Faith, Trust, and "Miracle on 34th Street"

"Miracle on 34th Street," as most Americans know, is a Christmas classic movie from 1947 about a department-store Santa who claims to be the real thing.  I watched it again this year on Christmas night, after all the presents were opened, Christmas dinner eaten and the dishes washed.

As often happens with the best movies, something jumped out at me in this viewing that I hadn't seen before.  "Miracle on 34th Street," with its story of a disillusioned single mother who learns to trust again, and her pragmatic little girl who discovers the joys of imagination, illustrates beautifully the nature of faith.

I have felt for a long time that when it comes to faith, both Christians and non-Christians* often seem to miss the point.  This blog post on Counter Apologist, which asserts that "faith is belief without good evidence" encapsulates the usual atheistic understanding of faith:

My main contention is that defining faith as "belief without good evidence" is not only defensible in the religious context, but it's actually implied that this is what is meant in the Christian bible, at least in some cases. . . The primary piece of scripture that an atheist appeals to which defines faith as "belief without evidence" is Hebrews 11:1 - "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."

Christians, of course, generally deny that this verse is talking about "belief without evidence."  Their problem with understanding faith is a different one.  As I discussed a few months ago in my post Saved by Being Right: Christianity and Dogmatism, Christians often approach faith as belief in the "right" doctrines -- those that constitute foundational, orthodox Christianity.  The ancient Athanasian Creed illustrates this approach when it says:

Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic faith; which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. . . He therefore that will be saved must thus think of the Trinity . . . This is the catholic faith, which except a man believe faithfully he cannot be saved.

Though I do hold to the Athanasian Creed, I believe it is to be read as a definitive statement of orthodox doctrine and not as a definition of faith, as faith.  (And I think even the writers of this Creed would have acknowledged, when pressed, that the thief on the cross in Luke 23 was saved without believing, or even understanding, any of these things.)  Despite what Counter Apologist says above about the Bible itself defining faith in terms of belief, faith is actually shown throughout the Bible to be trust in Christ, trust in God, and it is on this trust that belief is based. 

Tom Gilson at Thinking Christian puts it pretty well when he quotes the Holman Bible Dictionary:

Faith in the Greek is pistis, trust. The Holman Bible Dictionary’s entry on faith (as found in Accordance 10.2) indicates that “throughout the Scriptures faith is the trustful human response to God’s self-revelation via His words and His actions.”

In other words, when Hebrews 11:1 says "Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see," this isn't a complete definition of faith, but a continuation of the understanding of faith as trust set forth in Hebrews 10:22-23:

Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. [Emphasis added.]

Faith, then, is not simply belief in certain assertions, but the assurance that those assertions can be believed, based on trust in the faithfulness of the one making the assertions.  This is why the word "faith" also applies to human interactions.  "Have faith in me," a father says to his child, or a leader to her people, or a wife or husband to their spouse. "Have faith in me, and I'll make good.  Have faith in me, and I'll keep my promise."

So what does "Miracle on 34th Street" have to do with all this?

"Miracle on 34th Street" opens with a round, jolly, white-bearded old man correcting a department-store window decorator on his rendition of Santa's reindeer.  The old man speaks in the full confidence of apparent first-hand knowledge.  His words and actions throughout the rest of the movie consistently show that he firmly believes himself to be "the one and only Santa Claus."  The mother and daughter in the movie, caught between their own pragmatic disbelief that Santa could possibly be a real person, and their face-to-face encounters with the sheer believeability of this man as Santa, eventually embrace his Claus-ness.

It isn't that they believe without good evidence.  If they are willing to see and accept it, there is good evidence that this man is who he claims to be.  He says and does a number of things which are much more consistent with his being the real Santa than with him being simply a delusional old mental patient.  But if they do believe, they must do so against their own common sense, against the prevailing mindset of adult society that Santa simply cannot be real.  The evidence is never overwhelming, to where anyone is forced to accept him as Santa.  Rather than conclusive proof, the standard of the evidence amounts to a "rational warrant."  My respected scholarly friend Metacrock describes rational warrant as follows:

Rational warrant is any logical argument that warrants a belief, or a sense of placing confidence in a proposition. Being "rational" means there are logical reasons to support it, being a "warrant" means it's a reason to believe something. . . So the aspect of an argument that logically demonstrates a reason to believe something is a warrant. Rationally warranted belief is confidence placed in a proposition (the belief) that is well placed as demonstrated by the warrant. . . This means one [does not] need to demonstrate beyond all doubt. . . but in demonstrating the rational warrant for belief one has shown that good logical reasons allow for belief.

