I've always thought of myself fundamentally as an optimist. I won't claim this is something that emerges from a deeply held faith. It's just how I am. Maybe it was how I was raised. Maybe I inherited it from my family. It's not a Pollyanna, everything is okay sort of view, but it is a sense that somehow, in the end, things will turn toward the best.
But I have to confess that such a view has become more difficult for me, and if my original, optimist bent did not emerge from my faith, the current, more pessimistic turn certainly challenges my faith. When I look at the horrible loss of life in Syria, the resurgence of openly racist views in Amerian politics, or the increasing income disparity in our country, it is difficult to thing things are going well. It is also easy to wonder where God is in all this.
Terrible situations in the world are hardly new, and it is helpful to recall this. Today's morning psalm speaks of "destroying storms," clearly referring to something other than actual weather. It also says, "I lie down almond lions that greedily devour human prey; their teeth are spears and arrows, their tongues sharp swords." There are many who could easily pen the same words today.
Yet the psalmist still speaks optimistically of such forces falling into the traps they constructed for others. I don't know if this is a statement of hope, or if it is rooted in events that have already transpired. Has the psalmist experienced God acting to set things right? Or does the psalmist simply trust that this will indeed occur?
My own, Christian faith is in a God most fully known in Jesus. This God is most often to be found in the midst of human suffering. This God speaks of being manifest in the poor, the hungry, the prisoner, the sick, the stranger. And this Jesus clearly expects that his followers will continue to be found in the midst of suffering. He clearly expects that his followers will live at odds with the ways of the powerful and wealthy. Yet the Church, especially the American Church, very often looks little like the Jesus whose body it claims to be.
My recent, more pessimistic view of the world has challenged my faith, but I wonder if that faith is in a false god, an idol. If so it is an idol that the Church has helped construct. It is a god who aligns easily with American materialism, consumerism, and individualism, all of these at odds with the message of Jesus. It is a god who hangs out with the rich and powerful, and who wants you to be rich and powerful. It is a god of trite promises to those with faith and not much concerned with a just and equitable society. It is a god who says "Blessed are those who pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, but screw those who are disadvantaged or who don't work hard enough to overcome all their disadvantages."
The Church I grew up in, a church that too often proclaimed an American, capitalist god, is in decline, perhaps in large part because a lot of people have lost faith in such a god. American churches of all sorts and types and theologies are shrinking, loosing members at an accelerating rate. The younger they are, the less likely Americans are to be part of any church. That might seem one more reason to be pessimistic, but it may be one place where I can feel hopeful. Perhaps the decline of the Church I grew up in will mean the death of the idol it helped create. And perhaps, somewhere in the aftermath, we can rediscover the living God known in Jesus.
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