Do you know if you're an agnostic or not?

A recent Facebook entry pointed to a Red Letter Christians blog post by Alan Molineaux that caught my attention, particularly because of the title: We are all Agnostic; we just don’t have enough faith to admit it! You can find the post here.

                Molineaux’s point as I understand him is simple: we tend to grow into position A as opposed to B, and because we have been conditioned to think that pole A is the only place to be, admitting of uncertainty (agnosticism, if you will) is a failed stance. Effects of allowing that there’s substance between the poles could be demonstrated by negotiation and compromise; another is the admission that “I just don’t know.” (The word, agnosticism, means “not knowing.”) Because compromise is not on in religions heavily grounded in faith confessions, admitting to doubts—let alone declaring oneself to be an Agnostic Christian—takes a great deal of confidence—that substance we frequently call “faith.”

                I’ve lost count of the people I know who have wandered away from the Christian churches because pastors and congregations don’t know what to do with—or simply cannot tolerate—expressed doubt, cannot engage in conversation that admits of possibilities between the poles. Fact is, most of the people I’m talking about haven’t left the church (point A) to join that ferocious band of atheists holding out with the same one-sided vigour for the righteousness of pole B. They mostly find themselves in the company of people who are apologists for neither A nor B while, for the most part, continuing to think of themselves as heirs and followers of Jesus Christ.

                Pole A, of course, is governed by an evolved worship of and interpretation of the Bible. Far-reaching developments are happening in the discussions about Scriptures, seems to me. I’m reading a lot of material lately that advocates for teaching scripture as a library of unequal parts as opposed to a single book, of allowing life experience and broader dialogue to influence our hermeneutic approaches, of giving present inspiration a place alongside historic inspiration. This is not to say that it’s a tidal wave of progressive thinking; orthodoxy and conservative views of Bible interpretation are still getting the bulk of ink and air time and likely will for a long time to come. At least in North America.

                And it is having grown up in a polar environment that makes people choose to leave rather than open up what would be the can of worms that uncertainty represents for conservative religion, for their colleagues, for their families. We are all Agnostic; we just don’t have enough faith to admit it!

                Perhaps Molineaux should have added a few lines from Shakespeare’s Hamlet (III,i,85-90):

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,*
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

Certainly the tortured consideration of what a declaration of doubt may do to friendships,  natural families, church families could qualify as “a pale cast of thought,” that might well “turn aside” what for many would amount to a “great enterprise.” 

Commentaries like Molineaux’s will always draw criticism for undermining individuals’ tenuous attachment to the dogmas of belief.

* “sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought” could be read as “infected by the debilitating practice of thinking-about-it-too-much.”

More on Agnostic Christianity.

Grand Canyon serenity

The word agnostic is a borrowing from the Greek where gnosis means “knowing,” agnosis, “not knowing.” In the previous post I referred to the term Agnostic Christians, which some might assume to be an oxymoron. Fact is, there isn’t a branch of Christianity—as far as I know—that claims its basic tenets arise from knowledge; In general, religious tenets are held by faith, not by knowledge, and so Agnostic Christian is no contradiction in terms at all.

Admittedly, a dictionary definition, even when supported by an etymology, doesn’t necessarily complete the picture of what words mean, or what they meant to people who used them in their original form. The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines an agnostic as “a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable [or] one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the non-existence of God or a god.” Most of us would associate the word agnostic with a response to religious faith, i.e. the stance that the existence of God or a god is unknowable, and that there is no reason to be either a believer or a disbeliever.

Agnostic Christians would probably argue that one can believe in God and in Christ and still take an agnostic stance on matters like, for instance, how the death of Christ is able to bridge the gap between God and humankind, or how it is possible for there to be a single, triune God. I admit, the explanations for these great conundrums are unknown, possibly unknowable to me, a stance of agnosis whether I am prepared to admit it or not.

Why bother even talking about this? Because the pretence of certainty is, in effect, a grand delusion, or even worse, a corporate self-delusion that is potentially extremely harmful. The pretence of certainty makes it possible to commit wars, supplies justification to terrorism, provides an argument for raping creation, makes theological mountains out of molehills. It also forces cracking of social cooperation and eventually, is responsible for much societal fragmentation.

Certainty inevitably requires intolerance to sustain it.

We need to shorten our creeds, weed out what is unknowable and what is as yet unknown, and admit that everything we hold as opinion or certainty now may be superseded tomorrow. We need to accept that Creator and creation are as mysterious as they ever were, and live our lives recognizing where agnosis lies.

It’s through this recognition that we might someday be able to live comfortably with the proposition that our neighbour just might be worthy, that she might just be right, or—at least—that a person’s value is not determined by how well we understand him.

Check out this link for further thoughts on the subject.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_theist

On Agnostic Christianity

The duck pond is being born again

For whatever reason, some questions seem too personal to ask, too private to be answered. Simple questions arising from idle curiosity, sometimes, like, “Did your girlfriend dump you or was it the other way ‘round?” or “Did you have a shower this morning?” or “How much money did you give to charity last year?” (I just answered this last one on my income tax form yesterday; I’m actually sure the Canadian Revenue Agency’s curiosity is not idle though.)

Or the question I’ve been asked several times in public places like airports or on busses: “Are you a born-again Christian?” Well I know these people are well-meaning enough; I remember how after my one and only “born-again” experience as a 12 year-old, the adults who declared me to be “born-again” impressed on me the duty to witness, to convince others to be “born-again.”

My first impulse, however, to being accosted so intimately by a stranger is to ask, “As opposed to what, a born-only-once Christian?” But that would be sarcastic. So I just say, “Yes, I am,” and he smiles and says, “Well praise the Lord,” and wanders off, and I wonder how one can be burdened for a another person’s soul without being the least bit interested in the person.

Most Christians, I think, would be better labelled agnostic Christians as opposed to born-again. The term exists although it’s seldom heard where I live. It means that although these Christians try to follow the pattern set by Christ and assume that he represents the Creator of all things somehow, they acknowledge that there is much about this that is unknown, and equally much that is unknowable. Agnostic Christians, therefore, have a very short creed:

· There exists a Creator who is the source for the universe and everything in it.
· Jesus Christ, is an important gateway to a relationship with the Creator.
· A cloud of witnesses and our experience of life on earth teach us that love, compassion and generosity are central to God’s will, a tenet reinforced by the record of Jesus’ teaching in the Gospels.
· It is right that we should pay homage to the Creator who gave us this brief moment of life and whose will it appears to be that we should preserve and enjoy the fruits of creation.

I’ve restated these tenets somewhat, of course.

Although less “evangelical” than the “born-agains” generally, Christians who acknowledge that much is unknowable are more likely to approach others as people rather than as projects. Agnostic Christians don’t presume to know the workings of the Creator in the big picture, nor in the microcosm of another person’s soul. They’re more apt to approach strangers on the “compassion and generosity” level, anticipating that the one who made the universe is the only one who can create newness and life.

What do you say when asked if you’ve been born again? Maybe you’re one of those who have drifted so far from the Creator that the metaphor fits. Most likely not. Try saying, “I’m not sure, but I’m definitely on the Creator’s side!” You probably can’t KNOW much more than that in any case.