Ferg & Faith

Last weekend, one of my best friends and I sang in the choir for the Celebration of Life for John Ferguson, whom we belovingly knew as “Ferg.”

Ferg was the Professor of Organ and Church Music at St. Olaf College when we matriculated. Ferg also directed Cantorei, one of St. Olaf’s choirs, in which my friend and I sang (albeit not at the same time).

Ferg was a fantastic musician. The first time I heard him play the organ was as a first-year, at the first Sunday service of the academic year, before most upper-class students were back on campus. He played the iconic first three notes of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565. Many of us nodded as we immediately recognized the piece, and then Ferg astounded us. It was the first of the many times I enjoyed his masterful work.

Ferg was also a great human being. He was kind, approachable, and funny as all get out. I recall one of our massed choir rehearsals for Christmas Fest. Even among choir directors, Ferg was a stickler about understanding the text. We were rehearsing an arrangement of "Adeste Fideles.” “I want to see your ‘come’ splattered against the wall.” While this was, in theory, a reference to spittle produced by a forceful “K” sound, I always presumed he intended the double entendre.

Ferg was one of those changed-my-life-forever mentors. Though I first "had to" sing in Cantorei a year before I “made it” into the Ole Choir, I now know that I needed that year, and my life is richer because I was in Ferg’s choir.

We sang several of Ferg’s arrangements at the Celebration of Life. But Charles Villiers Stanford’s “Beati Quorum Via” moved me most. It’s beautiful, of course, but I don’t have the words to describe how much more it’s meant to me since the first time I sang it in Cantorei.

St. Olaf always feels profoundly like home: my campus, my ensembles, chapel, my people. Ferg will always be one of my choir directors.

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That feeling of home takes part of me back to the person I was. I was taken aback when I found myself praying. I don’t do that anymore.

I grew up surrounded by Christianity. My “pure” Norwegian (maternal) family was historically Lutheran. We prayed before every meal. We attended church (though it became sporadic after my parents’ divorce). Holidays were explicitly religious: we read of Jesus’ birth from the Gospel of Luke at Christmas; Easter was about the resurrection, not the bunny; Thanksgiving was basically pre-Christmas and thanking God for our blessings each year.

I had a lot of nightmares growing up. I “learned” that, if I prayed before bed, I didn’t have them. My OCD brain took control and made me pray for everything that came to mind before I could fall asleep.

But my faith became personal and intentional while at St. Olaf. I studied philosophical theology and created my own ontological “proof” of God’s existence. I talked about my “personal relationship” with Him (always male). I profoundly felt His presence when I sang.

My faith waned the further I got away from my St. Olaf years. I don’t know when it happened, but years later, I realized that, somewhere along the way, I stopped believing. I wasn’t a Christian, or even a theist, anymore.

I didn’t choose to lose my faith. It wasn’t a decision I made. I stopped having faith.

Much later I realized that this means people almost certainly don’t choose to have faith, either. It’s inherent in the very concept of faith. You believe something is true, even though you don’t, and even can’t, know that it is.

I always found Pascal’s Wager unconvincing, and this helped me realize why. The Wager makes perfect, logical sense:

• If God doesn’t exist, but I believe He does, nothing bad happens.

• If God doesn’t exist, and I don’t believe He does, nothing bad happens.

• If God exists, and I believe in Him, I go to heaven.

• If God exists, and I don’t believe in Him, I burn in hell for all eternity.

Therefore, the only rational choice is to “bet” that God exists.

But that bet isn’t faith. If you tell me I can bet one penny that a three-legged horse will win the Kentucky Derby and get millions of dollars if that happens, I’ll take that bet. But I certainly don’t think the three-legged horse will win. I don’t believe that. I don’t have faith in that.

I can choose to bet that God exists. I can’t choose whether I believe God exists. I don’t.

This understanding makes me more tolerant and empathic toward those with faith. They also don’t choose. They believe.

But I’m less tolerant of those who claim to “know” their belief is true. They can’t know. It’s also not really compatible with Jesus’ teachings, such as in the Gospel of John: “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen, and have yet believed.”

I’m intolerant of those who coercively enforce the requirements (as they perceive them) of their faith. And I am completely intolerant of immoral, unjust, and otherwise wrongful action based on faith. Even though I’m atheist, I can reason the difference between right and wrong.

But as I am tolerant and empathic toward those who have faith, I want tolerance and empathy toward those without faith. We don’t choose faith. If I could, I might choose to have it. My world felt more safe, I felt more protected when I believed a divine power was in charge of it all.

It’s daunting to have the responsibility for being my own divine power in my life. We all have that divine power. That’s imago Dei.