Certain We're Not Certain

I've long been fascinated with how what we "know" can be in impediment and stumbling block to us. It happens in all fields and walks of life. People "know" that someone is no-good because of their appearance, race, nationality, etc. A record executive once refused to sign the Beatles to a contract because he "knew" their sort of music was a passing fad. All learned people once "knew" that the sun revolves around the earth.

The realm of faith is perhaps especially prone to problems rooted in what we "know," in our certainties and assumptions. Religion has given its approval and blessing to all sorts of evil as a result, from crusades to child abuse to slavery. Many people still "know" that a female pastor or a gay pastor is abhorrent to God. And the religious leaders in today's gospel reading "know" that the Messiah cannot possibly come from Galilee. They even have scriptural proofs. (The gospel of John makes no mention of Jesus' birth and seems totally uninterested in his human origins. He is the word made flesh, and he comes from God.)

Religious certainties - I include many atheist certainties in this category - are often some of the most unattractive forms of things people "know." Some of the most ardent Christians and atheists are the worst possible advertisements for what they "know" because their certainties are so arrogant and divisive. Most people reading this probably don't fall into such extremes, but we still are often better at skewering others' problematic certainties than we are at recognizing our own.

In my own faith tradition, and especially in the more "progressive" wings of it, we have a kind of certainty about uncertainty. We are, understandably, suspicious of people who sound very certain about religious and faith things. We are rightly troubled by all those bad advertisements for our faith from Christians who would happily send everyone who disagrees with them to hell. And so we become certain that we can't say anything for certain.

A certain level of skepticism about our own certainties, an awareness of the limits of knowing, along with some healthy self-examination, are good things, but this can go too far. At some point, being certain that certainties are impossible makes it as hard for us to see Jesus for who he is as it was for those who were certain he couldn't come from Galilee.

I've recently started reading Brian McLaren's Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road?: Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World. The book is in large part a challenge to the church to develop a "strong-benevolent Christian identity," and McLaren's categories of "strong/hostile" versus "weak/benign" Christian identities line up well with my division between arrogant and divisive certainties versus fear of any certainties. And if I were to restate his project in the terms of this post I might say, "How are we to claim Christian certainties that are neither arrogant nor divisive?"

If our answer is, "We can't," then I fear that this certainty is every bit as harmful to Christian faith as those folks who are certain about who is in hell.

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