"Rational warrant" is the difference between belief and knowledge.  No one speaks of "believing" in things that are incontrovertible fact.  No one says, "I believe chickens lay eggs" or "I believe snow is cold."  Neither the audience nor the characters in the story are able to say, "I know Santa is real and this man is he."  They can only believe-- or disbelieve.  But we are still talking about belief, not faith.  The characters have a rational warrant for belief, but they also have the contradictory force of their own pragmatism and common sense.  How do they move, then, from doubt to conviction?

Their conviction comes from faith.  Faith in this old man who calls himself Kris Kringle, who says he is Santa Claus.  It makes no sense to them, but there is something deeply trustworthy about Mr. Kringle, and as time goes on and they get to know him better and better, they find it more and more difficult to believe that he is lying or delusional.  The child finds her world opening up as she accepts Kris's teaching in how to be imaginative and open to new possibilities.  The mother finds it within herself to hope again in ideals which she had thought permanently driven out of herself by past disappointment and betrayal.  And the mother's new boyfriend finds it worth risking his career to defend Kris Kringle's sanity to a disbelieving tribunal.  In the end they all tell Kris, in one way or another, "I have faith in you."

It is at the point of triumph that the little girl's newfound faith is tested.  It appears that Santa has not managed to get her the difficult Christmas gift she had asked for.  Now, against all apparent evidence otherwise, she whispers to herself, "I believe, I believe." Is this, then, faith showing its true colors after all?  When push comes to shove, is faith really just "belief without good evidence?"

C. S. Lewis's essay "On Obstinacy in Belief," published in The World's Last Night and Other Essays, addresses this issue.

To believe that God . . . exists is to believe that you as a person now stand in the presence of God as a Person. . . You are no longer faced with an argument that demands your assent, but with a Person who demands your confidence.  A faint analogy would be this.  It is one thing to ask in vacuo whether So-and-So will join us tonight, and another to discuss this when So-and-So's honour is pledged to come and some great matter depends on his coming.  In the first case it would be merely reasonable, as the clock ticked on and on, to expect him less and less.  In the second, a continued expectation far into the night would be due to our friend's character if we had found him reliable before.  Which of us would not feel slightly ashamed if, one moment after we  had given him up, he arrived with a full explanation of his delay?  We should feel that we ought to have known him better.

Once she had come to know Kris Kringle, little Susan felt that it was due to her friend Mr. Kringle's character to continue to believe that he would send her the Christmas present she asked for.  It should not be considered (as Lewis puts it) "sheer insanity" that her belief was "no longer proportioned to every fluctuation of the apparent evidence."  This is because her belief was based in faith, or trust in the person of Kris Kringle-- not upon a set of propositions about him, but in the man himself.

Soren Kierkegaard, who coined the term "leap of faith," did not see it as a leap into an evidentiary abyss, or into a set of doctrines.  He said:

[A]ll the individuals who are saved will receive the specific weight of religion, its essence at first hand, from God himself. Then it will be said: 'behold, all is in readiness, see how the cruelty of abstraction makes the true form of worldliness only too evident, the abyss of eternity opens before you, the sharp scythe of the leveller makes it possible for every one individually to leap over the blade--and behold, it is God who waits. Leap, then, into the arms of God'.

Faith is a leap, yes-- but it is a leap of trust.  It is like a child on the edge of a swimming pool responding when her mother, in the water with arms outstretched, calls "Jump!"  God is not like that mother in having a voice we can hear or arms we can see, but countless Christians through the ages, like Lewis, like Kierkegaard, have understood faith in terms of trust in Someone they have directly and personally encountered.

Faith isn't rocket science.  It doesn't have to be.  It's more like a child meeting Santa Claus.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a story is worth a thousand pictures.

Thanks, writers of "Miracle on 34th Street."

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*Disclaimer:  I recognize that the viewpoint of this blog post is limited to the question of faith as it is set forth in Western Christianity and the secular response to the same, and doesn't take into account the viewpoints of non-Christian religions.  This should not be construed as intentional disregard of such viewpoints, but rather as simply a recognition of the limitations of my own education, understanding and perspective in dealing with this topic.  Readers of other faiths are welcome to give input on their own definitions of faith in the comments.

Saved by Being Right: Christianity and Dogmatism

In the Christian group I belonged to in college, we believed we had all the answers.

Other Christians might differ from us in doctrine, but we knew the truth, straight from the Bible. "God said it, I believe it, and that settles it," we would say.  We even knew why everyone didn't see things the same way we did.  They were deceived.  Or they were "in compromise" with sin and were trying to justify themselves.  Or they were "lukewarm" and just didn't want to "pay the price" to really "press forward in the things of God."

