Edgework

Authentic Faith

  • Jack Heppner, Author
  • Retired Educator

The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart…So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the LORD came upon David In power (I Samuel 16:7-13).

Samuel was on the right track when he zeroed in on the family of Jessie to find a future king to replace Saul. But he was wrong to assume that the LORD had chosen the eldest son, Eliab, for that position – a choice which would have fit well with cultural traditions of the time. In the end, Samuel found the right candidate to be out in the fields herding sheep. David, Jessie’s youngest son, entirely overlooked by others, proved to be God’s choice to replace King Saul.

Most of us assume that, had we been on scene, we would have focused in on David instead Eliab. After all, we are quite good at identifying authentic faith when we see it, right? However, I suspect that many of us would piously have gone with the status quo expectations of the time. Like Jessie, we would not even have thought of bringing the youngest son to the sacrifice Samuel put on. Younger sons are left in the shadows. Everyone knows that.

In our contemporary setting, our built-in biases also lead us to look for authentic faith where it is sometimes hard to find. We have a bias toward finding it inside the walls of our churches and in the halls of our academic institutions. We intuitively expect authentic faith to be flourishing most among those in these contexts who are the most highly educated in all things ecclesial and spiritual, especially if they have been called to leadership positions.

I am not suggesting that authentic faith can never be found in such places, but that we should not assume that this is the only place to look for evidence of authentic spirituality. I have lived a good part of my life in such contexts and know from experience that authentic faith can be found there. But I also know how the demands of our institutional structures can stifle the development of authentic faith. From where I now sit, it sometimes appears to me that many of these institutional leaders are scurrying about to keep up with demands – more focused on completing all their challenging assignments and so keeping their jobs – than on nurturing authentic faith in their souls. Too often I have seen that those who focus on the latter find it hard to survive in churchly institutional settings.

But the problem does not only exist among leaders within the church and its institutions. Sometimes authentic faith is hard to find among regular church attenders and students on Christian college campuses. This is especially the case among those who live insular lives within the context of churchly orbits. When one is mostly surrounded by people of similar faith and like mind a strong temptation emerges to take one’s faith for granted. And we learn to speak to one another with a kind of Christian-ese, an unwritten code that is hard for outsiders to crack, should they attempt to do so. Just a few weeks ago I listened to the anguished account of a college student telling me how he had found his faith-walk shattered on the rocks in the context of a reputable, evangelical Bible college.

In a recent posting on the Goshen College Lenten devotional series, Anya Kreider states the following:

I often wonder if an authentic faith can even be discovered within the brick walls of academia or the pew-lined sanctuaries of our churches. Certainly we are not called to own our entitlement in apathetic ignorance. Where do we find a faith marked by sacrificial love and the potential for radical controversy? Are we willing to destroy the foundations on which our privilege is built in order to claim a faith grounded in the knowledge of a stronger love?

These words jumped out at me when I first read them. As a life-long supporter of and participant in the church and its various institutions, I am forced to re-think how authentic faith best flourishes among us. I remember with considerable regret that when I was cruising down the highway of church and academic life as a called-out leader I had almost no contact with people or life outside of these religious environments. It took a burnout within that context to catapult me into life on the margins of these institutions, and indeed into the vortex of a world where faith was openly questioned. I now have more atheist friends than ever before and I am also more in touch with the soft under belly of our society than ever before. You might say that I am on the street, both literally and figuratively, more than ever before.

And strange as it may seem, I sometimes think I find more authentic faith at street level than I do inside the church and its institutions. As Kreider suggests, many within the church and its well-established institutions find themselves ensconced on foundations of privilege, which might be economical, educational or even strong family connections. She suggests that perhaps authentic faith is found most readily when and where privilege is traded for a life of sacrificial love which, in some cases at least, might lead to open controversy.

I recognize that I am still sitting fairly comfortably on the throne of privilege. But after a decade or so of life on the margins I am increasingly finding myself at the center of controversy, both in the church and its institutions and in society in general. People generally do not like those of us who question the status quo. But what is one to do when authentic faith seems to be flourishing more on the street level than in our institutions?