The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything by James Martin Read Free Book Online

religious life—whether as a Jesuit, Franciscan, Cistercian or Carthusian—is the willingness to accept life in a community in which everybody is more or less imperfect.” That holds for any religious organization.
    This is not to excuse all the problems, imperfections, and even sinfulness of religious organizations. Rather, it is a realistic admission that as long as we’re human, we will be imperfect. It’s also a reminder that for those on the path of independence—believers who have left organized religion—the search for a perfect religious community may be one without end.
    The Path of Disbelief
    Those traveling along the path of disbelief not only find that organized religion holds no appeal (even if they sometimes find its services and rituals comforting), but have also arrived at an intellectual conclusion that God may not, does not, or cannot exist. Often they seek proof for God’s existence, and finding none, or encountering intense suffering, they reject the theistic worldview completely.
    The cardinal benefit of this group is that they take none of the bland reassurances of religion for granted. Sometimes they have thought more deeply about God and religion than some believers have. Likewise, sometimes the most selfless people in our world are atheists or agnostics. Some of the hardest working aid workers I met in my time working with refugees in East Africa were nonbelievers. The “secular saint” is real.
    They also have a knack for detecting hypocrisy, cant, or lazy answers: a religious-baloney detector. Tell a person in this group that suffering is part of God’s mysterious plan and needs to be accepted unquestioningly, and he will rightly challenge you to explain yourself. One of my college friends practices his atheism religiously; his questions have kept me on my toes for the last thirty years. Try telling him about “God’s will,” and you will find yourself on the receiving end of a pointed lecture on personal responsibility.
    The main danger for this group is that they sometimes expect God’s presence to be proven solely in an intellectual way. When something profound happens in their emotional lives, something that touches them deeply, they reject the possibility that it could be a sign of God’s activity. Their intellect may become a wall that closes off their hearts to experiences of God’s presence. They may also be unwilling to attribute to God anything that the believer might see as an obvious example of God’s presence.
    It’s like the story of the atheist caught in a flood. The fellow figures that the flood threatening his house is the chance to prove conclusively whether God exists. So he says to himself, If there is a God, I will ask him for help, and he will save me . When he hears a warning on the radio advising listeners to move to higher ground, he ignores it. If there is a God, he will save me, he thinks. Next, a firefighter knocks on his door to warn him to evacuate. “If there is a God, he will save me,” he says to the firefighter. When the floodwaters rise, the man climbs to the second floor. The coast guard boat motors by his window and offers him rescue. “If there is a God, he will save me,” he says and refuses help from the coast guard.
    Finally, he ends up on the roof, with the waters rising around him. A police helicopter hovers over the house and drops a rope to climb. “If there is a God, he will save me!” he shouts over the roar of the helicopter’s blades.
    Suddenly a giant wave sweeps over him, and the man drowns and finds himself in heaven. When God comes to welcome him, the atheist is first surprised. And then furious. “Why didn’t you save me?” he asks.
    “What do you mean?” says God. “I sent the firefighter, the coast guard, and the police officer, and you still wouldn’t listen!”
    The Path of Return
    This path gets more crowded every year. People in this group typically begin life in a religious family but drift away from their