I remember the time I mentioned to an older church member that I wondered about young-earth creationism.  I asked her if maybe the earth wasn't six thousand years old.  Maybe God didn't intend the "days" of Genesis 1 to be viewed as 24-hour periods?

She became very upset.  "It was evening, and it was morning, one day," was what the Bible said.  How could I possibly be questioning that?  If we were going to start changing the meaning of Bible words, who knew where it could end?  If we started to believe the wrong things, what would happen to us?

I shut up.  But I couldn't help seeing what was behind her eyes as she put me back on the straight and narrow.

Fear.

Oh, there was fear of the leadership, of course.  No one wanted the pastors to decide a demonic spirit of deception was upon any of us. They would take us into a private room where a group of the most trusted members would spend hours shouting at the demon to come out of us.  In the worst case scenario, we could be subjected to public rebuke in front of the whole congregation, or even be excommunicated.

But the fear went deeper than that.  It was in essence a fear of not believing properly-- a fear that we could find ourselves on a slippery slope towards actually falling away from Christ.

"It's very important what you believe," they told us. Whole sermons were preached on this.  We were saved by faith in Christ, and though we were supposed to enter a trusting personal relationship with Christ through that faith, what "faith" meant, ultimately, was believing the right things.  Hebrews 11:6 was constantly repeated to us:   "But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him."

Belief is high priority in Christianity.  Even apart from the spiritually abusive, controlling segments, it's high priority.  One of the most famous things Jesus said was, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life." (John 3:16, Emphasis added.)  And Paul said, "If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." (Romans 10:9, Emphasis added.)

But there's a problem.  Belief, as most often understood in the modern Western world means "Mental acceptance of and conviction in the truth, actuality, or validity of something" or "Something believed or accepted as true, especially a particular tenet or a body of tenets accepted by a group of persons." The word also has a third meaning, "The mental act, condition, or habit of placing trust or confidence in another," but when we say, "I believe in God" or "I believe in the Resurrection of Christ," that third meaning isn't usually what we're talking about.

But Jesus and Paul spoke of belief primarily in that third sense.  Belief in something as an accepted truth was not nearly as important as trust and confidence-- not in a set of tenets, but in Christ, the Father God and the Holy Spirit.  Belief in doctrine was meant to spring out of that trust-- not the other way around.

If you ask most Christians straight out, they will usually say that they do believe it's trust in Christ that saves them.  And yet so many times, we live our lives as if the really important thing was what we mentally hold to be true-- or even simply that we hold the approved opinions.

And the problem with this, of course, is that if every thought and opinion must be the "right" one according to our religious group, we are in danger of being so right-thinking that we never actually think at all.

Theologian and Bible scholar Peter Enns, Ph.D. says:

The scandal of the Evangelical mind is that degrees, books, papers, and other marks of prestige are valued–provided you come to predetermined conclusions. . . that doctrine determines academic conclusions. 

Evangelicalism is not fundamentally an intellectual organism but an apologetic one. It did not come to be in order to inspire academic exploration but to maintain certain theological distinctives by intellectual means. These intellectual means are circumscribed by Evangelical dogma. . . As an intellectual phenomenon, the Evangelical experiment is a defensive movement.

How many times have you talked to a Christian who asserts that your disagreement with him or her is in fact a moral failing?  That your problem is lack of faithfulness to God or disrespect for the Bible? For many of us, it doesn't seem possible that someone could carefully and prayerfully examine a Bible text and end up honestly seeing it differently than we (and our minister or pastor) see it. 

Christians can come to believe that God gave us minds not for the purpose of learning and exploring the world He gifted to us, or for growing in our understanding of God, God's ways, and ourselves-- but for holding onto to our beliefs and dogmas against all comers. 

"Dogmatism" is the logical fallacy of "[p]roposing that there simply cannot be any other possible way of making sense of and engaging with an issue but the one you represent." Dogmatism is "[t]he unwillingness to even consider the opponent’s argument. . . the assertion that one’s position is so correct that one should not even examine the evidence to the contrary."

Dogmatism in Christianity, I think, comes primarily from fear.  If we believe we are saved by faith, and we define faith primarily in terms of having the right set of beliefs, then anything that challenges those beliefs must be resisted as evil.  Our thinking becomes defensive rather than inquiring, didactic rather than exploratory, closed rather than open.  We see our role as the instructors and correctors of others, rather than as listeners and learners.  

We all want in our heart of hearts to be listened to and understood.  But dogmatism strips us of our ability to listen and understand.  We become fundamentally unable to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. 

