Part 1 . . . I want to torque your thinking a bit by suggesting that in the long run quality trumps content. In order for that last statement to make sense, I need to define what I mean by the “quality” of our faith.
Our faith can be right or wrong (content). It can also be good or bad (quality).
It’s easy enough to differentiate what’s good about faith from what’s bad. In a word or two: bad faith is closed and good faith is open.
In a paragraph or two: people exhibiting bad faith are usually afraid of questions, or at least afraid of the new truth questions might expose. Bad faith is based on the unquestioned authority of the church, the Bible, a preacher, or parents. Bad faith says, “I’m not sure why I believe what I believe, I just do. If it was good enough for mom, then it is good enough for me.”
People with good faith have a curious wonder about life and are unafraid of its big questions. They are consumed by a passion for seeking, finding, and exploring the truth, even if it means challenging the assumptions of conventional wisdom. They are courageous enough to explore what those with bad faith will not even talk about.
Bad faith often makes its hosts arrogant and unteachable. They refuse to change anything about their faith, as changing would be an admission of being wrong. They’d rather make up a ridiculous answer to a difficult question than say, “I don’t know.”
Those with good faith are usually humble and eager to learn. They realize they don’t have it all figured out and are comfortable enough with mystery to gladly say, “I don’t know. I’m not sure. I’m still searching.”
Several years ago, in Time Magazine, George Lucas explained the spiritual themes in Star Wars by saying:
I put the Force in the movie in order to awaken a certain kind of spirituality in young people-more a belief in God that a belief in any particular religious system. I wanted to make it so that young people would begin to ask questions about the mystery. Not having enough interest in the mysteries of life to ask the question, “Is there a God or is there not a God?”-this is for me the worst thing that can happen. I think you should have an opinion about that. Or you should be saying, “I’m looking. I’m very curious about this and am going to continue to look until I can find an answer, and if I can’t find an answer then I’ll die trying.”
We don’t have to agree with Lucas’ theology in order to appreciate his efforts to stir up good faith in those who watch his movies (Which, remember, is just about everybody on the planet!).
Ultimately, bad faith produces bad fruit. People with bad faith are often bitter, hyper-judgmental, and mean-spirited. They crucify those who expose the limits and contradictions of their faith.
Good faith produces good fruit. People with good faith exhibit love, joy, and peace. They inspire and encourage. They make people around them better.
As the following graphic shows, thinking of our faith in terms of good and bad as well as right and wrong makes for some intriguing possibilities.
This is where the fun starts. . .
Continue to part 3.
Telling Stories, Asking Questions, Learning Lessons
Ok, I agree with your description of “bad faith.” With regard to open faith and closed faith, it seemed you basically meant open-minded and closed-minded. I agree it is certainly a problem to be closed-minded with our faith. Is it possible to be too open-minded? If open-mindedness means being always willing to examine and listen, then I would answer one way. If open-mindedness means never being able to come to a conclusion about some things, then I would answer another way.
Not trying to put words in your mouth (or on your blog). I enjoy reading what you write. You make me think and I like that.
Fun indeed…especially in the postmodern/relative sense of things.
But that’s actually a pretty brilliant graph. We need to make our focus leading people to a faith that is both right and good, and learn to show people the problems with a faith that is right but bad (the position of many people I minister to). And I’d agree in general that having a good faith is more desirable than having a right one. Good stuff.
While I agree with most of what you said, I don’t understand how having unquestioned faith in the authority of the Bible (the Father’s inspired Word) is bad. I also agree with the comment above about opened and closed minds. A closed mind is so sad but an open mind with an unquestioned faith in God’s Word is a beautiful thing!
Put this into practice in church culture and you’ll get an adverse reaction to it. Church can be the most hostile place in the world for genuine seeking.
Church culture has an addiction to rightness, but to the neglect of goodness. Even the goodness is contaminated with the rightness.
What I mean is that even when service is being done, it come across like a welfare program, like the haves condescending to the have nots (making it clear who is who), like the superior issuing something to the inferior.
“Right” must be deconstructed to factor out superiority, the level of perceived value, hierarchy, authority, power, control, and so forth. Take right and bleed it of all of these things and what’s left is what “right” was meant to be.
The graphs are very useful in delineating your main points, but I find life is not nearly so simple, but much more complex than that. It seems to me that both content and quality measures are really on a continuum, rather than simple “squares” – one way or the other.
The people I have most doubts about and worry about the most are those with “wrong” faith (or, maybe more accurately, “lack of faith,” which you may deem a very different question not addressed here), but “good” qualities (i.e., attributes) of faith in their lives. Does that make sense?
In other words, I don’t believe (from my perspective) they have the “right kind” of faith and yet they exhibit very commendable attributes (quality) of faith in their lives in everyday living. All of the “fruits of the Spirit.”
I’m going to keep reading here to see if you have answers for some of these questions I have. Or maybe someone else does . . .
