Interview with Hiley Ward
Understanding Reality Religion: A Mind-Opening Look at God, the Bible, the Church, and Faith
Hiley H. Ward
iUniverse (2007)
ISBN 9780595453986
Reviewed by Cherie Fisher for Reader Views (2/08)
Today, Tyler R. Tichelaar is pleased to be joined by Hiley H. Ward, who is here to talk about his award winning new book “Understanding Reality Religion: A Mind-Opening Look at God, the Bible, the Church, and Faith.
Hiley H. Ward is a retired journalism professor from Temple University and a former religion editor for the Detroit Free Press. He is the author of numerous other books, including his 1975 work “Religion 2102 A.D,” “Peter’s Rock,” and “Mainstreams of American Media History,” which won the Text and Academic Authors Association's 1997 “Texty” Award for excellence. He is the author of several more books on religion, writing, and journalism. Today, he is going to tell us about the latest addition to his writing credits, “Understanding Reality Religion.”
Tyler: Welcome, Hiley. I’m glad you could join me today. I first want to ask you why you chose the phrase “Reality Religion” as part of your title. How do you define “Reality Religion”?
Hiley: With all the interest in reality TV programs, I wondered what would be considered reality in religion. In short, reality religion is a willingness to look at the full picture before us, taking a 360 degree look at God. A sweeping complete look at God. I was interested in not only the blessings and good deeds of God but also the atrocities, genocides, self-adulation, narcissism, and God as a bully who has to have his/her way at all times. Good and evil co-exist. To consider one, you must consider the other. They are flip sides of the same coin. Tossed in the air you can examine both sides.
Tyler: You are reminding me of Jack Miles’s book, “God: A Biography.” He suggests that the understanding and depiction of God changed over time as is reflected in the different times when different books of the Bible were written. Do you think that is true , that an understanding of God has changed, even evolved for the better, over time?
Hiley: It does look as if God changes as we view God through constant cultural lenses. The Roman Catholic Church holds ecumenical councils to update its theology and language, God’s world is no longer flat; God is no longer seen as just a father and tyrant but in three parts, as a Trinity—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The New Testament God seems more likable, tolerant and loving. But does a God really change? The very concept of God suggests that he/she is constant.
I would maintain that the tribal God of the Old Testament (we still use it) is still the same. Although gone are such things as animal sacrifices, God’s image which he/she shares with mankind remains the same. The psychological and mental makeup are similar.
Tyler: And in your own explorations, what ultimately did you come to conclude about God?
Hiley: My book, “Understanding Reality Religion,” springs from an idea for a book that I had many years ago. Called “The Devil God,” it would suggest that the faithful sometimes confuse God and the Devil. Could the wrath of God, suffering and pain, the terror of the Last Judgment be the work of the Devil, not God? I wondered if the Methodists, for example, when they talked of the wrath of God were worshipping the devil instead of God at times. The Bible even confuses the devil and God; for instance in I Chronicles 21: 1 and II Samuel 24: 1, God and the Devil are given credit for the same event. I decided that God ultimately cannot be explained apart from evil, like the poisonous vine co-mingled with the bush. Separating out the two is beyond human comprehension. We are probably best served by regarding the good attributes of God.
Tyler: Our reviewer stated that in “Understanding Reality Religion” you address many of the questions you’ve had since you were young about God and Life. What are some of those questions, and do you feel you are closer to those answers now?
Hiley: I worried about if God was omnipotent and all good, why did bad things happen on his watch? Why did God appear weak even to the point of allowing the only begotten of God, Jesus Christ, to suffer on a cross? I wondered why good, upright people who have not been confronted with the message of salvation through Jesus, thus not given a chance to accept, would suffer in hell.
The easy answer for the problems of comprehending God is not that he is limited and helpless at times but that he/she just isn’t understood by the limited rational powers of humankind. Yet it remains that humankind is left to solve much of its own problems. Mankind is called to be personally responsible. People, sinners like the saints and apostles, can collectively and independently create their own church, rituals. Reality religion has a role for you.
Tyler: Hiley, since you have written so many books about religion, do you feel each of your works was a progression to the next book, or would you say it was a turning in another direction for answers?
Hiley: At the end of every decade since the forties or fifties I have written a letter about my beliefs to be opened at some future time. Reading these will sum up the spiritual and intellectual progress in my life. I might open these one of these days and write an article about them. I progress from a quaisi-conservative almost fundamentalist position—a member of the northern American Baptist denomination but with the fundamentalist separation from the world attitude. I engaged in much Bible study and prayer. In college I embraced existentialism, quite convinced that there were no essences that were absolute. I later became a Christian agnostic—questioning everything but still enjoying the trappings and practices of the received faith. I would consider myself a realist today as I seek to embrace both the conflicts and opportunities of life.
Tyler: What part, then, as a realist, does God play in your life? I mean, do you pray, say a rosary, go to Church, or simply, have your own personal relationship with Him, and is it a good relationship?
