Inauguration speeches almost always invoke the idea of God one way or another. They tell us how Presidents, and perhaps how much of the country, understands God and what they think God has to do with our lives. God was prominently featured at President Obama’s inauguration, both by him and by the two ministers who delivered prayers, Pastor Rick Warren and Reverend Joseph Lowery. All of them spoke of God as a powerful, omniscient being who can intervene in the world. Warren’s prayer was probably the most explicit in creating this image. His prayer began: “Almighty God, our Father, everything we see and everything we can’t see exists because of you alone. It also comes from you. It all belongs to you. It all exists for your glory.” Those phrases create a clear picture of a Divine Being who presides over the universe. Moreover, the purpose of our existence is to worship this Being. That is clearly suggested by the idea that the entire universe “exists for your glory.”
In The Uncertain Believer I argue that we need to rethink our conception of God in order to reconcile God with what scientists tell us about the nature of the universe. It means that we should move beyond the confines of religious traditions that were formed by our pre-scientific ancestors two thousand years ago. In my view, that means that we should begin to think of God differently from the Divine Being described by President Obama, Reverend Lowery and Pastor Warren. And even if we find it difficult to abandon the idea that God is a Being, we should think of God in a more inclusive way, one that does not insist on specific beliefs about how God has intervened in the world.
How inclusive were the three speakers when they referred to God? How much did each one advocate a particular view of God’s intervention in the world? The comparison is striking. President Obama said: “We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus – and non-believers.” We are a nation with “God’s grace upon us,” – that is, God’s grace is on all of us, not those with particular beliefs. Reverend Lowery encouraged us to take the power of fellowship and family “back to our homes, our workplace, our churches, our temples, our mosques, or wherever we seek your will.” Again, the image is that God is a part of the lives of all of us. But, consider how Pastor Warren ended his prayer: “I humbly ask this in the name of the one who changed my life, Yeshua, Isa, Jesus [with a Spanish pronunciation], Jesus…” A prayer to God does not become inclusive just because it refers to Jesus in different languages. Sadly, Warren’s prayer excluded many of us. In the coming weeks, I will suggest ways that we can think of God in a much more inclusive way.
Monday, January 26, 2009
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5 comments:
This reflects my exact thoughts when listening to Rick Warren's invocation which set a tone that was contrary to the " we are one" message espoused by Obama.
For "non-believers," it doesn't much matter how anyone talks about God. Such talk has the same value as chatter about the events at Roswell. Non-believers are threatening to the priests whose only power comes from telling the believers what to believe, which is why a Warren must exclude non-believers from social humanity. Even the negative term "non-beleiver" is an expression of that linkage, for the non-believer must be less somehow. Ironically, for non-believers it is believers who are routinely cheated by the Rick Warrens. I'd suggest we call ourselves Believers and Knowers instead of Believers and Non-Believers. Of course, many cannot be comfortable with only what is known, and for them belief in what is not known will have to do.
To the second "Anonymous": So "Believers" don't really "know" like the "Knowers" do? And priests hold power because they tell their believers what to believe? I'm sorry, but this is simply not how faith works. Faith and science do not have to be isolated entities, and not even something like the Big Bang Theory does anything to disprove God. Actually, given the slim scientific chances of the Big Bang theory happening, one would not be totally off his rocker to think that maybe there was a divine hand behind the banging.
But that's not what I want to get into. If we address division, why not point to the little joke the reverend had at the end of his benediction? That, more than anything, serves to divide, when one group of people--whites in this case--are made a joke and made to seem inherently wrong throughout American history. If anything remotely close to this would have been said about a perceived minority in this country, people would have wanted the speaker's head.
This race issue is alot like the God issue. The real cancer in our society is not from any one viewpoint, but from this notion that our world is governed by absolutes. If a person has faith, than he doesn't know anything like the real knowers do. He MUST ignore science. On the other hand, if a person is a non-believer, he or she must be vile somehow. He MUST be destined for hell. It is silly and frankly, adolescent, to have this back and forth argument as if we come from two sides of the spectrum and nowhere in between. Is it too difficult to just let people be where they need to be in the journey of life? Too often believers are shut down in the name of another's "rights" or "tolerance," but the same "rights" and "tolerance" is not afforded to us. It's similar to the race issue because not all whites have been wrong through history, not all Muslims blew up the World Trade Center, not all Christians were Crusaders. People just need to chill the hell out, pardon the mixed metaphor, and stop trying to be the next great social activist.
One more point about faith that may or may not really fit in the above commentary: Faith is a belief in something greater than ourselves, providing hope for something better, which, if one wants to be inclusive, could provide this nation with the nice dose of humility it needs before something tragic has to happen again.
Anonymous2 replies:
Labels are one issue I raised. Believers with a faith versus non-believers is one set. Believers with a faith versus Knowers who are simply happy with only what is known, and require no additional explanations of where things come from or where they are going.
Separately, there is the issue of motives. Is there room for everyone, or only for the ones who think the "right" things? Reasonable people with or without faith would say "Sure." My argument is that there are plenty of Believers, though a minority, who say "No. There's only room for those who think like me." I am not aware of any Knowers who would exclude Believers. So the question is where is the negativity coming from and who shall work to stop it? In a word, it's tolerance.
A postscript from Anon2:
Perhaps the label "Knowers" implies that believers don't know enough, which is not the intent or issue. On reflection, "Accepters" is a better term. These are people who accept facts and theories, and also accept what is not known or understood without the requirement to explain such matters. So the world is made of Believers and Accepters all with equal validity. My guess is that Accepters have plenty of room for Believers as equal in all ways, but that some Believers have no room for Accepters, and not even other Believers whose beliefs differ from their own.
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