Skeptical Faith

Google Image First, Happy Easter! It’s hard for a Christian believer to ignore Easter, arguably the most important feast day for Christians. But I know that for many people who are searching for God – and this would, perhaps, include many people of faith - belief in Jesus’ resurrection is hard to accept. Acquisition of faith is a process, sometimes a long one, so I don’t feel obliged to deal with faith in the resurrection in this blog. But I want to write about something that Jesus is recorded as saying upon greeting his disciples after his resurrection, according to the author of the Gospel of John. In the penultimate chapter of John’s gospel, the author describes the scene. His disciples had been hiding out, the gospel says, “for fear of the Jews.” Their leader had been executed, after all, and no one knew if the authorities would now come after his disciples. Frustrated, disillusioned and disappointed Besides, the disciples were undoubtedly frustrated, disillusione...

Google Image A recent article on the web page of National Public Radio contained these sentences: “We now know that all extant living creatures derive from a single common ancestor, called LUCA, the Last Universal Common Ancestor .” All living creatures, the article continued, are linked to this single-celled creature, what it calls “the root of the tree of life.” And LUCA, it is believed, existed some four billion years ago. “It's hard to think of a more unifying view of life,” the author adds. Actually, it’s not hard, at least for people of faith and those searching for God. How about God as author of life? How about God as father/mother of all, making us brothers and sisters?  Something That Divides But, of course, many see faith as something that divides and causes strife and even violence. Recent history has plenty of examples. Murders and church bombings of Coptic Christians in Egypt; violence between Buddhists and Muslims in Myanmar; the centuries-long viol...

Google Image Among the interesting people I covered as medical/science writer for The Des Moines Register was Patricia Clare Sullivan, alias “Attila the Nun.” Her obituary was in the newspaper recently. She died in Florida at age 89, having left the Sisters of Mercy of Omaha about the time she retired as president and CEO of Mercy Hospital in 1993. I don’t know who gave her the alias “Attila,” but I personally experienced two sides of her: the tough business person – which undoubtedly accounts for the alias - and the gentle, compassionate nun who, even as CEO, regularly visited patients. According to the obituary, she was the recipient of numerous awards, including the Leadership Award of the National Conference of Christians and Jews. She also was inducted into the Des Moines Chamber of Commerce Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame. What is certain is that she was an accomplished, serious business person while being a person of faith. And she wasn’t alone in this respect. Another ...

Google Image I have at times teased my life-long friend, Fr. Gerald Waris, about the time in the late 60s when he fled from the front door of an irate resident of the north side of Kansas City who drove him away with a broom. We were in the seminary at the time, and volunteered to go with a group of seminarians to that area of Kansas City, not known for its tolerance of people of color. We knocked on doors to get petitions signed for a proposed Fair Housing act.   I was on one side of the street and Gerald on the other when I saw him running from a front porch. He was the only one to have fled violence, as far as I know, but all of us encountered hostility from residents opposed to fair housing for people of color. A couple of years later, in April 1968, shortly after the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., Kansas City became one of 37 cities in the United States to be the subject of rioting. It was sparked when the police department tear-gassed student protesters outsid...

The web site, “Teaching Tolerance” at www.tolerance.org , quotes UNESCO, The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization . “Tolerance is respect, acceptance and appreciation of the rich diversity of our world's cultures, our forms of expression and ways of being human. Tolerance is harmony in difference.” The site then quotes the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who used the Greek term “agape” to describe a universal love that “discovers the neighbor in every man it meets." The site is a great resource, I believe, especially for teachers, offering help on how best to teach tolerance. God knows, the world could use more appreciation for our diversity. But if I had to choose between the quotes above to recommend to people searching for God I would go with Martin Luther King in a heartbeat. At least for those searching for God in the Christian tradition, mere tolerance is not enough. That’s because Jesus’ standard is much higher, so high, in fac...