To sweeten poisoned wells

‘Faith’, as we now use the word, can sound obsolescent, carry overtones of credulity, even hint at a flight from hard science. After all, why rely on faith when knowledge is more reliable?

In English ‘faith’ lacks a corresponding verb, so ‘believe’ serves as a substitute. The word that started out promisingly: ‘believe in’ once meant ‘give my heart to’. As recently as the 1960s we believed in idealistic causes. But in the 1990s ‘belief’ sounds over- intellectual, fanciful or just plain thin. Do you believe in fairies? Then do you believe in God?

This devaluation of ‘faith’ is more than a linguistic curiosity. History may judge it a cultural symptom. Excessive emphasis on the individual can render the web of human relationships almost invisible. And the absence of ‘faith’ from our scale of values is corrosive of the whole inter-human fabric. Faith in others is the stuff of the human web. Its other name is ‘confidence’, literally ‘together-faith’.

Without true believers, people whose word is their guarantee, all human transactions are in danger of collapse. Sign an agreement to end an injustice, and without faith the agreement is flimsier than the paper it is written on. Moreover, unless we are surrounded by people who have faith in our potential and integrity - our good faith - none of us flourishes. Ironically, loss of confidence is felt publicly first in that icon of individualism, the market economy. Consumer confidence is a key indicator to economic growth. Yet the underbelly of business, the kind of competition that rejects the weak and wounds all but the toughest, is too rarely challenged.

Bosnia and Somalia show what occurs when faith is betrayed too often.

Faithful servants of corporations can find themselves unemployed and unemployable at a moment’s notice. Relationships that tempered the toughness of the workplace through weeks and years are brushed aside. The result is wariness, distrust and cynicism among people who feel their faith betrayed.

Faith’s important opposites, then, are not scepticism or scientific realism, but bad faith and betrayal. It was our proneness to tolerate them which troubled Jesus most, along with sleight-of-hand in justifying this routine rejection of others.

The consequences when bad faith are escalating denials of our common brotherhood and sisterhood, now known as ‘human rights violations’. Bosnia and Somalia show what occurs when faith is betrayed too often. The attempted genocide in Rwanda was a disaster of immense proportions, not least because neighbourly trust again proved so fragile against manipulative propaganda.

Many events that corrode good faith go unreported. Most media outlets are owned in the First World, so the treachery of the great powers is scrutinised less closely than Third World excesses - even when the former contribute notably to the latter.

From those who prove faithful friends we draw our strength to take risks- leaps of faith. Faith has in fact two wings-fidelity and daring-and the two are intimately linked.

Promises signed by major powers in a moment of amity often prove ‘inconvenient’ later. Efforts at promoting socially just living conditions falter when donor countries cry foul when they discover a speck in the recipient country’s eye - and fail to notice the plank in their own. Africa continues to be overburdened by debt and a net exporter of capital. This is not only unjust, but an ongoing breach of faith. Unfortunately the task of restoring faith is a long and costly business. In the Balkans the memories of treachery make lasting peace a centuries-long project. After Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima, the Unites States and Japan will be wary of one another for centuries. And what is the real legacy of the Gulf War?

Fortunately we have thousands of witnesses to faith to teach us. There are many who believe in the people around them with herioc faithfulness. From those who prove faithful friends we draw our strength to take risks- leaps of faith. Faith has in fact two wings-fidelity and daring-and the two are intimately linked.

Uniya’s effort to tell the true story about refugees, about the homeless, about the mentally ill and others is at best an act of solidarity, keeping faith with people on the margins. Jesus chose stories as a mark of his own solidarity with the poor. His stories had the power to reinstate individuals and groups with little expectation of such magnanimity.

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