Faith Alone
So the church I was raised in has this concept of "Faith Alone", which is when you believe that because you accept a certain set of religious beliefs you are "Saved" and therefore you don't have to do anything else because you are saved. Because it is your faith alone that saves you. Well, I supposed modern Christians would argue that it is God's grace that technically saves you and that because that grace is all-powerful all you have to do is believe in it and voila! you're saved. The church I was raised in believes this is a very bad thing, that Faith Alone does NOT save, and, in fact, if you just believe you are saved and then live your life however the heck you want to, that's one of the worst things for you. You have to live a good life, following the Ten Commandments, and generally being good and looking to the good in other people ... and backing it up with your actions, your life.
Last night I had a bit of a minor epiphany about this particular concept. It was mostly born out of the momentary contemplation that the world is not necessarily a nice place and the people in it are often mean and selfish. In spite of what they might profess to believe. I can't tell you the number of times that someone who is purported to be a pillar of whatever church they belong to has said or done something shockingly nasty, either to me personally or on a national scale. In the incidents that I witnessed personally I definitely felt as though there was a total disconnect between what the person stated they believe and the way that I witnessed them treating other people. Time and time again when I lived in the South I saw people putting others down, trash-talking, or downright being cruel to someone else, not because they weren't Christian, but because they weren't the right kind of Christian. And yup, even up here in Bryn Athyn I have heard some people say some shockingly horrible things about other people, or seen attitudes of deliberate negativity, from people I know cling to the teachings of Swedenborg as THE TRUTH. And I'll never forget Dori's story about how there was a woman in a group she was running that absolutely couldn't do any processing about the faults and shortcomings she had in life because she believed she was saved and therefore had no faults (which was apparently blatantly not true).
Back to Faith Alone. Growing up and going to religion classes at the Academy I always thought that Faith Alone was something the Calvinists did. Past tense. History. The History major thinks of something in a historical context? No! Anyhow... I later started thinking of it as something that all those people out there who claim to be SAVED! but live rotten lives were guilty of too, i.e. Fundamentalist Christians. ... I dunno, folks. The more I think about it the more I feel like anyone of any religion, Swedenborgian especially, who thinks that they have the market cornered on Truth and therefore they don't really need to make an effort to simply be nice to other people (because they have a MUCH better understanding of Swedenborg than those people) are just as guilty of Faith Alone as anyone who thinks the work is over once they accept Jesus as their savior. I know that there are more people than Swedenborgians who come down with a case of the Nasties now and then, but we all know when we've come across someone afflicted with it. I hate to say this, really I do, but I can think of a whole big handful of New Church members of the older generation who I have seen behaving horrifically to other church members and to so-called "Outsiders", all because they think they're more right than anyone else. As if being born Swedenborgian is all they really need to be "saved". I've seen the same from the middle generation. I've seen the same from the younger generation. It makes me really uncomfortable. Just a little kindness is all people really need to fix things.
And I am certainly not immune. Although personally, I don't tend to use "because I'm a Swedenborgian" as the reasoning behind when I act terrible and entitled. I think my reasons for being rotten have more to do with hyper-defensiveness and an "I am SO the heck not going to let you walk all over me just because I'm ________" mentality. But I digress. At such moments I think about my Mom. Yes, I'm a little biased, but sometimes I think that my Mom was probably the most good human being to ever walk the fast of the Earth. And she perfected the art of one skill that I try very hard and fail VERY miserably at: she never said anything bad about anyone. Ever. In fact, on several occasions I heard her make excuses for people who were obviously behaving like idiots. My personal favorite: "Oh, she's got a lot going on at home right now. She doesn't really mean any of this. She is just struggling with personal things and bringing it to work. We should really be trying to find ways to support her. I'm concerned that so many people are attacking her." Um, the person in question in this situation, probably about 15 years ago, was being a complete and utter ass. But Mom approached the situation with more kindness and compassion than I have ever seen from anyone. Real, tangible kindness. Not just kindness in theory.
My Mom never, ever fell into the trap of Faith Alone. She lived what she believed in every moment. She was kind and compassionate in every moment.
So when I think about certain segments of people, people who worshiped under the same roof that she did, who believe that she must have somehow been a spiritual failure because her marriage failed, or who think that she was afflicted with and died of cancer because as recompense for her sins, naturally I get a little hot under the collar. But those are extreme cases, more urban legends than things that people have ever had the guts to come up to me and say directly. However, when I see people who belong to the same faith system that she did, people who claim to be "doing it better", maybe because of the whole family they come from or their last name or how many ministers are in their family or which NC congregation they live in or any number of completely arbitrary things, who turn up their nose at others or get the Nasties or pass judgment on the neighbors or who drag a negative attitude around and beat other people with it ... oh man does that tick me off! Mom would be heartbroken. Heartbroken!
