Religion is a mystery

Religion is a mystery

When I first decided that I would like to join the Unitarian ministry way back in 1985, my son bought me the book ‘’Why I am not a Christian’ by the Philosopher Bertrand Russell.

I did read it and I have to admit that I agreed with much of it - but having said that, it didn’t really make much difference to my thinking.

If you seek tangible proof for the origins of christianity and the existence of God, you will fail every time. How many times have I hear people say faith is liker reality. ‘Look at that table, it stands up on its own so why can’t you accept the reality of God?

Christianity and God are part of a belief system. It is not about proof - or it shouldn’t be! Faith is built on experience and perception and it is all mixed up with myth and legend and history and hearsay. It is true if you believe it to be true.

Now for many people, once they accept that system to be true, then it does indeed become real. It can become concrete and inflexible. We have to accept that is what happens and what is the point of trying to change someone's belief - unless that belief is actually causing harm to other people and the world?

There are times when I hear about the activities or views of some Christian groups and I definitely think that I am not one of them.. Then I hear of other Christian people and what they do and I definitely feel they are the real biscuit - and want to be associated with them.

There seem to be Unchristian Christians, Christian Christians and even Christian non Christians.

Recently, the Unitarian General Assembly e mail messaging service pointed us towards Padiham where the Unitarian chapel is due to be host to the Women's World Day of Prayer service in 2008. The other churches in Padiham have refused to participate because they say, it is a Women's world day of prayer for Trinitarian Christian women only. How sad! I don’t want to be a Christian with them! The Roman Catholics in Padiham are OK though, they are going to take part.


I compare that to the time a couple of weeks ago when I was invited by the Bishop of Bolton to attend his farewell service in Manchester cathedral. It didn’t seem to bother him that I was a Unitarian and during the service there were tributes to his work from members of the Jewish community and the Muslim community - who stood together at the lectern to praise him. The Bishop was referred to as a ‘daybreak man’, one who stood at the dawn of the future and saw the possibilities of the coming day. He had never been a yesterday man. I am happy to be a Christian with him - just as I am happy to do my bit with the charity Christian Aid and their wonderful slogan ‘ We believe in life before death!’

You see there are all sorts of Christians and there are many belief systems within Christianity. It seems very sad that so many can be so caught up in saying that belief in the Trinity is the only gateway to their faith. The Trinitybelief being that God, Jesus as Christ and the Holy Spirit are a single divisible and indivisible entity.

I think it is ironic that we should have become part of this debate and so have become saddled with the name Unitarian. It was a debate in history about belief but I do not think on our part that it is such a big issue now.

It would be better if we were called something else like the ‘Church of the free spirit’ - or the ‘Free faith Church’ - or anything that would release us from this trinitarian - non trinitarian argument. It almost makes it a creed for us that we should not believe in a trinity.

Why shouldn't we be free to ponder it and put it into the search engine of our own spiritual strugggles?

The worst possible thing is to have a belief and then close the mind to absolutely everything else. To be unsympathetic to everyone's else’s beliefs - even to be hostile to the beliefs of others.

Closed minds live in darkness. Closed minds cannot grow stronger in their belief. There used to be old saying that minds were like parachutes - they only function properly when they are open.

We see so much so often of the effects of faith that is living in darkness. Faith that lives in darkness breeds intolerence and fundamentalism. Faith that lives in darkness cannot see the daybreak in anything. It denies the advance of science; it denies the continuing search for truth and the continuing search for wisdom.

Faith that lives in darkness impersonates a God who has no mystery. and a world that has no future and no daybreak.

Wherever does one start with faith and belief? It starts with us as children. We learn about it and because we are children we believe it all. It is only as people grow up that some begin to question what they have been taught to believe.

Maybe they will keep with it, maybe they will throw it all out, maybe they will seek some new truth. I trust that our Unitarian children will have learnt from open minds rather than closed ones and that they will grow up to develop their own personal belief and their own faith.

That is why it is important that children are brought up within a belief system but that they are also brought up to have open minds and to understand that religion is part of the life of every nation and culture on earth. Ours is not exclusive but it is open - and it does take a mature and open mind to grapple with that, I think.

I can only speak from personal experience but to me the search for the truth that makes up my religious belief is based in a mystery.

When we seek for meaning in our lives, when we seek for truth about why things are the way they are; then we engage with the mystery of existence itself.

The mystery is that we know yet we don’t know. That we do feel ourselves as having spiritual part within us that has a connection to divine beings is itself a mystery.

Can you prove it? Not at all! Can you believe it? Certainly! There is a truth within that mystery which we can sometimes put a finger on but mostly we can’t. And when the finger does find a bit of certainty, the shape of the mystery changes and it no longer seems quite the same.

And what do I end up believing? That within that mystery there is something I have faith in. The existence of the God lies within that mystery as does the meaning of the teaching of Jesus; as does the idea of angels and a holy spirit and a trinity in one being.

We are after all each one of us, a mixture of many parts; good and evil, spirit and mammon, love and hate, hope and despair, faith and doubt.

We are a mystery ourselves - especially to ourselves - why we are the way we are? Why we can be weak when we should be strong? Why we can have no confidence in ourselves when actually everyone likes us? All this as well as the mystery of the faith we believe in.

Open minds can look into the darkness of that mystery, contemplate it and seek to find the daybreak of understanding and faith. To discover a spiritual strength and a purpose in life.

The mystical religions are filled with the writings of those who have been into that darkness and embraced the mystery within and found a daybreak and a light that has guided their life from then on.

For me,, I won’t turn anything down. Within the whole mystery of faith lies the shape of God, Jesus, spirit, holiness, sacredness, rituals, world religions, reality, the beautiful earth, the changing world, the perfect flower, the majestic eagle, the minky whale, the beautiful child, and a galaxy travelling through the universe at a million miles a day. - they are all there.

So I try to keep an open mind and I embrace the mystery of my religion which I can’t describe but it fills my life with joy - most of the time.