Skeptical Faith

Google Image In a recent issue, Matt Malone, editor of America Magazine, passed along a joke about his religious order, the Jesuits, who have a reputation for being highly educated, sophisticated and presumably, religious. “If you buy a Jesuit a drink, he’ll talk to you about anything,” wrote Malone. “If you buy him two, he’ll talk to you about Jesus.” Most of us have the notion that religion is, and should be, a private matter. We’re irritated, and even embarrassed, if someone brings religion into an otherwise secular conversation. The more society becomes estranged from religion, the more likely that is. As indicated by Malone’s joke, even religious professionals hesitate to bring faith into a conversation.   Why are we so reluctant to talk about our faith, or even faith in general? May Cause Discomfort There are lots of answers. Among them is the traditional reluctance to bring up religion or politics because they’re controversial and may cause discomfort or con...

Google Image Definitely. OK, so we don’t usually think of him/her in those terms, which may conjure up women protesting, marching and going bra-less. But does God buy into society’s biases against women, males’ illusions of superiority, the violence perpetrated against women and their objectification in entertainment and pornography? Not the God for whom I’m searching. Somehow, however, the equality of the sexes has been lost on many religious people. In the case of Christians, it’s especially hard to understand. Christians believe that God became a human being in the form of Jesus of Nazareth. Presumably, God chose a certain time, about 2,000 years ago, and a certain culture, that of Judea, to do so. The time may have been right in the development of Jewish religious views, but the contemporary culture did not hold women in high regard. You can say that about all the cultures of the ancient world, perhaps, but surprisingly, the ancient Hebrews were probably among the b...

Google Image A recent National Public Radio broadcast discussed the huge differences in salaries that result from the choice of a college major and subsequent career choice. The presumption underlying the story was that you could achieve much more “success” in life by choosing a major and career like engineering over fields like psychology, education, philosophy or social work. Nothing was said about the value of knowledge itself. It made me think about how we define “success.” To me, the presumption of the report shows how little influence faith – especially the Christian faith and its values – has on our lives. That’s because it prompts us to ask the question, “How much money can I make with this major and career?” instead of “Which major and career will help me serve others?” or “Which will make me happy, or contribute to my knowledge or insights about myself and the world?” To cynics, the latter questions must seem terribly naïve. People who ask them will be “losers” t...

Google Image   As a section editor at the newspaper where I worked, I occasionally received calls from people complaining that the paper was filled with “bad news.” They wanted “good news,” they said. I had little patience with these callers because for a journalist, there is no “good” or “bad” news. There’s just news, and the journalist’s job is to deliver it as objectively and accurately as possible. Readers can decide how, and to what extent, it affects them. Now as a consumer of news, I have a different perspective. I still want journalists to provide accurate, objective news, whether I like it or not. If news outlets provided only news that made us happy, we wouldn’t have an accurate view of reality and that would be dangerous. But I get almost depressed when, day after day, the news is depressing. Interviewed over 200 girls Recently, I heard a broadcast of an interview of Nancy Jo Sales, who wrote a new book called American Girls. She spent 21/2 years researchi...

Google Image Next time you hear a scientist say something like, "The more we know about the universe the less important we become," don’t buy it. The reality is precisely the opposite, according to a recent article on the National Public Radio web site. The more we know about the universe, the more unique we become, theoretical physicist and cosmologist Marcelo Gleiser is quoted as saying. We have become accustomed to hearing that humans may not be alone in the universe, and that speculation is underpinned by countless science-fiction movies. This has led to doubts about the uniqueness of human beings, even conjecture about whether the traditional view about humans’ dominance among the earth’s sentient creatures is deserved. We simply don’t know about the presence of beings elsewhere in the universe, but there is little doubt about the uniqueness of humans or their dominance in our world. Billions of years to evolve Life began about 3.9 billion years ago and...

Google Image Outside Mexico itself, the United States is home to the largest Mexican community in the world. More than one in 10 Americans count Mexico as their country of origin or are of Mexican descent. Yet we have an equivocal relationship with Mexicans in our midst and with their home country. We’re OK with them fixing our roofs or washing our restaurant dishes but can’t seem to bring ourselves to see them as equals, or, for those of us who profess faith, as brothers and sisters. I recall that when I was growing up, many Mexicans declined to identify themselves as such, instead saying that they were “Spanish.” Faced with indifference or hostility, they had little sense of self-worth. That may have improved, but the attitude of many Americans appears to be changing at a snail’s pace. That’s one reason I was so moved by Pope Francis’ recent visit to Mexico. I know, I write a lot about the Pope, and I hope that non-Catholic readers of this blog will understand. Polls sho...

Google Image Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds stared down the barrel of his Nazi captor’s pistol in a German prison camp 71 years ago and refused to say which of his fellow prisoners were Jewish.           "We are all Jews here,” Edmonds, the highest-ranking American noncommissioned officer at Ziegenhain stalag that day, told the officer. Instead, Edmonds ordered more than 1,000 of his fellow prisoners to stand together in front of their barracks. The Geneva Convention required prisoners to give only their name, rank and serial number, not their religion, Edmonds said, warning that if the German shot them all, he would be tried for war crimes. Edmonds’ words of solidarity spared the lives of as many as 200 Jews on that January day in 1945, according to the New York Times. President Obama recently recognized Edmonds posthumously as the first American service member to be named Righteous Among the Nations, an honor bestowed on non-Jews who risked their live...