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Men, Faith, and Goodness

January 3, 2011 By Tom Matlack 6 Comments

Do you need faith to be a good man? Tom

Matlack and others weigh in.
How are goodness and faith connected?

Two experiences with faith stand out in my memory, one

involving human faith and the other with the Divine.
In college, I rowed eight-person boats—poorly—for most of
my career. My senior year, Will Scoggins, a Shunryu
Suzuki–quoting, tobacco-chewing wolfman messiah, took
over as our coach. Our physical training was tough, but he
always reminded us that nothing mattered more than our
faith in our teammates.

Our first race was against Coast Guard, a crew we had

never beaten. In a crew race, you can’t see where the other
team is when you are behind. You face the stern as you row,
so your opponent might be a few feet or a few miles ahead.
Not knowing means it’s easy to give up. We always had.
Scoggins told us the race didn’t begin until the halfway point
—1,000 meters. When we got there, we were already a
length down. Then something miraculous happened: all eight
men started pulling harder. Propelled by a single purpose,
our boat jumped out of the water. We passed Coast Guard
with a couple hundred meters to go. We ended up winning
with open water between our stern and their bow.
Faith in ourselves had made us unbeatable that day—and
the days that followed. We were undefeated the rest of the
year.
 ♦◊♦

A decade later I found myself lower than I’d ever been. My

personal life was a mess. I had two babies, but I was only
allowed to have at my house once a week. I was worried for
them and for myself.

Morning and night I would kneel at my bedside, my head in

my hands, pleading with God. During the day when I found
myself overcome with pain, I would seek out a bathroom stall
to pray. My knees on the linoleum floor, my face in my
hands, I talked to God as though he was the love of my life
and my long-lost friend.

In those days, talking to God brought me the only solace I

could find. I have no idea if my daily petitions were heard,
but the crisis passed. I learned how to father my babies; they
grew into happy kids. Joy slowly returned to my life.
Here’s what some other guys have to say about faith and
goodness.

♦◊♦

I have been taught that to manifest anything—including

being good men—we must have the courage to accept
limitation. Faith has the potential to train us in that sort of
courage.
—Rolf Gates, yogi
 ♦◊♦

I am not a man of faith, nor are many of my friends, but I am

certainly more likely to trust someone who has thought
through religious issues, who has grappled with the source
of moral authority, with right and wrong. I can’t have—and
here’s an interesting choice of words—faith in a man unless
he has done some thinking about the big questions.
—Michael Thompson, author of Raising Cain

♦◊♦

Goodness and faith are not necessarily connected. Some of

the best men I know don’t pray, attend church, or believe in
God. They are good because being good feels good.
—Neil Chethik, speaker and author

♦◊♦

I don’t view faith as strictly religion, but rather as some

commitment founded in personal values. It should be
pursued with integrity, which I would define as being true to
one’s experiences. Goodness isn’t fully attainable, but
aspiring to it is what counts. And so establishing a goal—one
that’s moral and reflective of your personal values—and
advancing it with integrity is the best way to seek goodness.
—Peter Canellos, executive editor, Boston
Globe editorial page

♦◊♦

I think of faith as spores that were shot out in the 15th

century and resulted in me. In the 15th century in Africa,
these spores had much less of a chance to survive than
today’s spores, yet survive they did, and they have done
amazingly well. The spores I send out today are going to
triumph beyond the apocalyptic imaginings of the most
perfervid acolytes of doom. Viva faith.
—Kofi Blankson Ocansey, entrepreneur

♦◊♦

At West Point and in the Army, I learned that goodness

comes from our ideals; our capacity to live according to
those ideals requires faith. True faith, unlike blind faith,
comes from experience and evidence. Whether our ideals
are service, selflessness, compassion, liberty, or justice,
people from Eisenhower to Gandhi showed that we cannot
be the change we want to see in the world unless we have
faith in our ideals.
—Capt. Paul Chappell, author, Will War Ever End?: A
Soldier’s Vision of Peace for the 21st Century