Cool! A JoHari Window for FAITH!
That’s a right good tool there, Wade.
Two independent thoughts:
1. To torque your thinking a little more, let me suggest that in the long run both quality and content are equally important. In other words, quality and content are not competing choices.
1 Timothy 4:16 comes to mind. I think of quality as “life” and content as “doctrine”.
2. On the face, it may be condemning those with certain personalities to have bad faith. Those that prefer some sort of closure can be said to have bad faith if they take a strong stand, even if they spent years arriving at their conclusions. It is unfair to characterize their strong belief as potentially bad faith. I believe in a more inclusive theology in regards to personality.
I come from a church that made qualitative decisions about a person’s faith as good or bad. This apologetic sounds like the same line of reasoning I have experienced. I’m afraid that a pracitcal application of this system can create thought police trying to discern the quality of the heart and discourage any real searching for the content. In essence, you’ll get a different kind of culture of dogmatism. The difference will be dogmatism about quality instead of dogmatic about content.
With respect to your subject matter: what is the impact of the latter part of Romans 13:23 “…and everything that does not come from faith is sin.”? Good faith vs. bad faith, right faith vs. wrong faith? It seems Paul might be saying you either have faith or you don’t.
I do think the focus of this verse seems specific, where as I feel your article is broad in it’s scope, but I’m curious – is there any connection?
Thanks for taking the time to do this! I’m anxious about submitting one comment – buried at the bottom of a page. Must be intense putting yourself out there all the time…
Wade, this is AWESOME!!!
Please put this in flip-chart form so I can convert all these Baptists and holy-rollers in my area.
But please put a giant “X” in the “Bad faith” area and label it “you are here.” And then put a giant arrow to “good faith” with the words Church of Christ inside the arrow.
Don’t forget to put the scripture about the “churches of Christ salute you” so we gain a little more credibility.
Thanks for making this so easy, Wade.
jonspears@earthlink.net
Whoa!
And the Nazis said, “put a giant X in the “Bad Person” area and label it “Jew – you are here.” And then put a giant arrow to “good person” with the words “Aryan – you’ll never get here.”
And now it begins….
John, Jon, John. Lighten up a little! Show a bit of good faith in each other, boys.
Right good faith, of course.
I believe you are correct in your statement that the most important thing is “that” you believe and not necessarily “what” you believe. There are some important “whats” but the list seems very short, way shorter than most of us have made it in the past. There is something nagging at me though as I read your description of bad faith and good faith, and pinning the things you mentioned on their faith. I’m not sure there is such a thing as bad “faith”. There are differing levels possibly, some greater, some lesser. But really, faith is always a good thing. If we were to be honest, most of us in our progression toward the Christ found ourselves in what you are referring to as bad faith. Our knowledge of scripture was pretty limited. Our understanding of Jesus and everything he exemplified as God incarnate was pretty weak. We started off a bit closed, narrow and afraid, until we truly came to know the one who set us free from all that. I wouldn’t call that time in our lives “bad” faith. It was just infantile, a child starting to walk and finally seeing the world from a ‘standing up’ perspective.
I know many people whom your description of bad faith describes perfectly. I’ve got a bunch of them where I preach. It’s not that their faith is bad. Their situation is bad. Some of them have never progressed to a mature faith. Others are that way because that is all they have ever been taught. They have been fed garbage since day one and that is all they know. It is hard to blame them for being fed junk by the “feeders”. Their faith is sincere and good. Their knowledge is lacking.
Maybe good faith\bad faith are not the best “terms” to describe the serious problem you are trying to help us with. And we appreciate the help…….
Brad … Faith in Satan is a good thing? Faith in atheism is a good thing? Those would be wrong faiths. Right? Wrong bad faith would be faith in something like that which says it’s the only thing to believe. Wrong good faith would be a faith in something like that which says I could be wrong about this.
Okay, now I’m completely confusticated.
But I don’t think faith can always be a good thing.
Thanks to almost everybody for the comments. They are great. I’m going to flesh this out some more in the next post. . .
Keith… Good point. Let me clarify. The folks Wade is talking about don’t have faith in Satan, nor atheism. The bad faith being mentioned was faith of believers in Christ, though revealed in different forms. That was the context of my thoughts.
But from your comments, I struggle with wrong bad faith containing “that which says it?s the only thing to believe”. I think I know where you are coming from, where our absolute list has been a mile long and we have let everyone know it’s our way or the highway, without question. But the fact of the matter is, we have some of those absolutes – “there is salvation in no one else…” is one that comes to mind. “Every knee will bow and every tongue confess” is another. I can hold on to those kinds of things firmly and even require it of others and still have a faith that honors God, what you might call good right faith.
I think this is a difficult thing trying to find words to describe the horrible mess we find ourselves in. I may not like some of the words being used, but at least we are trying and I like that.