As I write this, Lent is quickly drawing to a close in churches that continue to practice the tradition. Maybe it was just my family, but growing up Episcopalian, Lent was never taken as seriously as it should have been. A bit of ash on your forehead one Wednesday, followed by a vague promise to give up smoking, swearing, or some other offense. In some cases, one might forego Hershey Bars or something for those 40 days as an act of self-denial. At one point, I remember churches announcing that the focus of Lent should no longer be on giving something up but rather embracing a positive habit or lifestyle change.
In the faith in which I settled, the season is often referred to as a “Lenten Journey.” Yes, fasting and self-denial are components of the season, but the idea is that one should finish the journey as a different person than the one who started it. It is an interesting criticism of religion that it may be too focused on the end goal, not the process. Faith should be a journey. With that in mind, the concept of the Journey may be a more apropos approach to reading Ross Douthat’s latest offering, “Believe: Why Everyone Should be Religious.” (Zondervan, 240 pages)
In this outing, Douthat begins with the principle commonly known as intelligent design: the idea that there is, indeed, a creator of the universe whose handiwork is on full display for all to see. Douthat also posits that the universe has been created in such a way as to support life, in this case, life on Earth. He also spends time exploring mystical experiences and the potential for the miraculous, in the same vein as Rod Dreher’s “Living in Wonder,” including touching on the potential impacts of AI (and some of its dissimilarities to the human mind) and the UFO/UAP phenomenon.
That ground has been covered before, and several reviewers have referred to “Believe” as a reboot of Pascal’s famous wager. Douthat makes the case for the idea. However, he also observes that miracles and moments of spiritual clarity or connection can be fleeting.
With a brief nod to “The Sopranos,” he notes that many people will come back down to earth. You may see an icon weep, commune with aliens from an extraterrestrial spacecraft, experience miraculous healing at a Pentecostal revival, or open doors to higher dimensions of thought with psychedelics. However, at some point, you need to go back to work, pay the electric bill, and take the trash to the curb. The enchantment eventually wears off, and not everyone gets a miracle or an answered prayer. Not everyone necessarily wants a miracle.
For this reviewer, who underwent years of religious education and has heard all of the reasons for and against belief (and had one rather unremarkable and somewhat pedantic UFO sighting), Douthat’s book really finds its feet in the latter chapters. If one is convinced that there is a connection to be had with the divine or is at least curious about the possibility, one must find one’s spiritual home. It is in the later sections of the book that Douthat makes the case for exploring organized religion.
In the current day and age, organized religion is staggering a bit on some fronts while flourishing in other venues. Be that as it may, I have known people who have cobbled together their own version of faith, be it communing with nature from the boat with a beer in their hand to an amalgam of time-honored pagan traditions mixed together and seasoned to taste, to Wiccans who create their own set of rituals and rubrics.
While I did not keep up with the Wiccans, those who felt they experienced God from their lawn chair next to their RV usually were more interested in recreation than faith. The people I knew who created a casserole of suspected Druidic traditions, Odin worship, and a few Hindu rituals thrown in for good measure were all too often left unfulfilled and became unmoored from whatever faith (or faiths) they had originally embraced.
Citing his parents, who joined the health-food movement decades before it became popular (my mother did the same and vainly tried to convince me that a whole-wheat sprout sandwich was just as tasty as a cheeseburger; it was not), Douthat recalls as a child visiting a bookstore attached to one of those restaurants. The bookstore fascinated him since it had collections of books from various faiths that one could peruse and subsequently purchase. Douthat draws the comparison of that bookstore to the array of faiths that confront the seeker today. Douthat suggests finding one of those religions, even if it is not necessarily the one inherited from one’s parents or one that resonates with the seeker on all points of faith or morality. It is in the description of that process and the reasons for settling on an established faith, rather than drafting one from scratch, that “Believe” really begins to shine and makes it worth a read, particularly in this current season.
Some will find fault with Douthat’s argument under the auspices that a brand of Christianity, Islam, or other faith is the “true” one and that once that brand has been located, one need look no further. But as someone who began life as an Episcopalian, flirted with Buddhism, and ventured into Evangelical Christianity before finally finding a home in Greek Orthodoxy, I speak from experience that faith is forged by the journey more than a transitory religious experience. In many aspects, the journey of a non-believer or a seeker should mirror the journey of the Christian who has almost completed the 40 days of Lent.
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