Introduction To Personal Faith Forum
For much of the history of this planet, the majority of humans have assumed that the purpose of religious organizations was to provide intermediaries between the spiritual realm and the material realm.
In the mid-twentieth century, I grew up assuming that clergy had specific types of administrative authority within their respective denominations but that clergy had no more spiritual authority that is available, directly from the creator, to every lay person.
Perhaps my perspective was the result of my parents teaching me that there was a difference between people who were merely “adherents” (followers) of religious organizations as compared to people who were voting members of such organizations and that all of the voting members should participate in selecting the officers. That perspective requires that religious organizations have some other purpose than to provide intermediaries between the spiritual realm and the material realm. A religious organization can be created for philanthropic purposes - to organize and underwrite the costs of hospitals and schools for example - or to emphasize something about the spiritual realm that is perceived as being underemphasized. My parents taught me enough about the origins of several Christian organizations that it was easy for me to think of those organizations in those terms.
This view of church organization is similar to the view of civil government expressed in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
In the twenty-first century, some people are lamenting the decline in attendance at formal and semi-formal worship services. Perhaps the reason I’m not as concerned about that is that I see some evidence that a decline in faith in church organizations is accompanied by an increase in personal faith. Some people who suppose that our planet was once better than it is or that it has the potential of being better than it is. Some such people (purveyors of hope) attribute an idyllic past and an idyllic future to a power we cannot observe with our natural senses or measure with scientific instruments but that we nevertheless consider to exist in another dimension and to be influential in the affairs of humans on Earth.
Please understand. I’m not opposed to the existence of religious organizations. I recommend that full-time clergy be supported by a tithe of our increase. What I do oppose is the doctrine that clergy need to interpret scripture for the laity or that faith should be based on traditions or creeds.
The purpose of Personal Faith Forum is to encourage the kind of personal faith that would exist even if a religious organization - or all religious organizations - were to cease to exist. Faith is the evidence of things not seen. Faith in a religious organization doesn't even qualify as faith by that definition. Personal faith is the domain of people who read for ourselves, study for ourselves and think for ourselves - which Personal Faith Forum is intended to encourage.
Roger Metzger