Generally, faith-based religion defends the goodness of the divine, while religion that is centered on reverence is not afraid to face the idea that the divine may seem evil in human terms. (Paul Woodruff, Reverence, 69)
That parenthetical comment sure got my attention.
I have been thinking a great deal lately about reverence. It started because of the several weeks I spent leading a series of Bible studies on the book of Ecclesiastes. I was most fortunate to study Ecclesiastes at Union Theological Seminary with William Brown who is one of if not the top Ecclesiastes scholars in the nation. The class was genuinely inspiring. Since then I have looked for opportunities to share with others what I am convinced is the surprising good news of Ecclesiastes.
Ecclesiastes challenges conventional wisdom and strongly denies that wisdom money or even righteousness cannot guarantee security in life. Instead it advocates a new(?) set of virtues – rather than moral rules and laws. There are several but as I told the Sunday evening crowd if you remember nothing from this series please remember these two things: joy and reverence. Joy and reverence are the two principle virtues which Ecclesiastes offers.
This post is not about Ecclesiastes or even joy so let me focus on reverence. Several times Ecclesiastes aka Qohelet advocates awe or fear of God (Hebrew yir’at ‘elohi(y)m) in Eccl 3:11-15; 5:7; 7:15-18; 8:10-13; 12:13-14. This is one of those times where translation is an issue. Hebrew y-r-’ normally means fear generally in the sense of be afraid. But Ecclesiastes is not saying be afraid of God so much as something else. Which is why some English translations render y-r-’ in these texts as awe or reverence. Granted even reverence the translation I prefer sounds a little weak compared to what Ecclesiastes seems to have in mind.
Brown explains:
To fear God is to embrace one’s creaturely status as well as acknowledge the impenetrably enduring work of God, who freely extends the blessings of life to finite, ephemeral beings.
The stand in awe before the God of mystery is to position one’s character in relation to God, as opposed to defining correct behavior that presumes the ways of God…
Not only does reverence for God correct the rigid logic and extremes of the individual enterprise, it constitutes the source from which all virtue and right conduct are to flow. Qohelet has given godly reverence its orthodox due without reducing it to primitive terror, on the one hand, or human pretense, on the other. (William Brown, Character in Crisis: A Fresh Approach to Wisdom Literature in the Old Testament, 145, 146)
Or as I said to the Sunday evening crowd:
God is God. And we are not. Respect that. Accept that. Live that.
One can see how the primordial sin in Genesis 3 was to a large extent a failure of reverence in this sense. The first human beings were not content to be like-God but not-God. They wanted to be equal-to-God.
I also asked to what extent reverence in this sense is another word for faith in the sense of radical trust or trusting commitment. Over the last several months I have at times preached Pauline texts where I began to wonder how much Paul has this in mind when he talks about Christ both as object(?) of faith(?) and Christ as exemplar of faith. How much is reverence the relatively unacknowledged theme that holds together his theological reflections?
In other words we think Paul is talking about faith – in what sense? one might ask – when perhaps he is talking about reverence in a robust sense similar to what Ecclesiastes has in mind.
Okay. With me so far? Joy and reverence in Ecclesiastes. Reverence as standing in awe before the God of mystery. And radical trust in and commitment to this God of mystery as perhaps a result? consequence? aspect? of this reverence. Which may be what Paul has in mind by faith.
At this point let me pause and confess that these are raw thoughts. Hypothesis stage. I do not have a theory yet. Still trying to understand the concepts and make the appropriate connections. But bear with me.
Naturally because of this emphasis on reverence in the book of Ecclesiastes – in this case reverence toward the God of mystery whose actions cannot be understood or changed – I wanted to re-read Reverence by Paul Woodruff. One of the most important books I have read in the last ten years. Mind you Woodruff argues strongly that reverence properly understood is not found exclusively in monotheistic religions. Reverence – bare reverence as he puts it – does not require religious belief. The opening chapter provides a good description of what Woodruff has in mind:
Reverence begins in a deep understanding of human limitations; from this grows the capacity to be in awe of whatever we believe lies outside our control – God, truth, justice, nature, even death. That capacity for awe, as it grows, brings with it the capacity for respecting fellow human beings, flaws and all. This in turn fosters the ability to be ashed when we show moral flaws exceeding the normal human allotment. (Reverence,3)
This is not only compatible with the understanding of reverence (yir’a(h)) that we find in Ecclesiastes it is strongly similar. Because Ecclesiastes emphasizes that human beings are finite. God and death – and arguably truth and justice as well – are outside our control. Which is why Ecclesiastes warns against the arrogance and presumption involved when we try to be super-rich super-wise or super-righteous. Although Ecclesiastes makes it clear that the object of our reverence is specifically God.
But in the course of describing bare reverence Woodruff makes some odd comments:
Some religions place a high value on reverence, and some do not. Because reverence is not the same thing as faith, faith-centered religion may place a low value on reverence, exactly as some faith-centered religion places a relatively low value on justice. (66)
Reverence is not faith. And faith-centered religion might be short on reverence. Is Christianity faith-centered? Is Christianity therefore low on reverence? What on earth does Professor Woodruff mean by faith in this context?
Later Woodruff offers the comment I cite at the beginning of this post – the distinction between faith-based religion and reverence-centered religion. But what does he mean? I asked him and he graciously provided this answer:
If I ever revise the book for a second edition, I will change that phrase.
I think what I meant, over ten years back, when I wrote the book, was to pick out religions that defined themselves through a specific verbal creed specifying required beliefs. But many people have pointed out to me that “faith” is the wrong word for that–or, rather, a much richer and better word for a trusting commitment, which is so often deeply reverent.
I am sorry I put this so badly, and I am no longer sure I had a good idea there at all.
(With apologies for quoting him publicly without permission.)
Okay this helps. I should have remembered also where he explained:
Faith is not a virtue; it is either a specific creed or a specific relationship between a believer and God. (64)
Perhaps a better word for what he means is belief. So one distinguishes between belief-centered religion and reverence-centered religion.
So still we might ask which is Christianity?
Let us for the sake of argument hypothesize (1) that Christianity normally understands itself as a faith-based or faith-centered religion. We talk about believing in Jesus. Good readers might object “Now hang on a second there bud. Almost no evangelical Christian really thinks it is as simple as mental assent to certain beliefs. This is faith in the sense of trusting in what God has done for us (by trusting) in Christ”. So I might ask if Christianity normally understands itself as a sort of hybrid belief- and trust-based religion.
So where is reverence?
Think about how Protestant and Catholic Christianity typically does theology as well as prayer worship and mission. How much do these things exhibit reverence? In the sense that Ecclesiastes advocates. Perhaps also/even in the sense Woodruff describes.
Like I said raw half-baked thoughts. Still working on them. But does Woodruff make a valid distinction between belief/faith-centered religion and reverence-centered religion? And whether he does or not to what extent is Christianity based on reverence?
