Shaun Kenney | Politics and Religion in Virginia's Public Square


Tuesday, August 02, 2005 Faith and Ideology This is a particularly good read: Our Christian faith is not an ideology, but a set of relationships -- primarily and most specifically our relationship with God through Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. That primary relationship inevitably permeates and shapes our other relationships. The fulfillment of our faith is found in the fulfillment of those relationships. This is the life of love. We could think of ideology as any more or less coherent system of ideas whose purpose is to shape the world of people, events and things in a particular way. Ideologies, by their very nature, tend to preempt reality. They operate on the basis of a pre-definition of the way things ought to be. In this sense ideologies are always idealizations. Ideologies stand or fall on the strengths of their human resources and arguments and perhaps the accidents of history. Ideologies tend to be closed and self-centred. Too often ideologies give birth to violence, perhaps because they become the servants of human ego rather than reality. An ideologue, for example, would never be able to accept Gamaliel?s principle as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles (Cf Acts 5:34-39). Ideologies tend to obscure the deepest hungers of the human heart and the signposts of what is real, because they (i.e. the ideologies) have "the answers". Ideologies do not believe in grace or gift since they believe the world is divided into two types -- masters and victims, winners and losers. Ideologies imprison people. Many on the left (secularists mostly) would criticize the Christian faith as the ideolouges. Too rigid, too demanding, too concerned with order and power. Perhaps. But when you don't have faith, what else do you have but ideology? One could point just as easily towards leftist or statist organizations and ideas that demand adherence rather than seek out understanding. This idea of faith seeking understanding is what separates Christianity from ideology. Just a thought. posted by Shaun Kenney \| 8/02/2005 02:55:00 PM \| 0 comments 0 Comments: Post a Comment Home
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