One of the greatest gifts that progressive Christianity has given me is the gift of mystery. I grew up in a church tradition that placed great emphasis on certainty, so I am grateful to now be able to affirm that I am a person of faith and that the answer to many religious and spiritual questions is “I don’t know.” Unwavering intellectual assent to a set of black-and-white dogmas is no longer the touchstone of my faith. I no longer spend my days worrying about my questions or feeling like I’ve failed Christianity because I don’t have a concise, elegant answer to every theological conundrum. The spiritual life I’m embracing these days is much larger, more nuanced, and more three-dimensional than anything I once knew.
And I find myself surprised, and even a little disturbed, to find myself asking questions about the progressive Christianity I have wholeheartedly embraced: “Is there such thing as too much mystery?” Or, more provocatively, “Have I reached the point in my faith life where I am using mystery as an excuse?” “Am I refusing to commit, engage, or stand up for open and vulnerable witness in the name of Jesus?” “Is it possible to turn mystery into a shield of self-defense so that I don’t have to stand up with conviction and urgency in a world that needs to know God’s healing love?”
These questions have been on my mind for some time. I think about them whenever I see divisive, fear-based, racist, sexist, nationalistic Christianity in the media. Where is the passionate progressive response? Where is the bold expression of an alternative Christianity? One that rejects polite equivocation and insists on inclusion, self-sacrificial love, and restorative justice?
I think about the limits of mystery whenever I hear fellow believers in church settings move away from a deep commitment to Scripture, church tradition, and doctrine. It is as if the mystery of our faith provides the perfect justification for leaving the difficult questions and conversations to seminary scholars. If we can’t know for sure either way, why bother digging?
I grieve the mystery of when church leaders shy away from inviting their parishioners to embrace the vows of baptism. When the ministry becomes more focused on making everyone happy than on sharpening iron with iron. When the invitation loses its beautiful and necessary sharpness, the sharpness that would set us on the path of discipleship and lead us to spiritual growth.
I shrink back when mystery keeps me from sharing my faith story with others, as if evangelism requires first certainty, as if the world isn’t actually yearning to encounter a God strong and generous enough to exist in the midst of ambiguity, contradiction, and paradox, as if talking about a God who loves me and loves my questions is always automatically an uncomfortable thing to do.
And finally, I worry about mystery, given the privileged position I inhabit as a middle-class, comfortably housed, well-educated American. Am I refraining from taking a stand because I can afford it? Because the personal stakes are too small? If so, who is hurt by my unwillingness to embrace mystery but commit to knowledge that transcends it? Who suffers from my reluctance to embrace capital?T What is the truth worth living for and dying for?
Yes, our Scriptures emphasize the importance of mystery in the life of faith. The author of First Timothy asserts that “great is the mystery of our religion” (3:16). Paul describes “mysteries that have been hidden for long” (Romans 16:25). Jesus himself spoke of “the mysteries of the kingdom of the heavens” (Matthew 13:11). Similarly, our 2000-year-old tradition rightly emphasizes the role of mystery in the Christian life. We are blessed to have a spiritual vocabulary that includes such treasures as: Cloud of ignorance.
But we are also heirs of revealed truth; heirs of gracious disclosure; heirs of God’s astonishing willingness to take on human form so that we might know some of his vast and mysterious nature. In the Gospels, Jesus does not hesitate to affirm; he makes specific claims about what is good and just and loving, and he tells his disciples to go into the whole world and do the same. Jesus was killed, not because he remained politely silent in the face of mystery, but because he would not weaken the belief.
Similarly, when our spiritual forefathers in the New Testament speak of mystery, it is never an excuse to run away from deep engagement or risky expression. In fact, it is the exact opposite. The presence of mystery is always an invitation to approach, to observe, to question. Our response to mystery should be one of active participation and excavation. It should be an agonizing hunger for life-changing discovery.
The invitation embedded in the mystery is an invitation to be curious and stay curious, and the gift embedded in the mystery is the gift of surprise. Surprise may lead us to respect, and then love, and then proclamation.
In his profound book New seeds of thoughtThomas Merton wrote that to find love, we must “enter the sanctuary where love is hidden, which is the mystery of God.” In other words, mystery can elicit a divine response from us if we are willing to be invited. We are always invited to enter that holy sanctuary and look around us. We are always invited to pursue the One who pursues us, because the end is not ignorance. The end is communion. The end is love.
The mystery of our faith is great. Let us delve into it..
