DATE: Saturday, September 13, 1997          TAG: 9709120057

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E3   EDITION: FINAL 

COLUMN: Issues of Faith 

SOURCE: Betsy Wright

                                            LENGTH:   77 lines

SEPARATING THE FACTS AND FICTION IN OUR BELIEFS

OVER THE PAST 14 days, we have witnessed mythology in the making.

Princess Di has been enshrined as Saint Diana. Her imperfections are fast being forgotten, swept away by the searing pain of seeing one so young and beautiful die so tragically and unexpectedly.

Just hours after her death, people were already talking about her ``legend.'' Even the playboy who died with her was getting a quick rose-colored makeover. Death suddenly made him a romantic hero: the man who would have made Diana happy at last.

In editorials, coffee klatches and hair salons the world over, people are trying to figure out the salient meaning of Princess Diana's life, something she was only beginning to do for herself. Why was she put here on Earth? What was the meaning of her life? What lessons can be learned from her death?

What we're seeing is the making of a myth - the weaving together of fact and fiction to find meaning in a human event that seems senseless. As a person of faith, I've often wondered how much of the fabric of what I believe is fact and how much is fiction.

For a Christian to mention the word ``myth'' and ``Jesus Christ'' in the same sentence is a scandalous thing. Some would even call it blasphemous.

Let me stop right here and make something very clear: I am not saying that I believe Jesus Christ is a fairy tale. I accept as historical fact that he lived and died. I have have no problem with the whole Jesus-as-Christ thing. I buy the Apostle's Creed (virgin birth, resurrection, et al.) lock, stock and barrel. I believe in Jesus, the human rabbi, and in Christ, the divine incarnate God.

What I am also saying, however, is that any Christian worth his or her brain cells should at some point stop and take a hard look at both the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith.

We should not fear seeing our sacred stories - both Old Testament and New Testament - as myth. And those of us who no longer harbor that fear should be honest enough to say: ``I recognize that my belief is a gift of faith. Just because I believe something does not mean I have the arrogance to claim that I know it is fact.''

All around I see people caught in this middle country of belief vs. knowledge. On one end of the spectrum are the Bible literalists who strain to prove everything in the Bible is factual. On the other end are the Bible debunkers who find a single error and toss it all out as fantasy.

In the middle are people like me. People who accept that the Bible is a wonderful mixture of both fact and fiction. We accept that the Bible is not a perfect history book and is not a perfect science book. It is, however, the perfect telling of how God revealed (and still reveals) himself to imperfect human beings.

Be it Moses, Jesus, Buddha or Mohammad, to believe we have the clear, unvarnished truth about our religious leaders and/or founders is ridiculous. What we have is truth, overlaid and inlaid with exaggerations and distortions. We have missing pieces and omissions. We have the person that ancient people wanted us to see, and not necessarily the person that was.

We also have what others saw as ``the essence'' of that person's life. What others thought that person's life meant, and not necessarily what that person thought his life meant.

To understand these things, and to be honest enough to acknowledge them, is to vault one's spiritual journey to a higher plane. It allows a believer to make peace with divine mystery, an essential component of spiritual maturity.

It is not a sin for people of faith to wonder and to ask these questions.

It is not a sin for us to ask: Why was that person put here? What was (is?) the meaning of that person's life?

The process of figuring out these things becomes the process of answering for ourselves the same questions: Why am I here? What is the meaning of my life?

And so our myths, those mixtures of both real stories and fiction, have purpose. MEMO: Every other week, Betsy Mathews Wright publishes responses to her

opinion column. Send responses to Issues of Faith, The Virginian-Pilot,

921 N. Battlefield Blvd., Chesapeake, Va. 23320; phone 446-2273; fax

(757) 436-2798; or send computer message via bmw(AT)pilotonline.com.

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