Religion should help, not hurt, suffering
September 12, 2010 - 6:00 am
The 1987 film "Roxanne" is a retelling of "Cyrano de Bergerac." In the movie, C.D. Bales is a fire chief in a small Colorado ski town.
One night, C.D. returns to find a trash barrel on fire inside the firehouse. In that same moment, the firefighters, upstairs relaxing, see it, too. There's a pregnant pause -- a group of men in a circle staring down the drop hole, and their boss, staring incredulously at the flaming barrel.
In a speech dripping with irony, C.D. looks up at his charges and says: "I have a dream. It's not a big dream. It's a little dream. My dream is that, if, heaven forbid, there ever should be a fire in this town, that the people would not then say, 'Whatever you do, don't call the fire department!' We're supposed to put them out!"
I laughed out loud. Then, in a flash, I saw an analogy that has remained with me since. I'll get back to that.
On April 27, I published a response to a reader question. The young man's mother died when he was at an early age, and he told me about how that event had unsettled his spiritual life. He was angry with God. And I told him that no one hangs out with God who is not sooner or later wounded by and in that relationship. I told him that anger with God is a holy intimacy. I told him it takes great faith to be angry with God. I spoke of theodicy, that part of the theological task confronting the reality of human suffering in relationship with the belief in a God who is good.
He wrote back appreciatively. A lot of other people wrote back, too. Uh, not so appreciatively. In simple terms, I got into a nest of unhappy Christians.
I was told to leave theology to those who practice the faith. I was told that all suffering is of our own making, that no one suffers at the hands of God. That I was "short on Bible knowledge, and (I needed) a big lesson, quickly." Then the parade of saccharine sayings: "God will never give us more than we can handle." ... "If God seems far away, guess who moved?" ... "God has a plan" ... on and on. "It does not take great faith to be angry at God," a pastor scolded me, "It takes great faith to trust God." Meaning, I assume, that a pilgrim must choose between anger and trust.
The rush was on to defend the Maker and to admonish me.
I take it as self-evident that healthy religion is a good thing. Equally do I think that critical dialogue about unhealthy religion is crucial, not the least because unhealthy religion makes people miserable. Worse, unhealthy religion is an accomplice in some of history's most despicable evils.
Which is not to say that Christians are or Christianity is evil, nor to say that the people writing to me were evil. Rather, I think they were threatened. Afraid. Specifically, afraid to let human suffering be just what it is -- hard, painful, often inexplicable and certainly unavoidable.
If I seem especially impatient with modern Christianity, it's because I am one. A Christian, that is. And we, of all people, should know better than to intellectualize or placate or theologically "explain away" suffering, let alone to pile on by saying that suffering and the sometimes ensuing anger is evidence of deficiencies of faith, trust and love.
Love crucifies us. In the end, it wounds us. It has to. It's designed to. No one can love anything or anyone without suffering. It's why the central symbol of the Christian faith is not a smiley face or a rainbow or a picnic basket. It's a cross. I think of this every day, every hour I sit with patients. Because no one comes to therapy who isn't suffering.
Faithful and meaningful ministry to suffering pilgrims should be the thing the church does best.
So, back to my analogy:
I have a dream. It's not a big dream. It's a little dream. My dream is that, if, heaven forbid, you should ever be beset by inexplicable, unjust, or even well-deserved suffering, should you ever fall into egregious moral failure, should you ever have your heart broken because someone you love is dead, that people would not then say, "Whatever you do, don't go to church."