In the end, all we have is spiritual pride.  

And the Bible actually warns us against this.  Paul said in 1 Corinthians 8:1-2, "Knowledge puffs up while love builds up. Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know. But whoever loves God is known by God."  And Jesus said to the Pharisees in John 9:41, "If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains."

We aren't meant to believe we have all the answers, or to believe that's even possible.  We're meant to walk humbly with God, to not think of ourselves more highly than we ought to (Romans 12:3).  We aren't supposed to be one another's mental police, but one another's servants. 

To my readers who are Christians:  if "He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:6)," we don't need to be afraid. We can be free to explore, to examine, to seek greater understanding in all things.  Having a difference of opinion is not a slippery slope to heresy. Questioning is not a slippery slope to apostasy.  

Questioning is a way of appreciating the complexity of the universe God placed us in.  And allowing others to think differently is a way of appreciating our own complexity as human beings. 

"There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love." 1 John 4:18.  It's time to let go of fear of not being right.

Because we're not saved by being right.  We're saved by trusting in Christ.

My Wish-I-Hadn'ts

I have, over the course of years that I've been a Christian, changed the way I think about a large number of things.  Some of the beliefs I used to hold caused me to treat people (or even myself) in ways that I'm sure now were not what Jesus wanted.  Though I'm sure I have His grace and forgiveness for these things, that doesn't change the harm I now believe I did.  So here are some of my regrets.  Some of them, as I look back, make me laugh or shake my head; others make me very sad.  If anyone who reads this was affected by any of these things, I hope you already know how truly sorry I am. 

So here, in no particular order, are my Wish-I-Hadn'ts:

I wish I hadn't kept bothering my Catholic co-worker with invitations to my church's events, even though she had told me she had her own faith.  I thought I was trying to get her away from a false religion.  She thought I was just plain annoying.

I wish I hadn't had my pastor preach a how-to-get-saved sermon at my wedding, to the captive audience of relatives and friends who had only come to see me get married.

I wish I hadn't told my non-Christian co-worker that all men liked to be the leaders in relationships, and it took a strong woman to let them.  She didn't say anything, just gave me a funny look.

I wish I hadn't told a good friend who was engaged to be married, that she shouldn't marry the man because he'd been divorced.  We were never good friends again after that.

I wish I hadn't made friends with a girl in college for no other reason than that I wanted to convert her.  I'm glad she never found out.  (She also never converted.)

I wish I hadn't bought into the idea that any music with a rock beat-- even Christian rock-- was of the devil.  I wish I hadn't thrown away my Neil Diamond records, my Simon and Garfunkel , and even my Imperials gospel albums.

I wish I hadn't participated with the rest of the Christian audience at a creation vs. evolution debate, in jeering, booing and hissing the evolutionary scientist, so that he went away knowing Christian audiences had no kindness, no manners and no willingness to listen to points of view other than their own.

I wish I hadn't listened to my pastor when he told me it could damage me spiritually to go see The Return of the Jedi-- so that I didn't find out until years after the final movie appeared in the theatres, how the Star War series ended.

I wish I hadn't given my dad the book Evidence that Demands a Verdict for his birthday, instead of giving him a present he would have really enjoyed.

I wish I hadn't written my Christian friend who came out as gay, a letter that he never forgave me for-- a letter so judgmental and so ignorant of what he was going through, that we never spoke again.

I wish I hadn't rejected a nice shirt my mom gave me as a gift, because the picture on it looked a little "New Age" to me.   I wish I hadn't conveyed my judgment against this shirt and my lack of gratitude to my poor mom so very plainly.

I wish I hadn't treated Christians who went to other churches-- including my own sister!-- as if they just weren't as spiritual or enlightened as we were.

I wish I hadn't been so conscientious in my duties towards younger members of my church that I was supposed to be "discipling"-- but had just let them know that I'd be there for them if they needed anything, and otherwise had just let them live their lives without my oversight or interference.

I wish I hadn't joined the others in my church in shunning those who decided to leave.



So there it is.

I don't think I'm the only one who has regrets like this-- in fact, certain segments of Christianity still strongly encourage their members to act just like I acted.  So I have to ask the question-- if a form of Christianity actually leads people like me to do unloving, inconsiderate, Pharisee-like things that Jesus would not want us to do-- how well is that kind of Christianity actually following its Lord?

Perhaps we all ought to let that be our litmus test.

