Skeptical Faith

Google Image I recall the period after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when Americans of every stripe came together in grief and determination. It was encouraging to experience this rare occurrence of togetherness and solidarity. (People around the world felt solidarity with us, too. A couple we briefly met in Ireland a few weeks before 9/11 called my wife and me from Cork to express it. They said that all the pubs in Ireland were shutting down the following day to show solidarity. Imagine!) And each time a gunman has opened fire, killing and maiming people, the residents of the communities where it hapens – like those in communities where natural disasters have occurred – experience what it means to be community. And this in America that is said to exult in its individualism. People searching for God should know that community is at the heart of many religions, including Judeo-Christianity, and it’s not dependent on tragedy. Indeed, the Hebrew Bible would be even more inscrut...

Google Image Few saints are better known than St. Augustine, who lived in the fourth century. He was a Roman African, early Christian theologian and philosopher whose writings greatly influenced the development of the western church and western philosophy. A sort of playboy in his youth, he was converted to Christianity and eventually became the bishop of Hippo in North Africa . One of his most famous lines, variously translated from his work, Confessions , is a description of the period before his conversion, expressed in a tongue-in-cheek prayer. "Please God, make me good, but not just yet" Many of us can relate to that. Many people searching for God – or who would describe their yearning for life’s meaning in some other way – are in a constant state of “waiting.” Think About Religion When It Changes “I’ll give more consideration to God and religion when I have more time. I’ll do something when my kids are older. I’ll change ‘when I can get my act together...

Google Image I recently read “1776” by David McCullough, the history of the American Revolution. Early on, McCullough describes the supreme commander of the American forces, our first president, George Washington. Washington was a member of the Continental Congress, the predecessor to our U.S. Congress, and when members were desperately looking for someone to lead the armed struggle against the British, they heartily supported their colleague, Washington, a wealthy aristocrat from Virginia who had scant military experience. According to McCullough, Washington was among the most admired persons in the colonies, even though he “owned” around 100 slaves on his estate at Mt. Vernon. It makes you wonder whether Washington, his supporters and other people of the time ever stopped to consider the evil of slavery. It seems so obvious today. Turned Their Backs There’s historical evidence that some people understood the evil and condemned it, but the majority of the age evidently didn...

Google Image When I was a priest in Bolivia, living in a village on the shore of Lake Titicaca, a man came to the door saying he was part of a crew of a boat that was crossing the lake from Peru and that one of his crew mates was deathly ill and in much pain. The man asked if I would go get him and get him care. So I drove our jeep to an isolated spot on the lake shore where the sick man waited in a heavy, wooden, 24-foot sailboat – full of what I took to be contraband goods. I took him to the little clinic in our parish where one of the nuns who was a nurse examined him. She decided he had an intestinal blockage, possibly a knotted intestine, and that he wouldn’t survive unless we got him to a hospital quickly. That was a two-and-a-half hour drive, over painful bumpy roads, to La Paz. That morning, the readings at Mass included the gospel in which Jesus promises, “Ask and you shall receive.” While the man lay on the examining table, writhing in pain, I prayed fervently that ...

Google Image "Rachel” is a self-proclaimed workaholic. She’s too busy to eat lunch so she skips it, saying she just “eats stress.” At night, to avoid awakening her husband, Rachel sleeps with her smart phone on “vibrate” under her pillow so she doesn’t miss any messages or calls from overseas. Not surprisingly, she has trouble sleeping, is fatigued much of the day and “is often trying to monitor what’s happening in her company’s manufacturing plant through the window while working on her office computer and fielding phone calls.” Author John Brubaker writes about Rachel on the Entrepreneur web site. I have expressed the view that religious belief is irrelevant to many people in today’s world. It appears to be inconsistent with modern, scientific world views. And accusations of abuse against the clergy have driven people away. Time to Be Thoughtful? But is it possible that among the main barriers to faith is “busyness,” that people lack the time to be thoughtful enough...