Читать книгу Faithlore - John Fulling Crosby - Страница 7

Never would I have dreamed, kneeling before fifteen or so Presbyterian ministers in June of 1956 at my ordination as they laid their hands on my head, that one day I would rise up and claim that the belief system in which I was being ordained was lore. “Faithlore,” as a play on the word “folklore,” is still lore. Usually, but not always, it is not factual truth, nor is it usually connected in any manner with so-called empirical truth. Whether it is emotional or spiritual truth depends on the frame of mind of the believer.

Lore is based on myth. Myth is often based on wishful thinking. I grew up thinking this way (unconsciously) all throughout my philosophy major at Denison University and theological degree at Princeton Theological Seminary—and then on into eleven years as a minister and pastor. In the tenth year, my wishful thinking came crashing down into a swamp of useless pretense.4 Nevertheless, in my final year of ministry, Jesus still remained somewhat of an exemplar to me.

I concluded that Jesus’ god was nothing more than the creation or invention of Jesus’ own mind. Jesus’ own faith was lore. And if lore was an invention of Jesus’ mind, I certainly could now accept that I had allowed Jesus’ lore to become my lore. Lore was an invention of my creative sapiens brain, entirely capable of dominating my thought.

The intervening fifty years as a university professor and marriage/family therapist have been good to me, and I have been fortunate to grow old along with my wife and our three sons. Nevertheless, the former life never completely left me, inasmuch as I did not have the intellect to deal with my apostasy or my loss of faith. In short, I was never successful in bringing closure to my earlier life. That is, until I realized that my brain was the product of acquired intellectual acumen giving rise to my imagination. I created this god. I invented it. I worked on it until I was sure I had it right! I had long accepted this Kerygma, this Christian belief system, as myth, but never had I clearly seen the interaction of myth with my creative imagination. It all seems so simple now! I simply failed to see how much of my original faith was anchored in the lore of how I wanted reality to be.

In these pages, I have shared how my personal faithlore and the idea of Jesus being an exemplar came about. I concluded that faithlore was an invention of my imagination, perhaps a figment! Albert Schweitzer helped me. So did David Friedrich Strauss, Bart Ehrman, David Eagleman, Yuval Harari, Andrew Newberg, Ernst von Glassersfeld, and Paul Watzlawick. But finally, I take responsibility for my faithloric conclusion.

4. Crosby, Aftermath; see also Crosby, Flipside of Godspeak.