Who we are, where we were born, which church we were born into ... none of this matters for anything. To use it as an excuse is the essence of Faith Alone. Every one of us, Swedenborgian, Fundamentalist Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Catholic, Mormon, Atheist ... every one of us needs to forget who we are and what pedigree we have and to simply be kind to our fellow men. Like Mom, we need to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, approach our interactions with compassion, reach out with the genuine desire to help others and not to dismiss or judge them because they are "not one of us". It's so simple. It's so hard. It's so necessary!
Do it for my Mom, people! Do it for my Mom!
Last night I had a bit of a minor epiphany about this particular concept. It was mostly born out of the momentary contemplation that the world is not necessarily a nice place and the people in it are often mean and selfish. In spite of what they might profess to believe. I can't tell you the number of times that someone who is purported to be a pillar of whatever church they belong to has said or done something shockingly nasty, either to me personally or on a national scale. In the incidents that I witnessed personally I definitely felt as though there was a total disconnect between what the person stated they believe and the way that I witnessed them treating other people. Time and time again when I lived in the South I saw people putting others down, trash-talking, or downright being cruel to someone else, not because they weren't Christian, but because they weren't the right kind of Christian. And yup, even up here in Bryn Athyn I have heard some people say some shockingly horrible things about other people, or seen attitudes of deliberate negativity, from people I know cling to the teachings of Swedenborg as THE TRUTH. And I'll never forget Dori's story about how there was a woman in a group she was running that absolutely couldn't do any processing about the faults and shortcomings she had in life because she believed she was saved and therefore had no faults (which was apparently blatantly not true).
Back to Faith Alone. Growing up and going to religion classes at the Academy I always thought that Faith Alone was something the Calvinists did. Past tense. History. The History major thinks of something in a historical context? No! Anyhow... I later started thinking of it as something that all those people out there who claim to be SAVED! but live rotten lives were guilty of too, i.e. Fundamentalist Christians. ... I dunno, folks. The more I think about it the more I feel like anyone of any religion, Swedenborgian especially, who thinks that they have the market cornered on Truth and therefore they don't really need to make an effort to simply be nice to other people (because they have a MUCH better understanding of Swedenborg than those people) are just as guilty of Faith Alone as anyone who thinks the work is over once they accept Jesus as their savior. I know that there are more people than Swedenborgians who come down with a case of the Nasties now and then, but we all know when we've come across someone afflicted with it. I hate to say this, really I do, but I can think of a whole big handful of New Church members of the older generation who I have seen behaving horrifically to other church members and to so-called "Outsiders", all because they think they're more right than anyone else. As if being born Swedenborgian is all they really need to be "saved". I've seen the same from the middle generation. I've seen the same from the younger generation. It makes me really uncomfortable. Just a little kindness is all people really need to fix things.
And I am certainly not immune. Although personally, I don't tend to use "because I'm a Swedenborgian" as the reasoning behind when I act terrible and entitled. I think my reasons for being rotten have more to do with hyper-defensiveness and an "I am SO the heck not going to let you walk all over me just because I'm ________" mentality. But I digress. At such moments I think about my Mom. Yes, I'm a little biased, but sometimes I think that my Mom was probably the most good human being to ever walk the fast of the Earth. And she perfected the art of one skill that I try very hard and fail VERY miserably at: she never said anything bad about anyone. Ever. In fact, on several occasions I heard her make excuses for people who were obviously behaving like idiots. My personal favorite: "Oh, she's got a lot going on at home right now. She doesn't really mean any of this. She is just struggling with personal things and bringing it to work. We should really be trying to find ways to support her. I'm concerned that so many people are attacking her." Um, the person in question in this situation, probably about 15 years ago, was being a complete and utter ass. But Mom approached the situation with more kindness and compassion than I have ever seen from anyone. Real, tangible kindness. Not just kindness in theory.
My Mom never, ever fell into the trap of Faith Alone. She lived what she believed in every moment. She was kind and compassionate in every moment.
So when I think about certain segments of people, people who worshiped under the same roof that she did, who believe that she must have somehow been a spiritual failure because her marriage failed, or who think that she was afflicted with and died of cancer because as recompense for her sins, naturally I get a little hot under the collar. But those are extreme cases, more urban legends than things that people have ever had the guts to come up to me and say directly. However, when I see people who belong to the same faith system that she did, people who claim to be "doing it better", maybe because of the whole family they come from or their last name or how many ministers are in their family or which NC congregation they live in or any number of completely arbitrary things, who turn up their nose at others or get the Nasties or pass judgment on the neighbors or who drag a negative attitude around and beat other people with it ... oh man does that tick me off! Mom would be heartbroken. Heartbroken!
Who we are, where we were born, which church we were born into ... none of this matters for anything. To use it as an excuse is the essence of Faith Alone. Every one of us, Swedenborgian, Fundamentalist Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Catholic, Mormon, Atheist ... every one of us needs to forget who we are and what pedigree we have and to simply be kind to our fellow men. Like Mom, we need to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, approach our interactions with compassion, reach out with the genuine desire to help others and not to dismiss or judge them because they are "not one of us". It's so simple. It's so hard. It's so necessary!
Do it for my Mom, people! Do it for my Mom!