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Contents © 2005
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

CONFESSIONS
February 2005

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THE DEADENED NERVE OF FAITH

Recently I heard someone say they disliked "organized religion." Fair enough; the speaker was an agnostic. But the last time I heard it, it was from someone who believed in Jesus but not the church. For a long time, I could understand the notion, even sympathize with it. Religion is deeply personal — a meeting between you and God, the only one who can search every corner of your heart. When you die, you will be judged, not the organization. Further, organization means organizers wielding authority, and authority is easily abused. Jesus was not gentle with the church authorities in his own time. Bureaucracy and outright evil become givens. Somewhere along the line, somebody rotten will get control. Not for nothing did Dante put popes in hell.

Except Jesus said to Peter, "Tend my sheep," and, "Upon this rock I will build my church." Jesus sent his followers out into the world to proclaim the good news. From the first, a network was forming, one that led back to the apostles. His super-apostle Paul picked up the organizational ball and ran with it, comparing the faithful to parts of the body: many members with different gifts, working together for the good of the whole. If you want Jesus, it's hard to avoid "organized religion."

Lately, I'm less inclined to sympathy. Do you want to dope out the interpretation of scripture all on your own, or are you glad that the wisdom of centuries has been gathered up and rendered into a magisterium? Do you deny the great good the church does in the world: aiding the poor, tending the sick, and teaching the young? And tell me, all you who don't need to go to church to pray to God — how much do you really pray? (I ask this honestly.) More importantly, where do you turn when the well runs dry, when your faith enters a drought? Say this for organized religion, it operates through regular channels and provides all sorts of exterior supports.

Worried about losing faith? Get to confession. Get to Mass. Get to communion. Beg the Church Triumphant for intercession. And for the love of heaven, stay close to people who do believe.

I'm in a drought. I haven't felt my own faith to be this shaky since I read Nietzsche in college. Now, even as I read The Chronicles of Narnia to my own children and marvel at C. S. Lewis's magnificent portrait of the Christian life, I feel no stirring. Or rather, I feel like some integral part of me has simply stopped working. The faith is bred in my bones — even if I lost it, I would always feel the lack. But what I have feels like a deadened nerve.

I've tried to follow my own advice. Of course, I still attend Mass. I've kept praying. I've kept receiving. I've focused on those around me — my wife's untroubled faith; my parents' absolute certainty; the perseverance of Mother Teresa who experienced a spiritual barrenness for much of her later life, only to see the desert bloom at the end. Sometimes, I forget about my difficulties. But when I give the matter thought, the trouble remains. It scares me, so I don't think about it often. I don't want to lose faith. Everything that matters depends on not losing faith.

On the one hand, faith is belief. On the other, it's fidelity. Right now, I'm skewing toward the latter. Lewis, ostensibly writing for children, nailed it in The Silver Chair. The queen of the underworld has convinced our heroes that Narnia (the world above) is a foolish dream. There is no sun, there is only a bigger and better lamp. And there is no Aslan the Lion, there is only a bigger and better cat. Only Puddleglum, a melancholic creature already, manages to resist the spell, and he makes a wonderful speech, one that has kept me going of late. "One word, Ma'am ... all you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder.... But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things — trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one.... I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia."

He vows to spend the rest of his life searching for Overland. "Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say."

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