A faith that asks questions

A young man regularly delivered water to our house during the pandemic. We would strike up conversations with him in those few minutes of his bottle drop-off. In early 2022, we asked who he was voting for.

“The UniTeam,” he answered.

“But they’re thieves!” my parents chorused.

“I know, but I’m INC,” he admitted, “They’ll kick me out if I don’t vote for them.”

“Why?” my parents, insistent, asked: “Can they look at your ballot? Are they going to watch you vote? Will they open the ballot box and know which one’s yours?”

To every question, he simply shrugged, claimed that the elders would just know, and said that he just didn’t want to be expelled. His church (INC, Iglesia ni Cristo) had ordered him to do something, so he simply obeyed.

It was his understanding of faith, it seemed, and his way of life: automatic compliance, with no doubt in the endorsement of people whose past behavior pointed to future plunder charges, with no distrust in the absurdity of an omnipresent church elder prowling polling centers and encroaching on individual voting decisions.

I saw that same behavior at its most disruptive last week, as the INC staged lightning rallies in support of their fellow member, Sen. Rodante Marcoleta, who was set to be charged with plunder. They crowded the streets with no warning, only warm bodies. Traffic crawled at the pace of drunken snails through peanut butter. Roads were blocked. Cops were on alert.

Writers and thinkers spoke up. Anna Cristina Tuazon, my fellow Inquirer columnist, minced no words when she wrote that the INC was not engaged in people power, but in “protecting the powerful.”

Others took a more humorous approach. One posted photos of the massive crowds, captioned with the pun “Cool ‘to.” When people posted that they were Catholic and stood with the INC, a comedian promptly retorted with: “I am Catholic, I stand with the ICC, I am complete—and I am craving dinuguan.”

A few days later, the plunder charges were still handed down. Vice President Sara Duterte, once supported by the INC, will still have her impeachment trial. Yet still, online, many INC members and supporters called their work successful because it showed how they were powerful enough to disrupt an unwitting capital.

The INC is not unique in this brand of unquestioning obedience.

We’ve seen former President Rodrigo Duterte’s worshippers call for his return even as the evidence mounts, pointing to his wrongdoing. We’ve had people readily believing, sharing, and spreading the work of troll accounts spewing hatred, fake news that targets politicians with actual integrity, and altered videos designed to assassinate the character of good people, all without checking the truth of what they post. We’ve heard people call for death and bloody retaliation, while the news fills with footage of packed churches at Christmas and Easter.

We’ve seen a country claiming to be Christian, while mocking those who try to set the world right.

A life truly touched by faith, however, is consistent with principles; and true faith is not merely blind obedience. It is shaped by constant searching, by a struggle between belief and the complicated life of the everyday, by a push and pull of free will and surrender to a higher power.

Note the nuance: a higher power with a relationship built on trust, not a human power, with a relationship built on fear.

That is how one goes from merely inheriting a religious affiliation to bearing a faith of one’s own. That is how one participates in a community instead of bowing one’s head and submitting to the will of a cult.

One does not need to see blazing torches or graven images to know that they are witnessing the power of a cult. A cult exists where people obey for the sake of compliance without understanding their actions.

By that same reasoning, those who forcibly blind themselves to plainly laid truths, who readily believe baseless conspiracy theories, who speak carelessly about who deserves to live, and who deserves to die are all members of a cult.

They worship at the altar of absolutism. They burn those who question.

So what exactly was last week’s lightning rally for? Tuazon’s column said it well: “the inconvenience to commuters and the general public [should be] a byproduct of advocacy, not the goal.”

That is: a transport strike snarls up traffic to call awareness to the plight of poorly compensated, but much needed drivers. A factory strike forces businesses and customers to recognize the people behind the making of a product, whose rights and lives should be upheld and respected. Even the writers’ strike years back reminded viewers of the value of well-crafted entertainment.

A disruptive protest should invite us to reexamine what and who we have taken for granted. A protest, like faith, actually calls us to look beyond our comforts, and to recognize wrongdoing.

To cause disruptions because one is defending an ally? That’s not a protest. That’s a tantrum.

But it might also be a tantrum of those who were taught to worship their leaders, while fearing themselves.

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iponcedeleon@ateneo.edu