The Clarifying Effects of Distress
What we’re experiencing now is surreal. The images of nearly-empty streets in major metropolitan hubs look like something from one of those post-apocalyptic thrillers. Looking at those empty streets, you half expect the camera to zoom in on the solitary survivor out scavenging for food and supplies at the end of the world.
Even the difference in the way we’re experiencing this crisis is surreal. For some people – those whose livelihood has been put on hold, people with loved ones fighting for their lives, medical personnel facing overwhelming demands – it does feel like the end of the world. But for many others, the enforced isolation is the ultimate staycation: days off with pay, streaming Netflix in their pajamas, ordering take-out.
But even if our individual present experiences are different, we all know that something has fundamentally shifted in the course of things. Just think: a month ago, we were anguishing over our dysfunctional political process. Now we wonder how and when the economy will ever recover from this body-blow, we worry for the well-being of our loved ones, we realize now that all the securities we used to count on have proven to be unreliable. And we all know that things will never return to the “normal” we used to know. We are witnessing a basic change in the norms of our society.
This jolt of anxiety has done one good thing, though; it has given us a clearer focus on what matters. Families are doing family-like things: playing board games, talking to one another using actual mouth words, making and eating dinner together. Many families are rediscovering “family time.”
But crisis also provokes theological reflection. Many people are thinking more deeply and more clearly about their faith. And it is here that things get interesting. What effect will it have on us that we are all thinking more deeply about our faith?
The effect, I think, will be varied.
What we are likely to see in the near future will be a corollary of the old saying: “The same sun that hardens clay softens wax.”
Catastrophe never leaves us unchanged
I remember when I was a teacher, and one of our high school students died in a car accident at the beginning of her senior year. I told my students (her friends and classmates) that their faith would not escape unchanged. For some of them, their roots would go down deep, and they would more fully embrace the faith they had inherited from their parents; this experience would provoke them to make their parents’ faith their own.
For others, the tragedy of their classmate’s death would lead them to undertake a sojourn that could take years, wondering as they wander if God really is good, if He really is wise, or if He even exists. They would find themselves questioning truths about God that they had always taken for granted.
And it was true. By the end of the year, I saw both reactions in my students. Some had deepened their faith, and some were still struggling with their faith.
As we emerge from this crisis, I would expect to see similar changes in all our beliefs and behavior patterns: some will find that their faith is deeper and more substantial, while others will find themselves questioning tenets of their faith that they always took for granted.
For some, like a former student of mine, this crisis will be a spiritual wake-up call. He had been a good student, a good athlete, a fine young man when he was in high school. But when I met him at a class reunion, he was a different kind of man: he was a godly father and husband, he was an elder in his church, he was sober-minded and spiritually attuned. I asked him what had brought about this change.
His answer surprised me. The 911 attacks. That defining moment in our nation’s history had prompted some serious introspection, and he had awakened to his spiritual heritage. Now his faith was no longer just a matter of habit or custom. Now he had a deeply personal commitment to the living God.
But for some other people, this close examination of their faith will reveal something hollow and unsubstantial. They’ll begin to see their faith as something they’ve worn like a favorite old garment, something they have outgrown. They will realize they had never really owned their faith. They will realize that their faith is a matter of heritage but nothing more, and they will loosen their grip on their faith. These “cultural Christians” will drift away from serious faith commitment and spiritual involvement with other believers, at least for a while.
During this crisis, we have suspended our current preaching series and turned instead to preach from the Psalms. The words of the psalmists have comforted God’s people for millennia, and we are finding comfort in them again. The psalmists’ familiar refrain “God is our fortress” never sounded better than it does right now. Many people are discovering an opportunity to sink their roots into the Word and prayer and an ever-deepening trust in God.
But this crisis can have another effect on some. There are people who will find that the strain has made the comforting words of Scripture sound hollow and naïve.
People who experience this kind of spiritual dislocation will struggle. On the one hand, they will want to maintain the outward forms of faith for the sake of their loved ones; on the other hand, they will experience a growing cognitive dissonance as they see in themselves a growing suspicion that they don’t really believe the things their parents taught them, things they now consciously doubt.
These are terrifying words for every Christian parent and every Christian leader, and I write them with a lump in my own throat. I find myself thinking of the people I love, especially my own four children, of course, but also the hundreds of people in our own congregation.
So this is the two-fold effect of crisis on our faith: While some are finding their faith strengthened by this challenge, others are discovering that their faith is insubstantial.
So a word now to everyone who finds this crisis troubling to their faith
Someone once observed that everyone’s faith, at first, is in other people’s faith. This is almost always true; it is rare for a person to come to faith in Christ apart from the influence of other people.
But now you are realizing that a borrowed faith just isn’t enough; you need something sturdier, something that is your own.
It’s good that you are examining your faith so carefully. Don’t be afraid to ask yourself the hard questions provoked by this crisis.
But I will be so bold as to offer two pieces of unsolicited advice to aid your search:
Don’t just look into yourself for the truth. Fallen as we are, we all have a high capacity for self-deception. The question you’re asking isn’t just “What do I believe?” It is, more importantly, “What is the truth?”
With that question in mind, dig deep. Don’t be afraid to explore your questions fully.
You don’t have to find answers to every theological conundrum; you never will, none of us ever will. The last thing you need is to get caught in an endless maze of theological complexities.
The singular question that lies at the heart of all your questions is this: who is Jesus? Let that question drive all the others.
If Jesus really was the fulfillment of all God’s promises, if He really was God in human form, if his death and resurrection really do have far-reaching implications not just for your life but for the entire cosmos, you must decide how you will respond to his claim as Lord and Master.
Once you answer that question, all the other questions will come into clearer focus. If all that is true about Jesus, if God really did send His Son to die in place of sinners like you, if Jesus really did rise from the dead, if God in Christ is going to remake and restore everything someday, you can build your life on trusting confidence in that kind of God.
In the meantime, know this: even though you must make this sojourn alone, there are men and women who love God and love you, and they are praying for you.
They are praying that God’s Spirit will make your heart tender.
They are praying that your heart will be captured by the beauty of the Gospel.
They are praying that God will give you a great hunger for His Word.
And they are praying that you discover for yourself that God really is our fortress, our high rock in the storm.
Paul Pyle
Discipleship Pastor