Silence & Suffering, Faith & Works

My homeroom is also my Religion Class. As a convert to Catholicism and a veteran of four years of RCIA classes at Seton Hall, I can honestly say that next to my other passion, history, teaching a religion class is one of my all time favorite past times. After spending four years (longer if you count the few years prior I spent studying the faith on my own) being catechized, I'm now in a position to lead others in a search for their own spirituality. I am certainly in no position to teach Catholic Catechism or to teach an RCIA class, but only four of my homeroom students are Catholic so most of the questions I get, any reasonably-well-versed Catholic could answer them.

Now that the background is out of the way, today we discussed Chapter Four in Shusaku Endo's famed work, "Silence". Without getting into too much detail, the book chronicles the adventures and misadventures of two Portuguese priests in 17th century Japan - a period of great persecution for the Church. One of the first startling outbursts of Father Rodrigues occurs in this chapter, namely, when three of the Japanese Christians are about to face torture unless they renounce their faith, the good Father advises them to apostatize rather than suffer. A very disturbing scene, indeed.

The ensuing discussion in my class went right to the heart of what it means to be human, to love, to believe. The class was, interestingly enough, evenly divided between those who saw no problem with a false public denunciation of the Christian (or any other) faith provided that that denunciation was, indeed, false and that it was done to avoid suffering -- and those who insisted that a public defense of faith was always necessary.

During the discussion, the identities of the students that advocated the position that it was alright to publicly deny belief in Christ (or whomever) while privately still believing did not always surprise me. Reflecting as I frequently have on the backgrounds and socio-economic origins of my students, suffering and "martyrdom" are not virtues to these students, but rather, their lives. Many of them are physical witnesses to the horrors of what it means to be a "martyr" and what it means to suffer for what you believe. Far from seeing this as a thing of value, the students doubtlessly view those "courageous" enough to welcome suffering in the name of faith (when they could easily avoid it by simply denying their faith) as foolish.

Many of my students, however, have a deep and personal faith that reaches beyond the suffering and turmoil they have witnessed in the urban world around them. Several of the students insisted that God expects us, quoting the Gospels, "to confess Him before men so that [He] might confess [them] to His Father in Heaven." The religious issue of bearing witness to one's faith aside, many of the students clearly showed their personal stripes on what it means to believe something and how that belief can carry itself forward into one's actions and life. My students are not bad people and as such may not believe that cheating is correct, for instance, or even that retaliatory violence is acceptable. But the crux rests on their view of suffering: their belief about cheating or retaliatory violence may have to be set aside, in their view, in the name of avoiding suffering (a bad grade in the case of the former and loss of reputation in the case of the latter).

Suffering, then, shapes the lives of my students: their views, their beliefs, their pasts... How they each individually choose to address the suffering in their lives - and the risk of suffering - will necessarily dictate their futures.

I left my class with the following from the Letter of St. James, the Apostle of Our Lord: "What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,' but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it? So also of faith itself, if it does not have works, is dead." (James 3:14-17) St. James goes on to call those who do not believe such things "ignoramus", but I mercifully left that part out.

Those versed in the politics of the Reformation know well the controversy this passage has caused among Protestant communities who emphasize "faith alone" for the sake of salvation, excluding works not from faith, but from the equation of salvation. Reformation theology aside, my students sat back for a moment, taken aback. The one who had led the charge in the name of private belief over public confession seemed genuinely perplexed, but also to be thinking hard.

I would never disagree with St. James, my own namesake, especially as a Catholic. Yet the traditional interpretation of Faith and Works may need some reworking in light of what the modern urban experience has taught and teaches ordinary human beings about suffering. Indeed, if I had to wager a guess, I should say that my students are confusing two different virtues: faith and hope. What they possess may not be faith at all, but rather "hope" in a faith that may come or that remains out of reach. They threaten each other or lie or cheat or fail to try not because they do not consider these things to be bad, but because the world they inhabit is one that would punish actions in compliance with beliefs such as these. Ergo, their actions are not out of step with their beliefs, but rather in step with the fact that they as yet can only hope for a world where such belief may give rise to virtuous actions that are not in turn subsequently punished.

If nothing else, the silence after the reading of St. James spoke more than their discussion ever could have. And the work of my school, my classroom, my life, continues.