Liberating Word
In the beginning God …
The Hebrew and Christian scripture begins with the story of Creation.
At the dawn of another new year, perhaps that should be our starting
point as well. There are many lessons to be drawn from this ancient story.
The insistence of fundamentalists that these words be taken literally
would be humorous if fundamentalists of any brand had the slightest
sense of irony. Perhaps that is the difference between us and them: we
don’t take ourselves or anything so seriously that we can’t honestly
and courageously engage it. Nothing is so sacred that it cannot be
questioned, challenged and earnestly examined. That includes the
one we may call God and the words we may call scripture.
Beginning with the creation song in Genesis demands that we ask
questions that we will ask all our lives. In the beginning God … There
is no introduction, no preparation, no explanation to this one referred
to in the English version of the story as “God.” Without apology or
apologetics, you either begin there or you don’t, believe or not.
Accepting the possibility that there is something, or someone, that
precedes existence itself is the first tenet of all religions. It is something
we accept and trust by faith because it cannot be proven. If you
could prove it as a scientific fact then faith would not be required,
which is another irony fundamentalists seem to miss. By demanding
that creationism be taught in public schools, they are trying to
give away to secular society the foundation tenet of their faith. Faith
doesn’t concern itself so much with the how of creation but with the
Who and, perhaps, the why. Those are questions that science cannot
address.
In this new year, let us liberate our faith from the mundane questions
like “how?” and ask more profound questions that might lead us to
discover our life’s meaning and purpose. Only fundamentalists miss
the fact that, while answers change, the questions are what endure
because the questions are eternal. Let this be the year we have the
courage to ask any question.
Blessings,
Michael
President, Hope for Peace & Justice |
