What I Do Not Believe

I am reasonably sure what I do not believe. I am fairly certain what I find less acceptable in the Church's practice. These, however, are negative assessments and so do not suffice as foundation for belief. Our faith is not in what is absent, or in the fact or absence. There needs to be a positive aspect, one proclaiming what is or what is hoped.

Fundamental to religious faith is realization of the presence of God and of his attempt to influence reality in a good and holy way. It is saying, perhaps for no reason other than my desire to believe it is so, that God is and he is as more than a principle. He instead quite personally present as a source of love and he shares, trusting and believing in us.

He is, I believe, part of all that is and his interest is in the perfection of the creation he brought to be. God accepts and respects; he wishes us the fullness of which we are capable but allows us to be it or not. He partakes rather than dominates. He trusts and he loves. He is a believer in the goodness of what is and has faith that it will become better. His eyes see beyond failure or weakness. Unlike ourselves, God tolerates contradiction and ambiguity.

He would perhaps wish progress proceeded at a quicker rate, but still he fosters our role in redemption even when that leads to regression or occasional collapse. This is a manifestation of his faith. There are others and he communicates them in so many ways. The ways I know best are the Church and Jesus, but his message is as clearly spoken in other tongues and under other forms. The message can vary with the people who hear and speak it, but because it is God's it remains true.

Christ, I believe, is his child, as are we all, born of flesh he said was holy and confirmed in belief that God acts with and in us, making us more of who he is by becoming one with us. Like his father, Jesus is a model or trust and belief. In his life he could rely on an unfolding message, trusting its fulfillment would make more sense than some of the elements of which it was built, believing his living of what he saw as God's message was no less than that, and was in some ways made more. In the uncertainty that made real his faith Jesus enlivened a doctrine that repeated in clearer ways what the Father had said from the start: he loves and needs us, and is fully himself in the sanctity he shares and in that trust taking shape in our striving to be one. That message is ratified in resurrection, the validation of Jesus' life and of his own believing.

The faith he received from and shares with his father is handed on and shared in the Church, but Church does not stand between us and God. Rather it is the bond between us, the expression and formulation of our union. Because it is a sign of faith, ours and God's, it can be a source of uncertainty, a clouded mirror reflecting what seems to be while promising there is more. It is a faith institution, handing on and wanting to understand the mystery of God's presence, his apartness, his hopes and his need. It is a growing thing, a contradictory and fearful thing, like all that is human. It becomes different without becoming less. It has all the weaknesses and strength we bring to it.

Church is a praying community, and that may be its essential feature. Church prays. It worships. It speaks. It communicates with God, and while each of us tries, the Church is how we try to do it together.

There are other beliefs I hold. I believe in you and in me and in us together. I believe in the future of our faith, and of our world. I believe in the possibilities open to us, but these, I think, derive from the more basic things I already tried to say. Believing in God's belief makes the rest possible and enlivens what so far is.