My Birthday, My Faith Story

Today is my birthday. So today I'm going to talk about my belief in God, where it comes from in my life. I don't like to use the word "testimony" because that word is so commonly used as if it were a sort of sales technique, giving a testimonial as to how well the Product - Christianity - worked for you so that others will try it. That's not the point of this at all. I simply want, on this day that's important to me, to express myself about this thing that's foundational to my own life. And that's all-- no strings attached.

My parents went to church when I was very young, but later they stopped and became agnostics. I don't have any memories of meeting God in a church context at all before the age of 15. What I do remember, though, as a young child, is feeling that invisible Hands were reaching down to me in love. I remember asking my mother if she had ever felt this, and she said yes. I remember her singing to me, simple songs like Away in a Manger and Jesus Loves Me. I remember the pure, simple faith in her eyes, her voice. There was no coercion, no law, no hierarchy in my mother’s faith-- just love.

When I was a little older, my mother became convinced by intellectual arguments against Christianity and left the faith for a while. Years, later, she returned again to her earlier faith. She told me when I was grown up that she had continued to feel God's presence throughout her agnostic years. Every once in a while she would feel in her heart as if God were saying, “You’re being silly, you know. I’m still here.” In the end she listened to her heart.

However, by the time I was 8 or 9, both my parents were agnostic, and I was following firmly in my parent's beliefs-- or lack thereof. This ended abruptly when we visited Carlsbad Caverns when I was about 11. Looking at those huge caverns, so beautiful, which were there and had been beautiful before any humans even knew they were there, I had the sudden overwhelming conviction that there had to be a God. I can't explain it intellectually, really. It's just that it seemed absurd to me that something so awesomely, overwhelmingly beautiful was unintentionally so. I just knew that Someone had to have planned it, and Someone had to have enjoyed its secret beauty long before humans ever knew it was there. But that's as far as things went. I felt that there had to be a God. Whether it was the god of any particular religion, I had no idea.

When I was 15 my older sister came into my room one afternoon and said, "I've been studying and looking into it-- and I'm convinced that Jesus had to be who he said he was."

Well, I didn't know what to think-- but that shook me. My sister was someone I trusted, had always trusted implicitly. If she had come to this conclusion, then it was a reasonable viewpoint-- it couldn't just be nonsense. I had to find out for myself if there was something in it.

So I agreed to go to church with her. And when the service was over, there was an invitation to come to the front and be prayed for. My sister grabbed my hand (I wasn't at all sure I wanted to go, but I followed her), and we went to the altar. . .

And there was a Presence there. Unmistakable, overwhelming-- and It simply was there, being Itself, and what was I going to do about it?

There wasn't really a question of, "are you the same Being who used to reach down to me with invisible hands?" I knew it was. And though the Presence used no words (I still don't receive words, just impressions or deep"knowings" that I have to translate into words)-- if I could have translated what the Presence was communicating, it would have been "I Am."

Which, after all, is what was communicated to Moses so long ago.

Not that I thought about that. I didn't know the Bible. But I had met this Being at an altar in a Christian church, upon considering the option that Jesus might be who he had said he was (that is, the Son of God.) This was the same Being I had met as a child, here in this church. But I have never, then or now, been the type to rush headlong into anything. So I walked away, thinking about it. I still had a lot of questions about God and Christianity.

A week later, on Easter Sunday, I was back in church again. As we sang “Christ the Lord is Risen Today,” I felt the Presence again. I said, silently, to the Presence, “But I still have all these questions!” The very air seemed charged with fire as I felt God ask me, “Will you trust Me? Even with all your questions?”

“Yes,” I whispered. And my heart was changed. There are no words to describe what that felt like, except that I was set free of myself-- and somehow found my real self at the same time.

Weeks and months later, as I began to research and examine the questions I still had, I found answers that satisfied. Perhaps you would say that I was biased, at that point, towards theistic answers-- and I suppose that's true. But I found that the basics of Christianity could make sense to my mind and not just my heart.

It was only later that I was drawn into a coercive, law-based form of Christianity of hierarchy, control and submission. But when I finally freed myself of that, there was my old faith-- the faith of my mother, the invisible Hands of my childhood, the faith of my 15-year-old self -- waiting for me still.

So here I am, 48 years old today. Here we are, me and God. I doubt, from time to time-- as anyone must, who does not insulate themselves to never talk to anyone outside their faith community-- but I can no longer isolate myself that way. So I listen to everyone I can, as I would want to be listened to-- it is part of doing to others as I would have done to me. And sometimes when they see no sense in my faith, it shakes me. But still I am drawn to Christ like a moth to a flame. Still the beauty of Christ and Christ’s story sings in my deepest heart. In the end, I can no more deny it than I can deny my own soul.