♦◊♦

The longer I work with boys—and it has now been over 30

years in boys’ schools—the more I believe that faith plays, or
can play, a vital role in the lives of good, healthy boys and
men. “Faith” has myriad meanings; I choose here to
consider it not in a formal religious sense, but rather in two
broader ways: in relation to the world and in relation to
others.
In relationship with the broader world, faith helps men gain
or maintain perspective—to realize that we are not in charge
(even though we are male and strong), that there are greater
forces out there, that at some point we need to trust the
universe. In our relationships with others, faith brings a
willingness to believe in others, to trust them, to bond with
them. On the road to loyalty, often a great virtue among
good men, faith can prove essential.
—Rick Melvoin, headmaster, Belmont Hill School for
Boys

♦◊♦

Of the virtues to avoid, faith trumps even patriotism. Why

distrust it? Because it should be private. When it is
proclaimed—or trumpeted, as the Republicans prefer to do
—it is always cover for bad intent and blatant self-interest.
And the ‘”faith” these self-appointed good men profess is
Christian in name only; I can’t think of one of these public
figures who isn’t, at bottom, a hater. Give me an atheist who
wants to do the right thing for the right reason!
—Jesse Kornbluth, former editor in chief, AOL; Head
Butler, HeadButler.com

♦◊♦

We may be brothers and sons, fathers and husbands, but

we are all also children of God. This brings up questions, not
least of which are: “How does it feel when we hear that God
loves us? Does it make us uncomfortable? Is that intimacy
unsettling? Or does it gives us confidence and strength?
Does it inspire us to be more courageous, to live out
purposeful lives, good lives? Can the gift of faith in a loving
and compassionate God allow us at our best to be like clear
panes of glass through which the love of God can shine out
into the world?”
—The Rev. John H. Finley IV, headmaster, Epiphany
School

♦◊♦

I don’t believe that goodness follows from faith. Goodness

grows from two sources: you and your perception of how
others see you—the combination of self-awareness and
capacity for embarrassment and shame. If your own gut
doesn’t tell you to do the right thing and you can’t recognize
your misdeeds or you don’t care about or can’t appreciate
how others perceive your actions, then no amount of faith
will lead you to do good. When you let yourself down in
either respect, then faith—believing in some sort of
forgiveness, redemption, absolution—only serves as a band-
aid, the kind that peels off only to be reapplied the next time
you screw up.
—Brian Pass, lawyer

♦◊♦

I grew up in a Muslim household in India. The division of

labor seemed clear to me: the men went out and wrestled a
living from the harsh world, while the women stayed home,
raised the children, said their prayers, and were keepers of
the faith. For the women in my life, goodness and faith were
intertwined; for the men, goodness was something optional,
something domestic.
—Amin Ahmad, author and architect

♦◊♦

I don’t really think of myself as a person of faith. In fact, over

the last several years—since my father died—I have been
studying Torah, but I do so without faith. A few times rabbis
have asked me to speak to the congregation on why I study
Torah, and I confess with some embarrassment that I am
not the right person for this kind of talk because I’m not a
believer. My Berkeley rabbi said with a chuckle, “I didn’t ask
you to talk about belief, I asked you to talk about study. God
doesn’t care whether you believe, as long as you are doing
the right things.”
I once heard that Niels Bohr was visited by some friends
who were shocked to see a mezuzah hanging in the front
door of his house on the Danish coast. They asked whether
he believed in such things. Bohr replied that he’d heard that
a mezuzah worked even if one didn’t believe in it.
—Michael S. Roth, president, Wesleyan University

♦◊♦

Most spiritual traditions, at their roots, promote peace, even

if later practitioners have fought “religious” wars. Jesus
taught peace; Buddha taught peace. And in the early
Greenpeace campaigns, we were aware of this spiritual
tradition in the peace movement.