Hiley: I attend on occasion and contribute to a Baptist church, the denomination of my youth. I am not a member. I visit on occasion a United Church of Christ church and a Unitarian-Universalist church. Churches are basically clubs of shared interests. I elaborate on this in my book. I pray regularly, traditionally, in the name of Jesus, often on my bench in my woods and in the middle of the night. I feel I have a relationship with God but not a buddy-buddy one.
Tyler: Hiley, why do you think you specifically have had such a long interest in religion and God? To what do you attribute that interest?
Hiley: I was raised by a very devout grandmother, a Baptist, and like the Anabaptists and Baptists in history, I enjoyed the informality and general freedom from creeds and rituals. As a child and youth any money we had was earned outside the home—shoveling snow, farm work, stoking furnaces, grass cutting—had to be earned ourselves. It helped me to develop fiercely independent as well as learn the value of a nickel.
I can’t say that I have had a born again experience in a single moment, but I always felt I had a sense of calling. I deal with my personal experience in the preface of the book.
Tyler: Hiley, you talk about how Reality Religion is looking at God’s good and bad sides. Isn’t God all good? We are often told by religion it isn’t right to question God, or that we must have faith. Are you saying it’s okay to be angry at God when bad things happen that were beyond human control?
Hiley: Actually it probably doesn’t matter how you respond to God in times of set-backs and disaster. Being angry might just mean you had great trust and faith in God and the disappointment is all the greater. Jesus himself expressed a bitter complaint to God. “Why have you forsaken me?” he anguished on the cross. The greater the doubt, the greater the faith. A Buddhist text says: “Great doubt, great awakening. Little doubt, little awakening. No doubt, no awakening.” Jesus liked the response of the father of a child he healed. Said the father: “I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” (Mark 9: 24)
Tyler: You suggest in “Understanding Reality Religion” that people should write their own bibles and seek their own beliefs. Such an idea would frighten many religious people who think there is only one way to believe in God. What would you say to those people?
Hiley: To those who think there is but one way to believe, I would remind them how much the different faiths have in common. Even the polytheism of the ancient Greeks and Romans and Egyptians and Babylonians had much in common with monotheistic Christianity. The pagans had their gods, each with a special interest or function. The Greeks had Ares, the god of war; Hermes, a messenger (like Gabriel); Demeter, the god of crops; Eros, love; Apollo, music; and so on. The Christians have their saints, watching over special functions and activities.
As to writing your own scripture, the idea may well be frightening. But we live among frightened people all the time. The prospect of a new day frightens. Death is everywhere, the apex of horror and fright. The existentialist retreats to his own loneliness and lives in dread at the thought of existence. In such moments one is truly alone, but perhaps is alone in the company of a lonely God.
Tyler: Recently there have been scientific studies saying our brains may be wired to believe in God’s existence. Do you think the human race would be better off if the idea of God did not exist, whether or not God really does exist?
Hiley: No. Despite all of God’s problems, he/she is still a force for good.
Tyler: In seeking their own personal religion, do you think people should continue also to be part of a faith community?
Hiley: Yes. We are social creatures. But the community can be very small. Jesus said that where two or three are gathered together, he is in the midst. (Matt. 18: 20)
Tyler: Will you tell us a little about some of your other books about religion and which ones you feel were most significant for you?
Hiley: My best and most influencial book was my first, “Creative Giving,” published by Macmillan in 1958. Now 50 years later it is still making a mark. Recently a young graduate student in an eastern seminary tracked me down and called me to tell me how much the book which he had just discovered meant in his life. The approach of the book was realistic—it accepted the words of Jesus at face value. “Take up your cross and follow me.” The Christian path was one of sacrifice.
I have wondered if I could write that book today. Then, a half century ago, I urged giving and consecrating all to Jesus. Now I would make a case for personal savings, pensions and the possibility of long-term care.
Tyler: Do you think then that the problem with Christianity is that it can be too altruistic and consequently hurt people rather than benefit them?
Hiley: Certainly people who are altruistic and too goody-goody can be a nuisance. But I would weigh in on the side of altruism. Can one be bad if he is truly altruistic?
Tyler: You have been a journalism professor for many years. How did your training and work in journalism influence how you viewed and understood religion?
Hiley: I was interested in investigative reporting as a religion writer for the Detroit Free Press—infiltrating the secret groups of the Jesus People movement, discovering the unknown or overlooked life of a presidential candidate, George McGovern, as a Methodist pastor; the secret assets of churches; the secret marriage of the chancellor of the archdiocese; the misuse of funds; the roots of racism, etc. It was natural for me to bring an inquisitive mind to religion.
Tyler: Your comments largely focus on the corruptions and hypocrisy of religion. And of course, there are many times when religion is used to justify crimes like war and bloodshed. If amid all these negative issues, someone asked you why he should believe in God, what would your response be?
Hiley: Why not? God is still God.
Tyler: Thank you for joining me today, Hiley. Before we go, will you tell our readers where they may purchase a copy of “Understanding Reality Religion”?
Hiley: On line at Barnes & Noble or Amazon and other internet sites or ordered at any book store.
Tyler: Thank you, Hiley. I wish you much luck with your new book and your continual religious and spiritual quest.
