cather's characters Jim Burden and �ntonia/4, share a "precious, incommunicable past" founded on "early accidents of fortune" and are willing to go on as we may from there. We travel light, unencumbered by the past, but neither leaving it entirely behind.

 

Believing, we do not believe.

 

/1 New York, NY. Random House, 2003, pp. 3-29

/2 see 2nd Timothy 2:15 KJV

/3 Theism is one of several philosophical approaches to religious belief that posits a deity that is omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent and that can be importuned by human beings to hear their prayers and answer them.

/4 Cather, Willa. My �ntonia

 


Copyright 2013 Harry T. Cook. All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced without proper credit.
 

What a Friend They Had in Jesus: The Theological Visions of Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Hymn Writers

Have you ever found yourself humming a favorite childhood hymn, only to realize you could no longer embrace its message? Harry Cook explores how hymns reflect the religious beliefs of their times. He revisits the texts of popular hymns, posing such questions as: How true are they to the biblical texts that seem to have inspired them? What aspects of nineteenth- and twentieth-century piety have persisted into the twenty-first century through the singing of those hymns? And, how does one manage the conflict between the emotional appeal and the theological content of such hymns?

Available at:
* * * * *

What reviewers said:

 

"Important and heart-warming ... Cook's keen insights into the most familiar of old-time gospel hymns ... help you do theology like a grownup."
--Robin Meyers, author of Saving Jesus from the Church

 

"A compelling look at centuries of Christian theology and practice, at how particular hymns have shaped American faith and religious thought."
--Richard Webster, Director of Music and Organist at Trinity Church, Boston

 

"A call to integrity in worship ... This exciting, penetrating and provocative study explores the theology we sing, which re-enforces the dated and pre-modern theology from which the Christian faith seeks to escape."
--John Shelby Spong, author of Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World


 


Readers Write 
Essay 7/19/13: When No One Was Laughing at Detroit   

 

Wilfred Adams, Port St. Lucie, FL:

I grew up in Detroit during the last of the Depression and into the war years, I remember the crowded streetcars, the sense of things going on all day and all night. I remember the V-E day and V-J day celebrations. Detroiters knew they had made a difference. Thanks for remembering those who have forgotten.

 

John W. Unger, Bellaire, MI:

Your essay on Detroit hit it out of the park like a home run from Tiger Stadium. A Marshall Plan for Detroit is a wonderful idea that will not happen. Policy makers will ask what Detroit has done for them lately. When you think about it, the odds against the real Marshall Plan would be prohibitive now. Look how the "zero option" has gained traction regarding Afghanistan. The companies that buy and sell congressmen as fungible goods like, say, a barrel of oil, would never permit it. People with grand visions simply are not influential. At best they are quaint -- at worst, written off as crazy. So, my quaint, old friend, please keep thinking and writing. Maybe some real good will come from it.

 

Henrietta Donaldson, San Diego, CA:

Well do I remember the days of "Detroit the Dynamic." My father was a mid-level executive at Hudson Motor Car Co. on the eastside [of Detroit]. The place hummed. The allies in WWII could not have made it without the war effort in Detroit. For that alone, the nation owes a big debt, as you say.

 

Anthony W. Orlandella, M.D., Dana Point, CA:

All great beginnings have endings. We just have not wanted to face up to the truth that America has become unprincipled and is failing and falling rapidly. So long, Detroit. So long, USA.

 

Peter Pascaris, West Bloomfield, MI:

Since the 1950s, America has become accustomed to trends beginning on the West Coast and spreading throughout the nation. But before that during the era of the Industrial Revolution, Detroit was the trendsetter copied by cities around the world. Today, with the announcement of bankruptcy, Detroit is once again a harbinger of things to come. But America is likely to ignore it for what it really means, namely, the fall of Detroit is the result of the captains of industry blatantly disregarding the dignity of loyal workers who happened to have lower skills and were thus vulnerable to exploitation. Need I mention that many were African Americans? Oh yes, some will argue that those workers were well paid and formed the basis of our thriving economy. But that would not have happened unless they were represented by tenacious unions that won those benefits despite bitter opposition. And when those workers became expendable because modernization required movement away from cities, they were thrust upon slag heaps and treated as waste. Of course, many of them were invited to join the exodus ... just as long as they had a car, because Detroit's mass transit dwindled until it ceased to exit ... or they could move out to the suburbs, just as long as they were white or could tolerate hatred and abuse of white neighbors. Soon, however, those fortunate enough to continue to work became victims of the same manipulation. Semi-skilled and skilled workers alike became expendable, and captains of industry blamed the workers who demanded too much. Thus, Detroit, which housed the poor blacks who were left behind, came to be thought of less and less, disregarded by passersby in the same way they ignored an unsightly trash dump. Few really cared when city leadership faltered and increasingly became prey to incompetent and unscrupulous wannabes. Even in bankruptcy, Detroit's plight is "someone else's problem.

 

Keep in mind that Detroit is largely made up of sons and daughters of loyal hard working Americans who built the Arsenal of Democracy to help win World War II. It's time to wake up and recognize that America cannot sit idly by and let those least able absorb the burden of financial devastation. Bankruptcy is a plan to pay back what is owed. Let us have the will to pay back Detroit for all it has contributed to America.

 

Sydney Longworth, Toronto, Ontario, Canada:

According to the Star, the big banks in the states are raking in record profits. Maybe you could prevail upon a couple of them for a measly $18 billion to help Detroit. Or are they too big to fail?

 

Hannah Provence Donigan. Commerce, MI:

Unfortunately, many suburbanites fear and avoid visiting Detroit. They would rather go to Chicago for entertainment, shopping and good restaurants. But these people do attend sporting events. My husband and I support the city. Detroit gave me a fine education and fond memories of movie and drama theaters, Briggs Stadium, Belle Isle, the DIA, Detroit Public Library, Hudson's, the extraordinary architecture, the Bo-Lo Boat, Vernors ginger ale. A great part of our dating occurred in my city from age seven until adulthood before our marriage 55 years ago. We have hope Detroit will rise again.

 

Fred Fenton, Concord, CA:

Sixty percent of Detroit's children live in poverty. This is a national disgrace. The silence from Washington is deafening. Commentators say not to worry, bankruptcy is a helpful way out of the city's crushing debt. The majority of voters think the challenge we face as a nation is to "save the middle class" (themselves). As long as this cruel disregard of the poor continues we have no right to call ourselves "the greatest nation on earth."

 

 

 

 

 

 


What do you think?
I'd like to hear from you. E-mail your comments to me at [email protected].

 


Click here to read previously published articles.