Post 7: Our Father's Faith

This past weekend was spent at the St. Ignatius Retreat House, located about 20 miles outside of New York City. This was the site of the River Partner’s Retreat- a one night getaway where the most committed servants of our church community get out of Manhattan to rest and recharge.

While modernity is justifiably skeptical of almost all organized religion, I view the local church as the world’s last best hope. I love my church (The River), but perhaps at an even more fundamental level, I am deeply committed to it- both its mission as well as its people. Of course, like any institution, we are far from perfect and our dysfunction manifests itself both individually and collectively. But I think the weight of my commitment rests on the sincere (though potentially misguided) belief that the Christian faith as practiced and preached at this church is as close as possible to what Jesus would be doing if He were to dwell among us today. The three pillars of our approach are to be biblically thoughtful, spiritually powerful, and culturally relevant. This basically means that we strive to be theologically/intellectually rigorous, but understand that the locus of true transformation resides not in our heads but in our hearts. We are charismatic and thus take seriously Saint Paul’s prodding to “eagerly desire the gift of prophecy”, but we would say that a person’s character is far more important than one’s spiritual gifting. We believe it is paramount to engage with the modern culture, and not withdraw from it. But we recognize that an authentic faith will ultimately be profoundly counter-cultural. At a more general level, on any matter that has historically divided people of the Christian faith, we would give a whole-hearted YES! to both sides of the debate. In my opinion, this proper blending of seemingly contradictory ideals is this most satisfying attribute of our polity.

The sociologist within me can’t help but to notice what I perceive as drastic differences between the Gospel as it is understood in my home church, and what I see in the many (most?) other congregations. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised- the history of our faith is littered with a wide variance in interpretations and practices about what it means to be true followers of Jesus. Unfortunately, the forces that lead to greater splintering of the Body have outweighed the ecumenical ones. When I see the manner in which organizations like the Christian Coalition or National Association of Evangelicals chooses to express its faith both in the private and public sphere, I do find myself scratching my head confused as to how we can both follow the same God yet come to such drastically different conclusions about what that means in real life. When I see the contra movements (like the Emergent Church) that have arisen in response to the perceived shortcomings of their “father’s church”, I continue to scratch my head, but perhaps with my right hand instead of my left. I firmly believe that each subset within the faith loves the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength. At a minimum, discord is a reminder that we are on the wrong side of eternity. And if it is indeed true that one side is far closer to the Heart of God than another- then I suppose we’ll find out on the other side of eternity.

I suppose a primary hope of any Christian parent is that their children will follow in their footsteps and embrace their faith. Of course, I find myself in this camp, and I will certainly end up raising S in a “Christian home”. However, I suppose I’m not only prepared for him to seek out and explore other paths to salvation, but I find myself almost wanting him to do so. Our pastor preached yesterday on the well known parable of the Prodigal Son- some call this the entire Gospel in a parable. It’s the first time I thought about that story as a father, and it occurred to me that the father may have felt the tension of being hurt by his son’s rejection of him but simultaneously feeling its necessity. Could the son’s faith have been real if he did not squander a fortune on wine and women and find himself starving among swine? Having become born again towards the latter year’s of college, I long believed that it was important for me experience and embrace the world and all that it offers, conclude that it would leave me wanting, and thus completely own my faith.

In pushing S out into the world, I run the risk of him rejecting his father’s faith. Will he spend his early adult years among the secular humanists? Or will he find the structure of the conservative movements appealing? Or maybe he’ll be drawn to the Emergent crowd- or whatever is the hip and cool thing in 20 years. As I write this, I realize there’s another possibility- perhaps S will be the one who teaches his father new things about what it means to follow God. Throughout this, I assume that I’ll always be ahead of him, the more advanced one, the one overseeing his progress. But maybe it will be the other way around, and as spoken by the prophet Isaiah 11:6 “a little child will lead them”.