A Fresh Perspective

There can be a vast difference between a living faith and adherence to a system of religious beliefs. In the Gospels faith has nothing to do with doctrinal beliefs about Jesus, and everything to do with trust in Jesus as a mediator of God’s grace and love. For example, a woman suffering with a chronic bleeding condition that rendered her unclean according to Jewish law believed that if she could just touch Jesus’ clothing she would be healed. She obviously held to a popular cultural myth that claimed that the healing powers of a healer (there were other healers in the ancient world besides Jesus) extended to the healer’s clothes. When she touched the garment of Jesus healing power went out to her, without Jesus intending it. Jesus told the woman, “Your faith has made you whole” (see Mark 5:25-34). There is no suggestion at all in the biblical account that she believed Jesus to be the Messiah or anything like what later Christians meant when they ascribed to Jesus the title, “Son of...

Charlie Pearl, Staff Writer for the Frankfort State Journal, recently interviewed Wendell Berry in the aftermath of Berry’s decision to move many of his personal papers (which measure 60 cubic feet in volume) from the University of Kentucky archives. Berry, who is known for his passion for the land and for environmental issues, made the decision after the university accepted a $7 million dollar donation from the coal industry for a new basketball dormitory, agreeing to name it Wildcat Coal Lodge. Berry said that he was willing to live with the university’s “manifest lack of concern about surface mining in Eastern Kentucky and its ecological implications, its implications for the forests, for the survival of the wild creatures and maybe preeminently for the rural people there that a land grant university is mandated to look after and help,” noting that this form of mining “is literally hell for the people who live near those mine sites.” Berry said that he was willing to live with the...

Spiritual writer Richard Rohr has observed that in recent centuries most churches have been on the wrong side of most human reformations and revolutions, until after these reformations succeeded. Consider the issue of civil rights: Many churches in America remained silent, while many others either overtly or covertly worked against just legislation and practice. There were, of course, Christians like Martin Luther King, Jr. who led the charge, but these constituted a minority. Western Christianity has evolved largely into a matter of the head. This took the form of highly academic theology in Europe, and in America it was expressed through a narrow, dogmatic fundamentalism. In both forms Western Christians seemed to show little interest in the things that Jesus of Nazareth was passionate about. Any version of Christian faith that shows little interest in issues such as human suffering, inclusivity, poverty, political and spiritual oppression, planet care, and care for the outsider ...