Letters to My Aunt
 

Letter Two - 'Biblical Interpretation and the Basis of Faith'

Dear Aunty,

      How nice to receive your latest letter. I very much appreciate your clear and sincere thoughts on the matters raised in our ‘chats’.

      Please do not feel disturbed by my views. I have no wish to distress you. I merely enjoy the opportunity to share with you some of those things that are precious to me – hence my reply herewith. We all interpret life through the perception of our own unique experiences. Variety and differences are bound to occur, but through these and the relating of them to one another we can grow and mature spiritually.

      In essence, if I am challenging anything, it is not so much the Bible, but more the interpretation given to it through the Christian Fundamentalist approach. There is a huge difference here, and coming to see the failings of the latter has not necessarily been to the detriment of my understanding of the former. Quite the reverse.

      When we last met I related to you something of the difficulties I faced some years ago. This period in my life was a defining time ... in which I came to see most clearly, through much pain and anguish, that the faith I had held dear all my life was flawed, and more than that, it was directly – and insidiously - responsible for the torment I was enduring. Can you imagine how that felt? I saw my faith collapse. It came crashing down and lay broken around me in crumpled rubble.

      That was reality. A genuine experience of life that has taken me many years to work through and of which I still carry the scars. It was not something that could be ignored. How could I carry on with what I had before when life had undeniably shown me that it was wrong? I could, of course, have ignored my experiences and continued as before, but now I knew the real nature of CF's influence over me there was no wisdom in going back. Yes, before me lay uncertainty and not knowing. I had no framework or system on which to lean but, and this means everything to me, my spirit was free! I had come face to face with my inner being for the first time in my life and it was so right. From the ashes a phoenix was coming to birth. This was thrilling. All that had bound my soul was now broken and I began to grow. I felt born again.

      At this time I cared for nothing but that my spirit should not be harnessed with more systems and belief structures. To this end I determined that if God existed then he had to come to me. After what had happened I was through with looking for him. In time, however, I began to become aware of and to appreciate the Divine in a different way. Gone was the regimented thinking of dogma and creeds and systems and in their place began to develop a different level of spiritual consciousness operating through an intuitive awareness of those things that are infallible, of which the most important is Love. Love is the very nature of the Divine and in so far as we are capable of love we share the divine within us. When we let this manifest itself through us we grow in and impart to others the Divine. We let it flow through us and around us. This is the seat of understanding. From love comes forgiveness, patience, compassion - in effect, the fruits of God’s Spirit. Love like this transcends man-made barriers, such as religions and religious beliefs. It reaches out to all; it is found in all; it encompasses all. It is the common denominator of mankind’s spiritual nature. In love can we become familiar with the real, the true, the Divine. Beauty abounds and creativity flourishes. These are infallible principles and in so far as these are at the heart of the Bible, there glows the essence of its infallibility.

      For me, Aunty, the real truth of the Bible lies not in the actual printed word (which has changed so much over the years anyway) but in the higher truths those words convey. Christian Fundamentalism has lost sight of this by labouring over literal definitions and ways of interpretation to the extent of devaluing the true meaning of Scripture in favour of the party line. This has created a blinkered, downward looking approach which stifles and suppresses the human spirit, tying it up with literalism when it should be free to encounter the spirit of the book.

      In the history of the Bible, Christian Fundamentalism is a relatively recent phenomenon, beginning, as it did, only a century or so ago. Pentecostalism emerged from this around the start of the 1900’s. In preceding times the Bible was not regarded in such a fashion and yet, as you rightly point out, it has survived the years. If one looks carefully at the writings of Saint Paul (most of the New Testament) it becomes apparent that he did not intend for his letters to be adopted as infallible text. Nor did the Gospel writers, who wrote after Paul, intend the same. At the beginning of Acts Luke clearly states that his book is a scissor and paste account of things.

      Looking back I can now see that a faith based on the supposed validity of the text of a book was bound to fail. The text of the Bible was written by men, however sincere, and, therefore, has to be fallible. What they wrote was their interpretation of what they experienced. (In a sense, in taking the Bible so literally, Christian Fundamentalists are living someone else’s experience of God instead of their own!). This is true of all the great religions’ sacred texts. What is so exciting, though, is that there is a shared experience of the Divine running through them and this is seated in the spirit of these books.

      Faith, if it is to be substantive, it seems to me, has to be based on reason. By this I mean that there has to be a logical progression of understanding from which the step of faith is taken. Our minds are wonderfully attuned to comprehending and working with the rationale that governs the whole universe and so it should not be unexpected that this contributes to our appreciation of the nature of faith. The degree of our trust in anything is proportional to our experience of and confidence in that thing. For this reason, then, it is right to test and question. Only by so doing can we become properly aware of the validity of the foundations upon which we rest our faith. Critical examination allows for misconceptions to be exposed and for the truth to be adequately unveiled. To believe without such safeguards is to substitute true faith for blind faith, and this marks the beginnings of superstition.

      With this approach there is also the need to reflect and adjust. Faith is a living thing and needs to be allowed to grow and mature as our understanding and perception changes. Just as neither of us are now the children we once were, so faith develops and our awareness of the Divine with it. To this end we never have an ‘absolute hold’ on the truth, but, in humility, are always pressing ever closer towards the bigger picture. As finite beings we can never fully comprehend the infinite, but we can move closer towards it. In this sense, then, the spiritual life becomes a pilgrimage of faith.

      Wow! I didn’t intend a sermon. Please forgive me if these thoughts come over as such. It is just that they are so precious to me and they have not been idly arrived at, but worked out with much thought and anguish of soul. The last few years have been so illuminating, spiritually, and in a way in which I clearly sense that God, in answer to my prayer, has come to me.

      Perhaps I could leave you with this one thought?

      Jesus said: ‘I am the way, the truth and the life’. Above all else, what does this mean if that Way, that Truth and that Life were not the way, the truth and the life of Love – not dogma, creed or faith, but Love, Divine Love, pure and simple. As Saint Paul wrote, if we have not love, then we are nothing. Jesus was Love personified.

      I really appreciate your interest in these things and this occasion to exchange with you thoughts that we hold dear. You are the only member of my family who has taken the trouble to enquire about what I now believe and I value that.

      Until next time

      Every best wish, …...

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