Religious
people, especially fundamentalist Christians, believe that, in order to know
God, you have to know all about him.
You have to have your doctrines all figured out. To them, it is utterly
impossible to know God if you do not even know whether there is a God.
Furthermore, they insist that, in order to love other people, you have to have
your doctrines all figured out. One can, therefore, summarize conservative
Christian belief as “He who knows about God is born of God and loves.”
But
the Gospel of John says exactly the
opposite. It says, “He who loves is born of God and knows God.”
Fundamentalist Christians have it exactly backwards, even according to their
own Bible.
I
love, therefore I know God (not necessarily about
God). When I say I love, I mean that I care about other people, as individuals
and as a world. I love God’s creation, even though I believe it was not
supernaturally created; I love it because it keeps us all alive, and I love it
for its own sake. Of course, I do other things besides loving. Sometimes I
hate. Sometimes I lust. Sometimes I feel infatuated, although as I get older
this is rare and mild. I am sometimes greedy. But these things do not negate
the fact that I love. How about the rest of you? You probably do also.
One
way of showing love is to encourage others. I spend a lot of time encouraging
my students. I help them achieve their goals, and I also help to open their
eyes to the wonders of the world and of creativity. I encourage my colleagues
(usually). And I appreciate the encouragement of others.
Back
in 1992, I was getting fired from a faculty position, by a process that I
believed was unfair and inaccurate. It was a major disruption in my life at the
time, although I am glad that I am no longer at that college. (It was a
Christian college that considered Republican faith to be Christian faith.) I
sought out a professor at a nearby major university. I am not sure how I chose
him, but he was active in the American Association of University Professors, the
professorial union. (Christian colleges generally do not have, or even allow,
professors to band together for mutual benefit.) He was a busy man, in a field
quite unrelated to mine. But he took the time to write a thoughtful,
information-filled letter to the president of the college I was leaving,
explaining that he had no personal connection to me but that he believed the
process of my termination was unfair. (The college administration ignored him.)
I
had forgotten all about this letter until, in the process of clearing out old
boxes, I found it. This encouragement was powerfully important to me at that
time. Although I had forgotten about it, it must have been one of the
influences that turned me from a young professor who worried mostly about his own
advancement into a mature professor who, as this man did, encourages and
defends others.
By
encouraging others, you can turn them into encouragers. He who loves knows God,
if there is one.
