It’s September, but it’s not yet Labour Day. For many, the fall routine does not begin until after the long weekend. These days before next Tuesday are not quite sure what to be.
I suppose it could be a metaphor for the larger reality of the cultural, religious and social landscape of the time in which we live. It is not what it was, but there is really no way that it is yet what it is going to be. It’s in-between. Many people don’t like in-between. There can be a longing for an idealized past, or a rush headlong away from the familiar, a too quick defining of a new reality that is far less settled than some would like to assume.
During some days off in August I read Yuval Noah Harari’s 2014 book, “Sapiens”. The book is consideration of three major historical revolutions and their implications for humanity. Harari looks at the cognitive revolution, the agricultural revolution and the scientific revolution. In regards to the last, he says that it is often assumed that the scientific revolution was and is a revolution of knowledge. That is, our current age is seen as the fruition of the acquisition, in a relatively short period of time, of knowing so much more than we used to know. This is partially true, but Harari makes an interesting observation that I think can enlighten those of us interested in matters of faith and religion. He says that the scientific revolution came about not because of knowledge, but because of the admission of ignorance. The advance of science and growth in knowledge was made possible only by acknowledging not how much we know, but rather by acknowledging how much we don’t know. This admission opened up the possibility for growth. Harari contrasts such an open system with what he describes as closed and totalizing systems of understanding. For him, Christianity (as culturally adopted) was one such system. This was a Christianity that assumed it could explain everything, give direction about any moral or spiritual matter and, even claim to grasp some intricate knowledge of the divine.
To bring this to the level of your personal experience, you might consider if and how your religious upbringing was totalizing. Were you told that the church knew the proper stance on pretty much every social issue? Were you part of a church culture that could tell you who is in and who is out, who is “saved” and who is not? Did your religious experience take place within a church culture that longed for the past more than hoped for the future? Was the system of salvation and faith itself rather closed? That is, was there no room for a new social order in regards to how we relate to people of other faiths? Systems marked by the presence of such phenomenon are often closed and often totalizing. There is little room for actual growth. “Discipleship” amounts to learning what we already know. There is no room for a truly new word.
I feel somewhat obligated to note a caution from the opposite direction. Admission of ignorance is not a declaration that we know nothing. There is a repeated trend in faith and culture to elevate ignorance as a value in itself and to act as if we can never truly know anything (about others, about God). Such a view is totalizing in its own way and leads to largely uninteresting and uninspiring places.
There are things that we know, in science and in matters of faith and religion. The blessing is being able to admit that no matter how much we know our ignorance outweighs our knowledge. Imagine a church, a faith community readily and consistently admitting this. Instead of foisting false certainties of our religious perspective upon society we would hold faith in a much less suffocating manner. We might actually trust that what we believe is proven true in a way that also acknowledges that we mostly don’t know, even as we gratefully value faith and those people who have been influential in our formation. Our faith could be a less closed declaration of certainty and a more open invitation to presence. Our theological vision could actually be renewed. We could see new and better ways of relating to other people. We could engage with others truly, actually listening to their views and experience in ways that do not assume that we are in a position of spiritual or religious superiority.
My Christian faith has been the most significant aspect of my life in terms of worldview, vision, formation, and relationships. I am everyday grateful for the gift of faith. I am also grateful that I mostly don’t know. I have encountered many people, in religious circles, who act as if they really do know just about everything in relation to God and the world. I find such people curious. I find that their certainty and zeal demonstrates not the presence of actual faith, but more likely the absence of it, the wish for it.
Blessings to you in these days between. May we know the faith and hope to accept that we are in uncertain times and that our ignorance outweighs our knowledge. These spaces are spaces in which we can truly grow and in which we can truly become more hopeful, more engaging, more alive and bright.