Perspectives on Different Faith Perspectives

 

This is more of a placeholder than a post, in that today I want to dive into a topic that will require more thought and more posts in the future, which is what my particular faith perspective is and how it has been shaped by the circumstances of my life. This blog is entitled, “The Musings of an Urban Christian,” after all, so it is natural that in this space I will express a specific worldview and that that worldview will be informed by my unique set of experiences and environments. 

Before getting biographical, though, let me contemplate how else this works, and then God willing I will have time and inspiration to go deeper on different facets of my own journey: 

1. For some, faith is a moral guidebook that governs how we ought to live and why. Such a perspective is governed by things like ethics (rules which we should follow) and the afterlife (post-life consequences based on how we actually lived), and can look more bookish to the world around it. 

2. For some, faith is the context in which we play out a certain role in society and assemble with others like us. So, everyone in our worship services dresses alike, acts the same, and inhabits a similar status in our community. This can run the gamut, from upper-crusters living out a country club existence in a church setting, to rebels cutting against the grain of what is deemed respectable. 

3. For some, faith is a mission, a calling on one’s own life and a purpose for one’s group to come together to achieve. Whether that north star is more spiritual (saving souls) or physical (serving the poor), it dominates our sense of belief and organizes our expressions of that belief. 

4. For some, faith is about redemption, individually or as a people. God is approached with more than a little hint of desperation, for we fall woefully short and require great mercy to be made whole again, and worship service is about exalting either present graces received or future salvation secured. 

5. For some, faith is defined by musical style. Worship is made central to faith, and the particular chosen form of worship considered to be the zenith of faith expression, whether contemporary or classical. 

6. For some, faith would not be explicitly stated as not important, but it essentially is a lighter touch in one’s life. A loosely held sense of rights and wrongs, and a few traditions in which that faith is observed in public, but otherwise a deeply personal sense of inner peace or internal compass in an otherwise faith-light life. 

7. For some, faith is an even lighter touch than that. The rational dominates, science has completely squeezed out the divine, and all that’s left is a sense of ethical code by which people can reasonably coexist, without any space for wonder or prayer.

 8. For some, faith is similarly a very light touch, but not quite as light. Life is lived apart from any sense of faith guidelines or divine judgment, but there is a sense in which life does in fact conclude with some form of judgment, and the hope is that when life comes to an end, enough good has been done and enough bad avoided that eternity is spent in a good and not bad place. 

9. For some, faith is deeply personal, not to be shared with or expressed to others, and in some ways not to be articulated even to one’s own self. It is by definition, in this way, something that is abstract and internal. 

10. For some, faith is the opposite of abstract and internal, but something that is understood, experienced, and expressed in community. In this context, which governs most of the world besides the more independent-minded Western world, it is literally impossible for someone to have a set of beliefs apart from that of their family and community. 

I tried to express these different viewpoints as neutrally as possible, even as I’m sure you can see my biases creeping in. Perhaps you resonated with some descriptions, found my words unfair for others, and recoiled with horror at still others. I’ll hope to pick up on this thread in the future, as far as what I believe and why I have come to believe what I believe. I encourage you to do the same!