Complexity
A college friend of mine recently shared an article from the Wall Street Journal titled Religion for Adults Means Embracing Complexity. It’s a brilliant article written by Sarah Hurwitz, a Jewish woman who wrestled with her faith as a young person and for all intents and purposes walked away from her beliefs for 25 years. A life crisis reconnected her to an Intro to Judaism class at a local community centre and led to a deeper engagement (a re-engagement) with the tenets of the Jewish faith. She learned that the issues around belief are complex and multi-layered, something we aren’t usually able to grasp as a child or teen-ager. In her own words, “I had learned none of this in Hebrew school. I don’t know how you would even begin to teach such things to children. And therein lies the problem: Many of Judaism’s most profound teachings are accessible only to thoughtful adults. And this challenge isn’t just limited to Judaism.”
As she began to reflect on the teachings of her faith from a more adult frame of reference she saw the beauty that was within the complexity of the ideas communicated. She looks back at her return to Judaism as a beautiful gift, a maturing in her ideas, and something that currently gives her life great meaning and direction. But the process she went through elicits a very important question.
“But what about those of us who never grow up religiously? I’m not just talking about those who continue to worship a deity of human proportions—one who shares our prejudices and opinions on political issues—rather than an infinite and unfathomable Divine. I’m talking about people like me, who ditched our childhood faiths in disgust, considering ourselves “too smart” for religion. I would argue that we’re not part of the solution here—we’re part of the problem, since we are abandoning our traditions to those who would distort them for their own small purposes and absolving ourselves of responsibility for the results.
We would never do such a thing in a secular context. If someone told us that they found their sixth-grade science or history classes to be dull and overly simplistic, and thus entirely stopped learning about those subjects, we would be appalled. But that is precisely what many of us do with religion, including plenty who continue to show up at our places of worship and go through the motions. We’ve rejected the kiddie stuff but never bothered to replace it with an adult version.”
It’s a great question. When it comes to Christianity I find the same process at work. Many people never “grow up” in regards to their faith and embrace the complexity that living in the world requires. They either accept unquestioningly a faith that settles for easy answers and sound bites, or they walk away from Jesus, convinced that Sunday school lessons have little to offer the challenges they face daily in their work, relationships, and their own inner struggle for meaning in the world. So much of what I do in my work is a balance between helping people abandon their own overly simplistic ideas about faith or about church and challenging them to seek deeper and more profound understandings of how to apply the teachings of Jesus to their everyday lives. Some won’t even give it a chance, and they look at church with a “been there, done that” mentality as if they are experts on a subject that even brilliant people admit must be approached with tremendous humility. Others are too afraid to have their tight system of religious control in their lives threatened by difficult questions and so never mature past cliches and shallow platitudes that give a thin veneer of faith to a life that refuses to honestly confront the world.
Somewhere in between these two extremes lies the pathway of faith. A relational connection with God that brings meaning to the day to day life despite the continual assault of complexity and unanswered questions. It’s that relationship factor that helps us navigate the tension. If our faith is a doctrinal system of ideas then we have to make the system work. Every challenge needs to be placed into the system in a way that keeps it functioning. But if faith is a relationship with God (and I truly believe that it is), it becomes more about trusting a person even when you don’t understand everything about them. My wife and I have been married for 27+ years. She is the greatest gift I have ever been given and brings fullness and depth to my life in a way that words could never express. But I don’t understand everything about her and she surprises me repeatedly. It’s a complex relationship, but one that brings joy and meaning to my life because I live it out in trust of who she is as a person. I would say the same thing about my relationship with Jesus. Are there things I don’t understand? You bet. But have I, over the past 40 years, learned to trust who He is? Yes. And that trust in the mystery and complexity of faith gives my life a deeper centre than I could ever hope for if I based it only on my own ability to understand. That’s what I think she means by a “grown up” faith. One that will walk forward, despite complexity, trusting in a relationship with this hugely mysterious yet personal God.
I don’t know where you are. Maybe you are afraid to entertain the difficult questions and wrestle through the doubts that those might bring. If so, let me encourage you that the pain of struggle is what often allows for depth of meaning. Avoiding the pain will leave you with something, but not something of substance. On the other hand, if you’ve walked away from faith because you found it overly simplistic, or people’s failure to live out what they said the believed, or heaven forbid, the current trend of tying Jesus to a specific political party, then I’d ask you to give it a second look. Maybe what you have lost in the childish faith you left behind is exactly what you needed to lose to make space for a genuine adult faith that can bring purpose and direction to the complexity of your life.