LIVING YOUR BELIEF AND FOLLOWING YOUR BELIEF
- Nguyen Hoang Duc
- Jun 24
- 4 min read
Updated: Aug 1
Post 24/06/2020
I would like to tell all of you a true story, not to be critical, but rather to demonstrate my perception of reality. This story is about the late father Vu Khoi Phung who was erudite, pious and admirable. I once gave him one of the rarest Asian epic theology books named “Nguoc len cao.” He immersed himself in reading my epic and he told a lot of people that “Speaking of reason, Duc’s theological epic is exceptional; however, when it comes to faith, his epic does not live up to my expectations.” I listened to his remarks very attentively and to be honest, I realized that his comments were rather flawed in terms of aesthetics. Because I believed that there are thousands of people who are more devout than me, for example, fathers, nuns, all the long-standing parishes out there; however, they cannot write epic theology books, because of the sole reason that writing epic theology books requires reasoning instead of just drawing on emotion or faith!
On the only occasion when our pious people gathered after a ceremony, one of them said “Our Vietnamese people are devout but we are just simply following our faiths; meanwhile, Western people, even though they are irreligious, they are living by their faiths. For example, they are always devoted to justice, living by God's guidance while we are just simply chanting, never truly dedicated to justice.”
So what is obeying your faith? It’s just a form of slavery, chanting and going to temples or churches because we are just going through ritual without transforming our mindset and essence. Are we truly religious? Why did God once say that “sometimes the unbelievers are even more pious than the faithful” Because our beliefs have turned into our habits once and for all, we all assume that God is the most divine figure, he is always superior to us; however, God once said that “Faith without practice is a dead faith.” The sky is overhead and when it is sunny, we dry our shrimps and fish under the sun but when it is rainy, we have to bring them inside so that they will not get moldy.
Today, I will discuss two limitations of religion. The first one is of the laity as mentioned above. Meanwhile, the second is of those whom God deems highly of - the holy fathers. In Western cultures, there has been a lot of discussion about “papaisme’’ of the church. This “papaisme” has given rise to the old-fashioned, authoritarian and autocratic nature of the church and sometimes the most established churches are the most old-fashioned, authoritarian and autocratic ones. There have been several revolutions which aimed at alleviating the old-fashioned nature of the church, the most extraordinary of which is the Reformation by Martin Luther. We are also aware of one thing: even though our beliefs in God are homogeneous, there are certain discrepancies that are worth taking into consideration.
A researcher of Christianity once told me that as a rule, every Holy Communion should not exceed 8 minutes. However, I have gathered from my observation that many fathers, especially in regions where churches are small-scale, usually have wordy sermons, some of them are even competing with each other because they are accustomed to “being given food, making speech and taking a portion home.” as a Vietnamese saying goes. That is also how “papaisme” is born, acknowledging their privilege in the sanctuary, they just draw out their sermons and preach whatever they like. Once a father at Saint Joseph Cathedral said to me “Many agrestic scrap dealers even ride to our church just to attend our sermons because ours are on time, whenever the bell rings the speech is over. We have a lot of other plans so we cannot waste our time.” If you wonder why the church decided to change in order to keep their laity, remember when Europe witnessed The Great Apostasy because all the sermons back then were too lengthy. Therefore, in order not to bore the laity, most churches have decided to curtail their preaching to about 45 or even only 30 minutes.
Living by your faith is to be voluntarily kind and jubilant because God once said that “our responsibility is to be gentle and happy” so today I do not want my comments to be formal and methodical but rather gentle and emotion-based. A river can flow into the sea thanks to their natural form because the way it is formed supports its flow. We should not assume that God is the most divine figure and he will decide everything and we cannot do anything but just follow his guidance. A river is supposed to flow from its source into the sea but philosopher Sartre once said “What is God's salvation for if we cannot salvage ourselves?” The river flows out there but if we do not jump in just because we assume that God will do it for us then how will we clean ourselves. God taught us that “Faith without practice is a dead faith” and the first thing we should do is to have an aware mind and conduct ourselves accordingly, so if we just rely on our beliefs as an excuse for not being conscious, then what is faith for?
In The Book of Jeremiah (5.1), God taught: “If a man is devoted to justice and seeks faithfulness then I will forgive him.” A city-state with God will be meaningless if there is no righteous man to be its nucleus. But if no one endeavors to seek justice, there will be no virtuous man. Similarly, if everyone just holds the belief that God is the supreme figure and then does nothing for their faith, there will be no religious man. If a second-hand does not strike every single moment then how can it reach eternity.
Paul Đức- Hanoi 20/04/2020
(translated by Dang Linh Chi)
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