Why Becky tries to believe

The hope and nobility of examining our personal faith experience

Why I Try to Believe: An Experiment in Faith, Life and Stubborn Hope (Signs Publishing, 2015)
Nathan Brown

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It’s an interesting word, try. What does it mean to try? Does it mean to throw the full weight of your passion and effort behind an endeavour, like one might do in trying to win a gold medal at the Olympics? Or does it connote a half-hearted attempt, such as when a person politely refuses an invitation? “Sounds great! I’ll try and see if I can make it.”

Most of us claim to be trying to do things all the time. We try to get to work on time. We try to be good spouses, loving parents, helpful members of our communities. When faced with failure, we often offer self-defenses that rely heavily on the supposition that we have, all evidence to the contrary, tried. Believe me, I tried. I tried everything I could think of. We spout popular motivation quotes that encourage trying as a form of dauntless perseverance: If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. We urge trying as a way of getting out of a rut, sampling new experiences—no commitment necessary. Just try the sushi. Why not try wearing a different jacket? Try a new sport—how about cycling?

The concept of trying is either a nod to an extreme and extended effort to something—usually impossible—or an absolute exercise in non-commitment. Sampling. Showing positive intentions without actually having to do anything. Master Yoda of Star Wars fame has, of course, the best line containing the word try ever uttered by a puppet or computer generated image: “Do or do not. There is no try.”

You can see where a certain personality might react badly to Brown’s title—as he acknowledges early in the book when recounting the negative reaction he received from a group wanting “more certainty, perhaps fewer questions, in relation to their faith” (p 11). Why do you have to try to believe? Do or do not. If you acknowledge that your belief comes down to a matter of trying, are you in fact saying one of the following: one, belief is probably impossible anyway; two, you have no intention of believing, but want to seem like you might; or three, believing is a novelty for you, something you’re going to kick around until you get tired of it.

Trying is a lacklustre concept when it comes to actions that are a mere matter of doing. If you’re trying to get out of bed on time and failing consistently, well, you aren’t trying very hard. But you can’t compel yourself in matters of the heart and belief is one of those intangibles. Like love. You can certainly behave in ways that are loving, but you absolutely cannot manufacture the feeling of love. Most of us probably worry about this more than we should.

Hope forms the idealogical core of this book. It’s no feel-good sloppy sentiment, either. There is clearly a serious and thoughtful person behind these pages—not one given to easy answers or platitudes.Becky De Oliveira

The cry of the man in the Gospel of Mark, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (9:24) is one to which we can all relate. Sometimes a commitment to trying is the best we can muster—in our relationships, our work, our faith. Circumstances cause the ground to shift beneath our feet. Most of us will hit spiritual lows, or experience setbacks and tragedies that make us wonder what life is all about—and if our faith in God is pure foolishness. What we choose to do at that point—and Brown makes it very clear faith is an active choice—marks a clear fork in the road.

The quiet continuation of a lifelong inward struggle doesn’t tend to make the headlines. Human beings tend to be far more interested in dramatic deviations from the norm. No one pays you much attention when you stick with your job, remain married or continue to be a committed and involved member of a religious faith. But at a certain point—probably many points—each of us faces a basic choice: Do we invest in what we’ve invested in before, or do we dump it all in search of something better?

Brown’s good friend, former Hollywood Seventh-day Adventist Church pastor Ryan Bell, made headlines when he declared 2014 his “year without God,” and generated a great deal of discussion from those sympathetic and those hostile to his experiment. While Why I Try to Believe was partly prompted by Brown’s struggle to make sense of Bell’s experiment, it never appears to be trying to demonstrate that Bell—or any atheist—is wrong. Brown writes, “I am not setting out to critique or criticise my friend” (p 5)—and, in fact, Bell read and responded to the manuscript at several points in its creation. Brown’s primary goal is to create what he calls a “personal apologetic” (p 5) that “will be counted among the positive results of his [Bell’s] public investigation of the nature of believe and non-belief” (p 5).

This is what the book does extremely well: In offering his own struggles—the inevitable losses that characterise mid-life (Brown is now 42)—including the suicide of a good friend, along with the ubiquitous search for meaning and a faith that is intellectually satisfying, Brown invites his readers to ponder their own reasons for trying to believe.

The example of John Woods, a member of the Victorian state parliament in the 1880s, offers a glimpse into how Brown sees himself, and of the kind of character he hopes to help his readers tease out of their own experiences. Woods mounted an argument in favour of using local stone for Parliament House and, having lost the argument, managed to get a block of sandstone erected as a symbol of his opposition. It stands in Melbourne today—and is Brown’s favourite spot to take visitors. He notes while some have “dismissed Woods’ monument as an act of petulance,” he sees it “as something more positive, an act of stubborn hope” (p 23).

Hope forms the idealogical core of this book. It’s no feel-good sloppy sentiment, either. There is clearly a serious and thoughtful person behind these pages—not one given to easy answers or platitudes. Hope is useless as a form of daydreaming or escapism, but it takes on real power as it “changes things and changes us” (p 25) and can be “a reason in itself to try to believe” (p 26). Part of this hope springs from a conviction that the answers do not lie within oneself. Brown ultimately concludes that he can’t make it on his own, that he can’t find enough within himself or learn quickly enough from his own mistakes. An important part of making the choice to “try to believe” is the acknowledgement of needing a higher power—it “is about something, Someone and a story beyond me” (p 105).

This stands in contrast to what Bell concluded after trying his year without God—which led to a decision for atheism. He writes, “Without dependency on a cosmic saviour who is coming to rescue us, we are free to recognise that we are the ones we’re waiting for. If we don’t make the world a fair and habitable place, no one else is going to do it for us. Life does not need a divine source in order to be meaningful. Anyone who has seen a breathtaking sunset or fallen in love with another human being knows that we make meaning from the experiences of our lives; we construct it the way we construct any social narrative” (“Why You Don’t Need God,” CNN, January 9, 2015).

Brown would likely agree with a majority of the ideas contained in this paragraph. A strong believer in social justice and in action as a crucial component of Christian faith, he seems likely to resonate with the idea that we can’t simply wait around for a “superman”-type character to make right all that is wrong. And of course we make meaning of our own experiences—that seems to be Brown’s point. For him, “belief is worth trying” (p 6). He frames his own life within this context and considers “what is important and good, as well as choosing how to respond to the experiences life presents to each of us, such as love and grief, pain and wanting to make a difference, growing up and growing older” (p 6).

Why I Try to Believe is an excellent book for a small group to read and discuss together. The reflection questions at the end provide a ready-made and valuable framework around which to structure conversation, helping people figure out how their own experiences have built or shaken their faith. For all of us, this is an experiment that is ongoing for as long as our lives last. Acknowledging that there are no easy answers, but that commitment to God through faith is worthwhile anyway, Brown challenges us in a quiet and deeply respectful way to “walk on” in faith. He makes it seem like a noble approach. The last line of the book reads, “As for me, I’m still trying to believe” (p 115).

Deep inhale. Exhale. Straightening of spine. Feeling of resolve. Eyes closed. Quick prayer. Me, too. I believe. Help my unbelief.