The Future of Faith

It is true that for many people "faith" and "belief" are just two words for the same thing. But they are not the same ... and it is important to clarify the difference. Faith is about deep-seated confidence. In everyday speech we usually apply it to people we trust or the values we treasure... a matter of what the Hebrews spoke of as the "heart."

Belief, on the other hand, is more like opinion. We often use the term to express a degree of uncertainty ... We can believe something to be true without it making much difference to us, but we place our faith only in something that is vital for the way we live.

Creeds are clusters of beliefs. But Christianity is not a history of creeds. It is the story of a people of faith who sometimes cobbled together creeds out of beliefs. It is also the history of equally faithful people who questioned, altered, and discarded those same creeds ... But both the doctrinal canons and the architectural constructions are means to an end. Making either the defining element warps the underlying reality of faith.

Christianity is growing faster than it ever has before, but mainly outside the West and in movements that accent spiritual experience, discipleship, and hope; pay scant attention to creeds; and flourish without hierarchies. We are now witnessing the beginning of a 'post-Constantinian era.'"

Creation myths such as ... the first chapters of Genesis were not primarily composed to answer the "how" or "when" questions. They are not scientific accounts, even though their poetical language, when read literally (which is always a mistake), may sound that way. Rather, they grapple ... with the linked mysteries of both why there is a universe and what our place in it is ... They are more like lyrical cantatas, symphonies of symbols through which humans have tried to make sense of their place in the world...

This is where the distinction between faith and belief is vital. These stories are -- literally -- "not to be believed." They are, rather, artifacts human beings have crafted to try to wring some meaning from the mystery. They are not themselves the mystery.

The ill-advised transmuting of symbols into a curious kind of "facts" has created an immense obstacle to faith for many thoughtful people. Instead of helping them confront the great mystery, it has effectively prevented them from doing so ... the objective knowledge science rightly insists on is not the only kind of knowledge human beings need ... Faith, although it is evoked by the mystery that surrounds us, is not the mystery itself.

One of the most devastating blunders made by the church, especially as the Age of Belief began, was to insist that the Spirit is present only in believers.

The time is ripe to retrieve the term "Way" for Christianity and "followers of the Way" for Christians. It is at once more accurate, more original, and more contemporary than "believers."

Their idea of interfaith dialogue was to work with their fellow Asians of whatever religion to advance the Kingdom that Jesus had inspired them, as Christians, to strive for, regardless of what the others called it. They were neither "fundamentalist" nor "modernist." They seemed more attuned to the element of mystery at the core of Christianity and to its vision of justice. They were also clearly impatient with many of the disputes that preoccupy the different wings of the American churches."