{"id":795,"date":"2025-08-26T14:49:38","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T13:49:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rebelrebel.org.uk\/?p=795"},"modified":"2025-08-26T14:49:39","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T13:49:39","slug":"good-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rebelrebel.org.uk\/?p=795","title":{"rendered":"Good Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Reflection #106 (8th June 2025 at Essex Church \/ Kensington Unitarians)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So today we\u2019re exploring this concept of faith. This is a bit of a generalisation but over the years I\u2019ve picked up the impression that a lot of us who end up in Unitarian congregations are a bit uncertain, or ambivalent \u2013 or even squeamish \u2013 about the very notion of faith (perhaps in large part because we\u2019re not entirely sure what it means). Do we really want to call ourselves \u2018people of faith\u2019 collectively, or consider ourselves as \u2018having faith\u2019 personally, when the way the word is often used in common parlance gives it a number of connotations that we might not feel entirely at ease with? <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

In the main, I think, people tend to associate faith with belief in something particular. Probably belief in God \u2013 with \u2018God\u2019 being understood in a very particular way, a way that\u2019s probably derived from the dominant religious tradition of our local culture which we reference by default \u2013 and also with \u2018belief\u2019 being understood in a very particular way, in the sense of an intellectual agreement that God exists, and that a certain collection theological doctrines that go with it are true, probably literally true. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Unitarians we probably already know, intellectually at least, that religion doesn\u2019t really work like this, or at least it doesn\u2019t have to. Of course, there are plenty of religious traditions that seem to emphasise belief \u2013 that put a lot of weight on subscribing to creeds or making declarations \u2013 that\u2019s a practice I would tend to associate mostly with the evangelical churches. But we are part of a free, creedless religious tradition, and I think we know that there\u2019s more than one way to be faithful (though perhaps our ambivalence and hesitancy around speaking of \u2018faith\u2019 comes from a sense that the more conservative traditions \u2018own\u2019 the word somehow? But, of course, that\u2019s not the case). That\u2019s why I shared those words from the Buddhist teacher Sharon Salzberg at the start of the service, to encourage us to reclaim the word, and to consider what faith means to us, how we might understand ourselves as progressive \u2018people of faith\u2019. She said: ‘I want to invite a new use of the word faith, one that is not associated with a dogmatic religious interpretation or divisiveness. I want to encourage delight in the word, to help reclaim faith as fresh, vibrant, intelligent, and liberating…’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So where do we start? It would be remiss of me to speak about faith here without crediting Richard Boeke, a Unitarian minister who sadly died just a few weeks ago at the age of 95 (and I want to pause to note that Richard\u2019s wife Jopie was also a Unitarian minister, and indeed served as interim minister here at Essex Church for a couple of years in the 1990s, which a few of us will recall). Richard, who was deeply engaged with questions of religious freedom and interfaith dialogue, spent many years wrestling with the meaning of \u2018faith\u2019 in that context, drawing on strands of wisdom from differing religious traditions, and he came to an understanding of faith as primarily being about trust<\/i>. Richard made this observation: \u2018In the Quran, the word amana<\/i> means to have faith. On the other hand, zanna<\/i> means to hold an opinion. In Christianity, Aquinas, Augustine, Bach, all bear witness that credo means what it says, \u201cI place my heart.\u201d [JB: that\u2019s the etymology of the words \u2018creed\u2019 and \u2018believe\u2019] When Luther affirms \u201cthe just shall live by faith alone,\u201d he does not mean, \u201cthe just shall live by the right mental decision.\u201d Hebrews chapter 11 opens, \u201cnow faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.\u201d This is not a discussion of intellectual assent, but of living trust<\/i>.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I take from this is that faith means trusting in something beyond the rational. It\u2019s about accepting that we can\u2019t work everything out by ourselves \u2013 as wonderful as our human faculties might be \u2013 the universe we find ourselves in is too vast and complex for us to understand or control. We\u2019re part of an immense dynamical system, thrown in with all the other people, and creatures, and planets, and atoms, all doing their own thing and bumping up against each other in challenging ways that we often can\u2019t do a thing about. In life we will frequently find ourselves at the limits of our power \u2013 and that\u2019s where faith comes in \u2013 this acknowledgement of something that\u2019s beyond us. Speaking about faith in this way makes me think about the spiritual language of 12-step groups. They know: When life is unmanageable, when we are up against it, there is something to be said for surrender. Faith can liberate us from the mistaken thought that we can control everything, fix every problem, and put things right through the force our own individual efforts alone. Sometimes it\u2019s the right thing to do to let go of our struggles and \u2018hand them over to God\u2019 or a higher power as we understand it. In tough times there can be a huge sense of relief, comfort, even liberation in letting go like this, in faith. But to quote Richard Boeke again: \u2018Faith is not a matter of leaving it all to God, nor believing that we can do it all. Rather in the words of Paul Tillich, it is \u201cfinite freedom.