Knowing God: Revelation and theological education

Religious Education, Summer 2001 by Seymour, Jack

During the presidential election of (2000), religious faith became a central theme. Both sets of candidates drew on their religious traditions and stories as they spoke about values to shape character and empower others to service and community (and to acquire votes). One political commentator described why many people did not wince when Joseph Lieberman proclaimed his faith. (Even though B'nai Brith challenged him to lower the rhetoric.) The commentator argued that we do not wince because we know, that in the U.S. scene, Judaism profoundly practices human rights, justice, respect, and community. Yet, when fundamentalist voices from a variety or religious traditions speak about character, many of us are afraid. We know that religious people are quite capable of dismissing others and even of practicing violence. Religion is causing and has caused much suffering and injustice.

As we engage in research with people, as we listen to their stories and convictions, as we watch their behaviors, we experience people practicing religious convictions, telling stories of faith, and seeking to live faithfully. But more, we also see their, and our, muddle of trying to live, flourish, and have faith in a polyglot public world. We see people trying to negotiate the terrains of their lives and the multiple influences on them.

Practices provide discipline; doctrines, knowledge; and stories, models of faithful living. We do not live isolated and controlled communal lives. Our children may learn in Methodist or Presbyterian Sunday schools or in Catholic, Muslim, or Jewish parochial schools. They practice devotions. Yet, these same children encounter others schooled in other traditions or in the void of no tradition but consumerism. Too often the difference becomes a pandemonium (Moynihan 1993). Religion is pushed to the sideline. We fear the history of violence. Yet, can't religion be more? Can it not be a practice of nurturing life and building community?

C. S. Song, the Chinese theologian and President of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, has written: The power of "globalization" is world encircling. "The world has come to take confessions and declarations of Christian communities with a grain of salt, not expecting us Christians to mean seriously what we say" because the power of global industry and economics are the real practices that define our meanings and vocations (Song 2000, 858-59). Our preaching and practice conflict, as we become unwilling and often unknowing partners "of the culture of greed and violence" perpetuating injustice and ecological destruction. Song calls those of us who are Christians to seek to be aware of the forces that define our actions and attempt to nurture justice and ecological harmony. This is a plea for all religious people.

If God intends a world of justice, peace, and community, how do we know it? Is the protesting voice of Protestantism silent? Where is the pathos of the Hebrew prophets? Has the good news of the gospel become passe? We need doctrines that renew our minds; we need practices that propagate religious identity; and we need religious stories that empower souls.