Summary
Title: Things Seen and Unseen: A Year Lived in Faith
Author: Nora Gallagher
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0679775498
Pro:
• Very personalized account of larger challenges facing American churches
Con:
• Weak, unconvincing responses to the challenges of skepticism and doubt
Description:
• A woman’s story about a year in the life of her church and religious community
• Describes the conflicts and controversies affecting her church
• Explores her own doubts and struggles with her faith
Book Review
In her book, Gallagher describes her experiences during a year of serving in vestry of the Santa Barbara Trinity Episcopal Church. There are a number of interesting and difficult issues which faced her church, and it is instructive to see how the different factions lined up in the attempts to solve the problems.
One difficulty was the continued existence of a soup kitchen — the presence of homeless and addicts in the neighborhood created conflict between the soup kitchen and other neighborhood residents. Another was the possibility of having a gay priest: some in the church administration were in favor, but there were serious concerns about how many in the congregation would react.
I enjoyed reading about this — I am familiar with the larger church politics which have occurred over the past couple of years, but it's refreshing to see how this is dealt with on the level of an individual congregation.
Doubt, Evil & Disbelief
Of perhaps more interest to atheists is how Gallagher deals with doubt, evil and nonbelief. Her husband is a nonbeliever of some sort, but I have no idea if he considers himself an atheist as she never mentions the word. I'd have liked to read more about how she, a devout Christian, manages her marriage with a skeptical nonbeliever, but she rarely brings it up.
Almost always, disagreements on religion occur in the context of her doubts — and it's nice to read that she admits to doubts, although her resolution of doubt is neither novel nor convincing. She considers doubt to be good and something which guards against fanaticism. I agree with her on that and would like to see more believers openly raise doubts about their faith. However, Gallagher also regards doubt as a "handmaiden" to faith, thus granting irrational belief primacy over rational questioning.
She considers it "so easy" to doubt like her husband (the nonbeliever) does, but I disagree. It's very easy to accept a faith which authorities and friends tell you is right. It's easy to give in to the beliefs which you want to be true and to organize your life around wishful thinking. More difficult is thinking for yourself, striking out and coming to your own, independent conclusions.
Accepting that the universe is not what you might want it to be and that it is up to you to live in it anyway isn't cynicism and it isn't simple, but it's what humanists and atheists do every day. Gallagher freely admits that her acceptance of Christianity over other religions is based at least in part on the fact that she likes the idea of the Incarnation and wants to believe in a god which intervenes. She does not, however, explain why this god does not intervene to save people from hurricanes and children from molesters, nor does she examine whether it's rational and acceptable to believe in something simply because the story is "compelling" and matches up with preconceived wishes.
