On Finding Faith in a Secular World

The divide between faith and doubt in a secular world...There are those persons of faith who feel firmly grounded in their beliefs arising from to some powerful life-altering event, a conversion experience perhaps or a mystical encounter in Nature, a solid upbringing or otherwise from being grounded in a particular tradition, a faith-community - a way of reading scripture...Once your faith has been secured in this manner, it can be hard to grasp how others fail to find faith...Imagine the person who wants to have a religious experience of the kind that William James wrote about, but cannot find anything within his life-history that qualifies as a massively life-altering event. Or consider the student of religion who performs the requisite research hoping to stumble upon an overlooked yet compelling paradigm, who is nevertheless put off by what appear to be obscure or implausible claims, who despite their best effort is simply unable to "think through" these orthodox tenets or emotionally unable to acquire the certainty, direction, calm and serenity that the person of faith seems to possess...Is it a moral failing when so many find themselves bereft of what others have called the "gift of discernment" - because to put it bluntly - they find religious answers to be unsatisfying, unconvincing or downright wishful thinking? It would be great if people of faith out there - especially religious pastors of various denominations - were more concerned about the roadblocks faced by those who otherwise would be drawn to join such communities of people bound together by solid ethical commitments and traditions... How much time, though, do the faithful spend ruminating on the loss of credibility suffered by various organized congregations over the past decades? While no doubt alarmed by various headlines that come and go, are they not also curious moving forward about the visceral anti-religious animus emanating from various quarters (especially the educated classes) that after having grown up for centuries in muted form has finally broken through such that you hear what once were called blasphemies uttered casually alongside the daily banter...Looking back upon previous generations corralled and indoctrinated so to speak into faith traditions, burdened with ethical demands and orthodox doctrines - the man on the street nowadays, almost in a fit of outrage, opines against the blatant superstitions, these historical calamities, the institutional scandals and personal tragedies, the collective toll of suffering caused by excessive religiosity. (Compelling explanations exist for why this has happened - namely that orthodoxy presents an arduous set of demands upon people; it is always expected for the horse to buck the harness and for portions of the flock to harbor anti-clerical prejudices.) There has been a sea change, however, in terms of various institutions being given the benefit of the doubt. Religion simply falls flat these days - fails to make an inroads with so many - with seemingly so little to offer other than magical promises of delayed gratification. And yet - people still crave something...The material world by itself is so non-responsive to our needs... It is not entirely fun to play tennis without a net, to watch the wicked prosper at the expense of the innocent, to live in a universe where no one out there seems to be watching out for you. So - does everything hinge then on a belief in the supernatural - God, the soul, immortality, angels, demons, spirits, heaven, hell - what used to be called metaphysics?...Even in a modern secularized world, many still believe in a realm beyond the physical helping them to clarify their understanding of God - Some have seen ghosts, have had out-of-body experiences or near-death experiences, had seen sights or heard what they regard as divine voices; some claim angelic visitations and mention a level of familiarity with the spirit realm which invites by turns astonishment, consternation, laughter and/or skepticism...The great number of people who have not had such encounter cannot help but feel somewhat uncomfortable - on the one hand envious of a secret world that remains opaque to them and also dubious of these often far-fetched sounding claims ...These same secular limbo-dwellers have a similar reaction to reading sacred books... Ethical pronouncements in the Bible may offer much-needed moral guidance, while other passages leave the mysteries of salvation and cosmology unclarified. Consider the accessible albeit pessimistic Book of Ecclesiastes placed side by with the visionary and cryptic Book of Ezekiel. Is meaning of the latter book so readily accessible to the average reader?  Abstruse and elusive passages that to others are inspiring, illuminating and revelatory more often than is commonly supposed refuse to leave their mark (for whatever reason) ...creating a harsh ultimatum...Make a leap of faith that seems difficult to grasp or fall back upon an infinite puzzle - a set of unanswered or unanswerable questions ...Leaps of faith are fine options - but they are almost too plentiful. There are many conflicting revelations that invite assent made upon the basis of mere trust and authority. Let us be specific here - with regard to Christianity...there are particular stumbling blocks of faith - beginning with the triune nature of God, the meaning of incarnation - God and man co-existing within a single person (?) and continuing on to questions of sin, original sin, fallenness, the need for redemption,  the historicity of Christ's resurrection and ascension into heaven (something that in itself invites questions of where and how), the virgin birth, the role of women...But aside from all of these obstacles - upon which a dissatisfied non-believer might find himself pondering endlessly - there is the more practical question of benefit - What will this faith do for me? Has it changed others for the better? Have they been redeemed - genuinely altered in their approach to life and their daily habits? Has the world changed for the better after two millennia of Christian belief? One observes people of faith who are clearly grounded, ethically reliable, generous, just, patient, kind. And others who have the theory without the practice. But it is always a question of how orthodox beliefs by themselves necessarily cultivate moral habits. The moral stability and contentment that derives from that is what people like me are drawn to. One wonders about the weight of faith - in terms of the sheer # of truth-claims that are required of a person, many of which cannot be verified in one's own empirical experience of the world. It is not so much that people raise questions such as this as the ostensible shortage of replies that bothers me.