For starters, we need to speak proactively and vulnerablely about our faith, rather than just in response to the latest hot-button issue. There are questions that torment every human life: how does one know what is true and false, right or wrong? Is there a God? If so, can we communicate with him, her or it? If so, how? Can God speak to us? Can God say no to us? What are our obligations to God and other people? How can we have joy? How can we live well? How can we be wise?
Whether you consider yourself religious or not, unprovable and value-laden assumptions about truth and meaning guide our lives, including our politics. However, these are often not recognized. If we engage with the presuppositions and beliefs under the loudest cultural debates today, we can better understand the root of the problems, our real differences, and the common humanity we share.
The faith experience of most people is much more personal, richer, more important and meaningful than can be summed up in our political sparring. We should keep this in mind when writing, debating or discussing religion and spirituality. Part of the purpose of this newsletter is to preserve space to explore not only belief in public life, but how spiritual practices quietly shape us, our communities, and our days.
Churches and other religious groups must constantly emphasize how our traditions address pressing issues that will never trend on Twitter or dominate political debates: issues such as loneliness, despair, family conflict, disappointment, grief, longing, loss, and those all-too-human fears. and insecurities that keep us up at night.
On a more personal note, sometimes I have to withdraw from larger media debates about politics and theology in order to preserve the honest, tender and fragile heart of faith in my own life.
I often quote Photiki’s fifth-century ascetic Diadochos, which seems shockingly contemporary in our age of smartphones and social media. “If the door of the steam baths is constantly open, the heat inside quickly escapes through them,” he wrote. “Thus the soul, in its desire to say many things, expels its memory of God through the door of speech.”