Economy of Belief

When did you stop believing in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny? There was probably a moment when you desperately wanted to continue believing but secretly knew it was all a myth, promoted by well-intentioned parents, sustained by a commercialized society and fed by over marketed religious holidays. Watching my eldest son this Christmas, I wondered if he had begun to doubt the probability that Santa could make all those visits in one night. Despite all of the elaborate schemes that my wife and I have prepared year after year, his analytical brain must be fighting with the will to have all of those presents arrive on Christmas morning.

The economy of belief poses this question: what is the cost of believing and how great is the return?

Year 3 was the moment I recall my classmates discussing whether Santa was fictional. It was hard to comprehend it was all a massive hoax which included stories, songs, rituals, movies and traditions. This revelation was not initially discussed with my parents, as I weighed up the cost of disbelief - reduction in toys versus joining the grown up world. I must have faked my belief in Santa for at least another year or two before eventually coming clean. This was an awkward phase in life, a step away from childhood beliefs, a realization that parents and other adult figures were capable of wide spread deception. But it was also a gradual awakening about the true meaning of Christmas and that giving was of greater importance than receiving.

It wasn’t until my early twenties that my doubts would spread to belief in God and lead me to question the existence of Jesus and his resurrection. Up to this point, I had only questioned the relevance of attending mass each Sunday, my faith in God had never been challenged. At the height of volunteering in Youth Ministry, it suddenly dawned on me, what if I have it all wrong? Perhaps I was helping to perpetuate a myth with these young people, encouraging their belief in something no more existent than the guy in the red suit. Maybe religion offered nothing more than the effects of expensive facial cream, sold for hundreds of dollars to people hoping for immortally beautiful, wrinkle free skin.

What would life be like without belief in God?

After an investment of 20 years in the belief market, I was unprepared for the sudden stock crash. My crisis of faith mirrored the discovery of my childhood Christmas fantasy and left me with a choice of what I wanted to believe in. I discovered that my religion was not simply something that I had grown up in, but it was to be personally owned. Faith was a gift freely given and I was perfectly entitled to reject it. There was complete freedom to withdraw my shares, but I wondered what would I reinvest in? Other industries seemed shallow and only offered a short term gain in comparison to a life built on love and the hope of eternal life.

This was the time for a deeper investment, all or nothing.

An Alpha talk by Nicky Gumbel challenged me to consider the effects of gaining the whole world but losing myself in the process. “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it” (Matthew 16:25). Part of my conversion process was to deny the lures of the world, offering greatness and greed, to be replaced with riches far greater than fast cars and large bank accounts. The cost of belief was to discover the greater purpose of a life lived for others. The Christian life calls us to pour ourselves out for others like Saint Ignatius of Loyola who prayed, “Lord, teach me to be generous. Teach me to serve you as you deserve; to give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds, to toil and not to seek for rest, to labor and not to ask for reward, save that of knowing that I do your will”.

It seems that belief in the goodness of humanity is at an all-time low, with police trying to allay fears of terrorism by broadcasting messages urging families to go out in public to celebrate the coming of the New Year. A glance at the news headlines points to a public perception of a world dominated by fear and disbelief. Yet, there are those who still stand strong, even amongst the ruins of a Syrian Cathedral. Theirs is a community that firmly believes “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).