Likewise, when we launched campaigns to protect nature,

we were inspired by a new spiritual awakening. We felt that
humanity had failed to worship the one miracle that keeps us
all alive and healthy: Earth itself. Nature is the only real
access we have to the miracle of the universe. Some of us
were Buddhists, some were Christians (fans of St. Francis),
and some were agnostics or atheists, but we believed in the
sacredness of nature.

This was not really about “faith,” but more about awareness,
attention to the gifts of the universe. We notice also that the
great historic leaders of social movements—Jesus, Gandhi,
Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Aung San Sui Kyi—
possess deep spiritual awareness. Successful social
activism arises from love.
—Rex Weyler, Founder of Greenpeace

♦◊♦

My faith in God has made me a better father, husband, and

citizen of the world. I am more compassionate and open-
minded because of it.
—Felix Rodriguez, author of Dad, Me, and Muhammad
Ali

♦◊♦

During the eight years I’ve written and edited

for POZ magazine, I’ve met so many men who’ve told
me their stories of how their faith—in God, in goodness, in
whatever gets them through the day—merely intensified
after their diagnosis [with HIV]. In circumstances that could
lead them away from the notion that there’s something larger
out there, that it’s still worth doing what is good and what’s
right, many express thanks for this life-changing event,
calling it a gift. This enduring faith, in the face of every
reason to doubt it, and their choice to go out into their
communities to do good, to educate others about the
disease, has taught me that one needn’t be a catechized,
rules-obsessed member of an organized religion to be good
and of faith.
—Bob Ickes, writer and editor, POZ

♦◊♦

As a Christian man, I believe I am to carry out the gifts that

God has blessed me with. Gifts that are born from our
imperfections that become lessons for others. Each morning
I begin my day reading scripture, being in prayer and
thankfulness for the day ahead. I’m not an evangelist but do
live my life as a true believer in Jesus Christ and worship all
that he has sacrificed for us. I’m a steward of what God has
blessed me with and as a man it’s my calling to lead and
keep my house in order. I truly believe that through God’s
sovereignty, living as close as we can to his liking makes us
better men.”
—Mark Jacobs, television director

♦◊♦

Faith alone does not make a man a good man. Many have
claimed to have a strong faith, and yet did not live their lives
as good men. However, I firmly believe a strong faith is the
foundation on which we can build ourselves into the good
men we all strive to become. As the father of two young
boys, I believe that sharing my faith with them helps to begin
that building process early on, and by working to live as an
example to them I can provide them with the tools they need
to build themselves into good men.
—Chris Webb, associate publisher, John Wiley & Sons

♦◊♦

[My wife’s sudden death] never shook my faith. I never felt

alone. And I think it’s expanded it, for sure. It challenged it.
But I never stopped believing. It was never, ”How could God
do this to me?’

My priest, who went through this very same thing, said God
didn’t want Lisa to die. That’s not God’s plan. How God
works is that he always creates a space where good can
come out of any tragedy, and that I believe. I don’t know
what I was thinking that day, but I remember thinking that
sometime, very quickly, that good had to come from this,
and my job is to look for it, and to be open to it. I think that’s
what saved me—someone saying, “I know exactly what
you’ve been through.” And not just one person, but six. I had
six men who had lost their wives, who had been through it.
And that’s a miracle.
—Ron Cowie, photographer
 ♦◊♦

For me, the bridge between existential certainty and

unsettled alchemy gets easier with age. Faith is a reflection
of hope, and hope is the optimism built from love. As
Kierkegaard might teach, either/or is a choice, but it is a
human act of free will ultimately resolved in necessary trust.
Take comfort in love and the unanswered does not require
argument; you are embraced in the act of giving and thus
committed to unearthing reasonably good answers that are
fluid and tolerant. Faith, then, is not so much absolute as it is
a dialogue that refutes mandates and reinforces the true
selflessness of love.
—Ken Goldstein, CEO, Shop.com

