In Defense of Faith

Our book club is currently reading Susan Jacoby's The Age of American Unreason. Her basic premise is that high culture and education have been deteriorating rapidly in recent years. According to Jacoby, politicians refer to citizens of America as "folks," and our students are woefully lacking in the basic skills for life. As a teacher for thirty-five years at both the secondary and university levels, I must agree with her as I have also noted these changes. A key point, however, where I disagree centers on the importance of religion to our society. Jacoby basically believes that faith is an enemy to reason and that those who believe in religion simply have succumbed to "superstitious nonsense." I would like to present a brief rebuttal.

For Christians, the basic authority of our faith has always been the Bible. This belief in the Bible as Truth is basic to both conservative and mainstream, or liberal, denominations. Certainly, the conservative groups believe in the inerrancy and literal nature of the Word. The more liberal groups, however, believe the Word contains all the Truth we need for daily life but do not necessarily believe that every word is true. They see, for example, the story of Adam and Eve, and many others in the Old Testament, as being metaphorical.

If we can agree then that the Bible still remains the authority of Christians, we must look to it for the definition of faith. It is found in Hebrews 11, verse 1, which says, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Ironically, the verse uses language also employed in the sciences: substance and evidence. The very nature, however, of faith is that believers depend upon personal experiences and anecdotes as evidence of their faith. Miracles exist for these Christians because they know they have experienced them. Faith can never be subjected to the same empirical evidence that science demands, but it is no less real to the believer.

A speaker last week on National Public Radio was discussing his work in Africa with AIDS patients and made the comment that religion provides "beauty, peace, and spiritual transcendence." Millions of us disagree with Jacoby's view of faith and know that it is not simply "superstitious nonsense." It provides Christians with all the fruits promised in the Word: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.