Lions, Witches, and Wardrobes

When we don’t want to deal with something we mystify it. When we don’t want to think deeply about something we mystify it. When we never fight ambiguity or wrestle with contradictions we mystify them. If something presents itself as too scary to think about – we mystify it. We take all the confusion and uncertainty and bury them deep within our spirituality and say, “God is in control.”

Mystification is the overarching theme for when you don’t know how to explain something in religion. How did Jesus manage to be fully human and fully God? Mystification. How much of our daily lives should be spent concentrating on God? Mystification. This is not a bad thing, for there are things we don’t know how to answer; but it does seem to be the ready-made answer for too many questions.

I submit mystification is the religious form of repression.

Just like with repression, mystification forces us to become trained in denial and deception. A repressed thought is one that never gets attention. It gets denied and over time sits idle in our conscious and ultimately affects our interaction with our own mind and our participation in the world. This is the exact same for our faith. When we leave troubling ideas and confused opinions idle in our theology (not that they must be answered but that they are never thought about), then it affects how we live and be in the world.

Why do you believe what you believe? Is it because you have always believed it and you know no other way? Or, do you hold value to your beliefs because you have been told what to believe? What I am challenging is that believing without thinking critically is mystification.

I believe we can predict that our society is making mystification a way of life. We deny the poor by not thinking about them. We deny the disenfranchised by avoiding them. Never being a part of the solution ultimately makes us part of the problem. In short, our faith is becoming a response to mystification rather than action. We think God is in control therefore I am allowed to do nothing.

Mystification is not bad. I am submitting it is being overused for working out our salvation with fear and trembling. There are things we can’t comprehend: Why does God love us? What does unconditional love look like? Why did Jesus have to die if he were already God? Why do bad things happen to good people? But there are things we can think about. How can I better support the poor, needy, disenfranchised in the world? Who is Jesus for me? What has Jesus done in my life?

The way to not fall into the trap of over mystifying our faith is by realizing what the Catholics refer to as the “Preferential Option for the Poor.” It says you will not know the truth of the gospel for yourself until you recognize love, learn to forgive, and embrace the poor part of your self. It is time for us to see ourselves as poor and in need of Christ. It is time to learn to love ourselves in the name of Christ. It is time for us to forgive ourselves for Christ’s sake. When we do this, when we acknowledge our dependency on God’s grace, then we will begin to see the poor, the outcast, and the disenfranchised are really us. When we see ourselves as dependent upon God’s grace, then we will stop unknowingly carrying an embedded theology that has never been worked through, and we will start taking our faith seriously by probing the mysticism and realizing the unanswerable questions are actually worth thinking about.

Embrace your mysticism – don’t let it sit idle.

Comments

Jamie said…
I think you're so right. There is so much that we will never truly understand about God. He is completely incomprehensible, but that should be all the more reason to pursue knowing Him and loving others. If we use it as an excuse to become complacent then maybe we don't really understand the gospel and our need for it.
March 22, 2009 at 1:10 AM
Barrett Owen said…
Thanks Jamie, I appreciate your insight and wisdom. Complacency does seem rather awful.
March 22, 2009 at 10:26 PM
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