♦◊♦

At the essence of any faith is goodness. Whether it’s a belief

in a tangible deity—Jesus, Mohammad, Vishnu—or a more
abstract belief where a man believes in something good and
pure, but cannot touch the actual identity, it all begins and
ends with love and being good. I continue my journey of
belief, but have always remained firm in living a life that is
not necessarily about God, but rather about being good.
When a man has faith in being good, he is, to me, godlike.
—Paul Kidwell, public-relations consultant

♦◊♦

I think a lot of guys these days question if having a personal

faith in God shapes life. Well it does—big time. Men are
inclined to look for God only in the extreme moments of life
—when things get really tough. All the other times, good or
bad, we are in control. It is when we yield control to God in
everything, everyday, all the time, that God transforms who
we are as good men.
—Brad Bloom, Publisher, Faith & Fitness Magazine

♦◊♦

A good man will be a good man whether he has a faith

tradition or not. If he has one, his sense of honor, his work
ethic, and his determination to protect and care for the
people he loves and who depend on him can only be
enhanced by that faith tradition. If he gives glory to some
higher power while he lives a good man’s life, I’d see that as
an enhancement that frames his goodness. But I don’t
believe that a man’s moral compass needs to come from a
faith tradition. If the man is fundamentally a selfish asshole
who lives selfishly and thinks nothing of letting others carry
his weight or take responsibility for his mistakes, no religion
is going to make him any sort of a good man.
—Michael Rowe, journalist

♦◊♦

Everyone on that squad busted their ass and could be

trusted. Everyone was worthy. I coached very hard the idea,
the truth, that when everyone did everything he (or she)
could to make the boathouse faster, we all got better. I don’t
believe that there is that much difference between a team
and a country in the sense that if everyone is treated fairly,
we get better. If everyone knows that each of us is important
to our collective well being, then we all get better. And it is
this moral understanding that is our strength.
—Will Scoggins, crew coach
Filed Under: Featured Content, Good Is Good Tagged
With: Faith, God, Good Is
Good, goodness,integrity, religion, spirituality, Tom Matlack
 About Tom Matlack
Tom Matlack is just foolish enough to believe he is a decent
man. He has a 16-year-old daughter and 14- and 5-year-old
sons. His wife, Elena, is the love of his life.
Comments

1. mordicai says:

January 3, 2011 at 7:16 am

Is religion a force for good in the world? Sorry, sign me up

with Christopher Hitchens rather than Tony Blair on this one.

Reply

2. @mckra1g says:

January 3, 2011 at 9:23 am

Religion is Administration.
Faith is an unspoken, but nonetheless real interconnection
between souls, irrespective of dogma.

Reply
o HumbledDad says:
January 3, 2011 at 5:50 pm

Ditto. Religion is organized faith. Many people of great faith

have never cracked a holy book but understand there are
fundamental principles which transcend all religions and
faiths — the interconnectedness Mckra1g mentions. We
can either tap in and leverage it toward spiritual well-being,
or ignore. Either way, it’s there. Like truth, it just is.
It’s a great subject, Tom. Thanks.

Reply

 Amy Jussel, Shaping Youth says:

January 3, 2011 at 10:50 pm

Triple ditto. Henry Ward Beecher said it well, “Faith is

spiritualized imagination.” ~ I find the ‘decent man’ moniker
Tom uses a solid benchmark; doesn’t have to be
institutionalized to be part and parcel of a much bigger
concept…humanity. And lawdy, we need more of it!

Reply
  Tom Matlack says:
January 4, 2011 at 10:57 am

“Real interconnection between souls, irrespective of

dogma.”
Yes that is what I believe too…

Reply

3. rich schineller says:

January 4, 2011 at 12:32 pm

Faith is personal and private – sharing belief in the power

and benefits of faith can be useful but proclaiming the
rightness of any one faith tends to be useless.

Reply