With election day looming closer it seems certain that Donald Trump will be defeated in this election. Those who have pledged blind allegiance to the candidate are vowing to disrupt government even to the point of dismantling the government. The more radical declare an armed revolution, while others opt for a revolution of civil disobedience and noncompliance to all three branches of government.
One could look upon this group of Trump devotees as an angry group of uneducated, white people afraid of losing what is left of their white privilege to people of color. While it is a fact that among them are white racists, brigands, and vigilantes, to castigate the entirety of these devotees as such is as wrong as associating all Latinos with members of the drug cartels, all African Americans with gangbangers, and all Muslims with terrorists. Trump has played upon the fears, real or imagined of this white demographic, and while some have been duped and misled by his rhetoric, they are not all dopes.
If this demographic is guilty of anything, it is the failure to think and to act critically. Instead of educating themselves about the issues, about the candidates, and doing the critical reading and listening that is a requirement of citizens of a democracy, they have abrogated their right and obligation to be educated and placed it on other people and political pundits, largely untrustworthy. This is the easy and painless way to go. To think and to act critically at elections takes a lot of work. To not do so is to be lazy and irresponsible.
The same can be said about how we live our faith life. As people of faith, we are called to think and to act critically on our faith. To think and act critically is not defined as one “criticizing” or “acting in opposition” to our faith. It is to come to know the “why” of our faith. It is coming to know why Jesus is central to everything we believe. It is coming to know why we gather on the Lord’s Day to celebrate the Holy Eucharist. It is coming to know why and what the Church teaches in regard to doctrine and a moral way of life.
Thinking and acting critically on our faith is not blindly following rules and regulations sent down from on high by a hierarchical clergy. It is not living with our “eyes wide shut.” Thinking and acting on our faith requires us to know the why of those rules and regulations and when it might be important to our faith to be at a place in opposition to them. The Church’s teaching of the primacy of conscience is based upon the bedrock of thinking and acting critically on our faith. This is what is meant to have an “informed conscience.”
Stagnancy and complacency are not descriptive adjectives of an active life of faith. A faith that is thought about and acted upon critically can be and is often marked by uncertainty, discomfort, inconvenience, and a restlessness that continually prompts us to do something about it. In our wrestling with our faith and in our restlessness, we find ourselves like Jacob wrestling with the angel of God, and come to a deeper knowledge and trust of the God who is our beginning and our end.
Thinking and acting critically on our faith ultimately leads us to only one certainty in life, and that is God. As the Psalmist writes in Psalm 139,
“LORD, you have probed me, you know me:
you know when I sit and stand,
you understand my thoughts from afar.
You sift through my travels and my rest;
with all my ways you are familiar.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
LORD, you know it all.
Behind and before you encircle me
and rest your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
far too lofty for me to reach.
Where can I go from your spirit?
From your presence, where can I flee?
If I ascend to the heavens, you are there;
if I lie down in Sheol, there you are.
If I take the wings of dawn–
and dwell beyond the sea,
Even there your hand guides me,
your right hand holds me fast. (Ps 139: 1b-10. NAB)
