beliefs and practices

this week’s reading comes from dorothy c. bass, craig dykstra, and amy plantiga pauw on religious/christian practice and beliefs.  bass and dykstra focus their chapter in practicing theology on defining practice as a term and its uniqueness to the religious.  plantiga pauw focuses on the gap between beliefs and practices.  bass and dykstra present a helpful understanding of christian practice that underlines the importance of the sustainability of humanity in the practice, the knowledge of God in creation, the social and historical relation to practices.  what they seem to mean by this, is that a practice is truly only a practice if these conditions are met.  therefore a practice must be essential to what it means to be a healthy human.  so taking sabbath as an example one can argue that taking a day of rest after a busy week, is a essential to being a healthy human.  beyond that, thinking of how the practice of sabbath relates to God, makes it a more specifically religious practice, and still further seeing how being in sabbath in community is a social practice.  all of these areas allow the practice to be considered christian.  i actually really like the way they think through the definition of practice.

the area of struggle for me is with amy plantiga pauw’s assertion that there is a gap between beliefs and practices.  she admits quickly that there is a false dichotomy  between the two, but then continues on to point out the disparity between what one believes about god and how one practices this belief.  my struggle is primarily semantic, for it seems as if the dichotomy is false, then the gap should not exist.  in fact it cannot exist.  a belief is a practice and a practice is a belief, especially considering bass and dykstra’s comprehensive understanding of a practice.  so why not try a more analytical or intellectual term like theology, or theory instead of belief.  but i question whether or not i have done the same thing that i am accusing the author of doing.  is there as much distinction between intellect and practice/belief as i would make it out to be?  my reason for choosing this is because plantiga pauw seems to define belief as more intellectual than not, so i’m just trying to find a more intellectual word because i want to assert that ‘belief’ is more pragmatic in its nature.  because when it comes down to it, we only do what we believe and we only really believe what we do, but my overactive brain can always reason my way out of or into something other than what i believe/practice.

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