One of my students sent me a text before 8 am on October 30, 2012.  She was supposed to argue and debate on the proposition of whether or not there is a need to revive the Catholic faith.  She then sent me a link to an article that appeared in the Manila Bulletin on that same day where Pope Benedict called his flock to renew their Catholic faith. Specifically she wanted to know what verses she can use as a basis for her arguments. I gave her Romans 10:14, Hebrews 11:1 and Hebrews 11:6.

In my head that whole morning, after that exchange of texts I had with my student, all I could think of was: there may be no faith at all to revive!  Luke 18:8 kept echoing in my head: “…when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?”

What passes for faith these days is often fetishism.  Fetishism is the pagan belief that objects have supernatural power.  In Binondo on Monday, I bought half a kilo of plums for my daughter to taste.  After I made the purchase, the stall owner took the P500 bill with which I had paid for the plums and he touched the other fruits on display with the P500 bill.   I ask why he did that and he told me that my peso bill will “call forth” other similar transactions later in the day.  Apparently, that P500 bill had been sitting still in my wallet without my knowledge that it had power to call forth other P500 bills to come and join him in my wallet thus making me richer.

Syncretism is also not faith. Syncretism is taking bits and pieces of religious practices and beliefs from different religious persuasions.  Also in Binondo on Monday, my kids and I looked into the display of one store.  The stall had the image of the Holy Family.  Next to that, there was a bush with small oranges and a Bible.  Next to that there was a golden frog with a coin in its mouth, a cat with a waving paw and next to that they had a big fat smiling Buddha.  I asked the stall keeper why they had all those images. I was told that those images bring good luck and ward off bad luck; those images bring ‘blessings.  Asking help only from one might offend the others and cause bad luck; so to be safe, they just put them all there.

What passes for faith these days is head knowledge: the sum total of what you know about the doctrines you have been raised with.  What passes for faith these days is mental assent to doctrinal propositions such as a creed or a statement of beliefs. Churches have articles of faith which they teach to their members. There is also that prevalent notion that faith is positive thinking: that everything will be alright.  Is this faith?

I remember watching an episode of The Cleveland Show. It’s a cartoon show for adults about the adventures and misadventures of a man named Cleveland Brown.  He is an African-American who calls himself a Christian.  He was shocked to learn that his son didn’t believe in God.  There was a hurricane alert and the family decided to ride out the storm in their house without preparing food and without boarding up their windows.  At the height of the storm, the tree next to their house fell on the house.  Cleveland Brown was pinned underneath the tree and his family was praying for his deliverance.  When their son refused to join them in praying, the mother explained her faith to her son and said something like this: “You believe in the Force, I believe in God.  It’s the same thing.  Believing that there is some power out there who can keep people I love safe gets me through the rough spots.”

I have often heard people say that it doesn’t matter what we believe, what matters is that we believe.  All that sounds good—it just isn’t Biblical faith.  Biblical faith is specific:  it involves knowledge of spiritual facts, a reliance on those spiritual facts that expresses itself in obedience to Biblical commands.

Biblical faith has an object and a basis: the object and the basis of Biblical faith is God.  Biblical Christians do not put their faith in their feelings; they do not put their faith on faith; they do not put their faith on themselves and on what they can do.  Biblical Christians put their faith in the God who revealed himself in the Bible through Jesus Christ, His son.

Biblical faith is rooted in the knowledge of who God is; for this, Biblical Christians look to the Bible to know who God is and what He has promised to do. Faith is a gift from God and it comes from hearing the word of God.   Pastor Adrian Rogers explains:

“The logos we could say is the Bible, the written Word that tells of the living Word.  The revelation of God, given in Christ, revealed in the Bible – that’s the logos.

But there’s another word that is translated word, and that is rhema….  Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the rhema of God..  What does the word rhema mean?  It means utterance.  It means a spoken word.  We could call it a word from the Word.  You take the Bible – that’s the logos; and as you’re reading, the Bible begins to speak to you out of the Word of God.  You get a rhema from the logos.  You get an utterance from God, and God speaks to you, and you hear in your heart.”

Faith is a solid foundation of things we are sure of and things we expect.  This is what Hebrews 11:1 means when it says “Faith is the substance of things hoped for.”  Pastor Adrian Rogers, in his book What Every Christian Ought to Know, explains: “Substance implies something beneath you that you can stand on.”  He also explains that the Biblical word “hope” does not have the same meaning it has in our day.  Today “hope” means something we wish for that may or may not happen.  In Bible, “hope” means an “assurance mingled with anticipation.”  Jesus Christ’s second coming is called “the blessed hope” because it is a sure thing that gives comfort to those who believe it.

This is why when Jesus Christ comes, the Bible will then be available in every language and dialect in the world; the Bible will be available in book and electronic form; and yet there will be very little faith in this world.  It is because people in the last days, these days, our days, will have the Bible in our bookshelves, in our purses, in cell phone apps and MP3 players but the Bible will be unopened and unread.  This is the reason why there is so very little faith in our churches and in our individual lives.  It is because we do not read the Bible.  If we want to have faith, the real kind of faith, the faith as small as a mustard seed that can move a mountain, then it is the Bible we have to go to.  We have to cultivate the habit and the discipline of reading and studying the Bible, approaching it with an open mind and an open heart, ready to receive from God a word that we can hold on to in the darkest and dreariest of days.

Have you found this kind of faith?  Are you keeping this kind of faith?