\u201d The affirmation that we cannot do everything, but we can do something. This beginning of faith was beautifully stated by Reinhold Niebuhr when he wrote [the serenity prayer]: \u201cGod grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course this is still pretty mysterious. It depends on how you understand \u2018God\u2019 or \u2018higher power\u2019 (and whether you are prepared to engage with those concepts at all). I reckon it\u2019s OK to adopt such an attitude before we fully understand it. Dive in. That\u2019s what we mean by a \u2018leap of faith\u2019. I appreciate these words by William Sloane Coffin: \u2018There is nothing anti-intellectual in the leap of faith, for faith is not believing without proof but trusting without reservation. Faith is no substitute for thinking. On the contrary, it is what makes good thinking possible. It has what we might call a limbering effect on the mind; by taking us beyond familiar ground, faith ends up giving us much more to think about.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a parallel I have heard \u2013 and possibly shared before \u2013 one which I like very much \u2013 a parallel between coming to faith and falling in love (or maybe committing to someone in marriage). The \u2018leap of faith\u2019 involved in both cases opens up more possibility, more depth, than you can reach while you are holding back and sitting on the sidelines. In both cases it is about giving your heart, making a commitment, and seeing where it leads, rather than constructing some sort of rational argument. If we are half-hearted or tentative about it we might just be missing out on something beautiful. And although there\u2019s some moment in time when you make the leap, that\u2019s not the end of the story, as with any ongoing relationship you have to make it work. You have to \u2018do\u2019 faith in the same way you have to \u2018do\u2019 love. As we heard in the last reading \u2013 faith is a verb \u2013 it has to shape how we actually live. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So maybe we can think of faith as a way of being in the world \u2013 a way of seeing \u2013 an attitude we take to the life and the universe, to everyone and everything we meet. A way of receiving and responding to the ups and downs that life brings our way \u2013 not passively or fatalistically \u2013 but deeply engaged \u2013 whilst also recognising the limits of our power and control. To quote Richard Boeke again: \u2018Faith is\u2026 a responsibility in the face of ever-changing reality. The immature forms of faith or beliefs close us off from the world, until reality shatters our walls. Mature faith knows the terror and the void, knows the fear of rejection, and still reaches out in hope. In my search to define faith, I come to these words: \u201cFaith is our perception of reality conditioned by relationship and ritual.\u201d\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or how about this take from the Zen teacher Alan Watts: \u2018Faith\u2026 is an unreserved opening of the mind to the truth, whatever it may turn out to be. Faith has no preconceptions; it is a plunge into the unknown. You can only know God through an open mind just as you can only see the sky through a clear window.\u2019 Or there\u2019s this from the Lutheran theologian Paul Tillich: \u2018Faith is not an acceptance of doctrines\u2026 but the acceptance of the power itself, out of which we come and to which we go, whatever the doctrines may be through which we accept it\u2026 a faith which can lose every concrete content and still exist as an absolute affirmation of life as life and of being as being.\u2019 That phrase might take a moment to grasp but I like that sense of faith as something universal that remains constant regardless of the precise details of the tradition through which we come to find it. And, for those who like God-language, just one last quote from Rabbi Jonathan Sacks: \u2018Faith does not mean certainty. It means the courage to live with uncertainty. It does not mean having the answers, it means having the courage to ask the questions and not let go of God, as [God] does not let go of us.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is all so tricky to articulate! But for me, faith is about trusting that there is an underlying Goodness to the universe \u2013 that\u2019s something I\u2019m happy to call \u2018God\u2019 \u2013 and God is trying to lure us all to join in with this Goodness, to recognise it, appreciate it, amplify it, actively participate in the creation of more of it, during this all-too-brief span when we\u2019re alive here on Earth. Goodness might take many forms \u2013 we might experience it as love, truth, beauty, justice \u2013 but while we are alive, we are called to simultaneously surrender to the flow of life, and get stuck in, doing whatever we can to serve the common good and help nudge reality in a slightly better direction. In this view we can see ourselves as part of a larger story, even as we endure disappointments and setbacks, as the moral arc bends towards justice and we trust that Good will prevail in the end. Or you might even frame it in more traditional language (I quite like it!) \u2013 faith commits us to the path of righteousness \u2013 striving to do God\u2019s will \u2013 ultimately helping to build the Kingdom of God. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s my personal take on faith \u2013 or at least, it\u2019s where I\u2019m at with it today \u2013 and my inevitably slightly clumsy attempt to put the ineffable into words. But as this reflection draws to a close, let\u2019s return to that question we meditated on earlier, and I encourage you to ponder it in the week ahead: What does faith mean to you? That\u2019s a question to wrestle with for the whole of our lives, I reckon. And I look forward to hearing your responses over tea and cake, and in the weeks to come. Amen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reflection by Jane Blackall<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n