On any given Sunday in church, I believe only about 37 percent of what I hear. This ecclesiastical credulity has fluctuated greatly in the past 40 years. It has been as high as 81 percent and as low as 3 percent.
A lot depends on what is being said, who is saying it, why they’re saying it, my general mood at the time and whether I’ve been taking all of my meds.
Ironically, deep blue believers and hardcore atheists alike respond the same way to this selective form of church participation — faith in God is an all-in or all-out thing.
Fortunately, I don’t attend church because — or in spite — of them. I go for me.
The tricky part is that I’m skeptical of anything that involves humans. And there’s a lot of that in church, which is why I believe that faith requires constant examination.
Simply put, I don’t believe in things that don’t make sense or don’t pay off in a way that contributes to making me a better person.
When I’m listening to people, be they fellow congregants or prophets, it works like this in my head:
Them • “Jesus wants us to be kind to one another.”
Me • “Yeah, I should work on that part.”
Them • “And it was revealed that plural marriage is a celestial principle.”
Me • “This guy is so full of crap he could fertilize a farm with a fart.”
Oddly, it was blind faith that taught me to doubt. Fresh home from a mission and newly married, I listened to a local church leader bear witness that birth control was the devil’s plan, and we should put faith in the leaders who told us this was so.
My wife was pregnant a few hours later. What followed was a rough couple of years for which we were completely unprepared.
It could be argued that perhaps this “rough” time was all part of God’s plan for us, but then I would have to concede that the church leader was right about something that was none of his business in the first place.
In any case, my inner skeptic came alive. I can’t tell you how many times it has spared me from the plans other people have had for me.
Today, I believe that faith is important, but it should be managed by us rather than allowing it to manage us. If faith requires believing something without evidence, you have to ask yourself: How can you tell when your faith is wrong about something?
Personally, I put it to the test. Either it works or it doesn’t — or you’re too simple-minded to tell the difference.
If living by a set of principles makes you a better person, or gives your life purpose, then it works. But if it just makes you miserable, then it doesn’t. If that’s true, then you really ought to give it more thought. Maybe tweak it a bit to suit your personality.
Faith should never be an excuse to stop thinking about something, or be used to blind us to the consequences of our own (and others’) actions.
Sometimes all we have is faith. Right now, my wife is on the other side of the Earth visiting religious sites as part of her faith in Christ. Meanwhile, I’m stuck relying on faith that she will be home in a few days.
Robert Kirby is The Salt Lake Tribune’s humor columnist. Follow Kirby on Facebook.
