“Functional” Faith
Al Mohler, here, makes an interesting observation concerning these recent words of a presidential candidate:
It’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
The candidate has come under fire for this comment, but Mohler points out the real issue with what was said…
My interest is theological, for Sen. Obama has given us a near-perfect expression of a functional view of religious belief. In other words, Sen. Obama said that “religion” is a coping mechanism for hard times — lumping religion with other issues his audience members were presumably to find strange and alien.
A functional view of belief assumes or “brackets” the question of whether the beliefs are true. One who holds to a purely functionalist view of religious conviction is not concerned with the truthfulness of these beliefs, but only with the effects the beliefs have on the believer, both privately and in social contexts.
Mohler rightly observes that this functional view of faith is not a phenomenon found only among liberals. Conservatives have often taken such a view as well. Americans are encouraged to have faith in anything as long as it brings them meaning and purpose. Mohler admonishes Christians to…
… learn to detect a functional account of religious belief when listening to public figures speak. Liberals tend to speak in functional terms of meaning and purpose. Conservatives tend to speak functionally in terms of social order, stability, and morality.
None of these is a substitute for authentic Christianity — a faith that is predicated on being true — not merely meaningful or helpful.
For the Christian, it is not faith which saves a person. It is the object of that faith, the God of Scripture.