Another Context for "Doing Theology"

If the internet provides one crucial context for theological reflection today (as I argued here), then a recent posting by Jay Parini entitled, "Why Vermont is not Godless," suggests another obvious but potent context, the decline of religiosity as opposed to spirituality. In a previous posting (here), I defined spirituality as an inner state and religiosity as being a set of practices.  We feel spiritual; we do religion.  It's an oversimplification to be sure.  Until relatively recently, in any event, the church was the key social and cultural context within which the great majority of theological reflection took place.  In Vermont apparently that is no longer the case.  Presumably, it is also no longer the case in New Zealand (see here).

What seems to be happening is that we are returning to something like the state of the earliest church in the time of the Roman Empire when there was a hodge lodge of religious thinking going on without an effective central agency to exercise control over it.  In the churches themselves, there was a whole range of theological responses to the person of Christ, which flourished for centuries before the Bishop of Rome gained some control of the situation.  In Protestantism, we returned to a similar situation to a degree although most Protestant denominations have sought to exercise control over the range of "acceptable" theological reflection.  Now, control is gone.  It is certainly gone in mainline American denominations such as the PC(USA), which has been one reason many evangelical congregations have fled for places where control remains an ideal.

For those who do not concern themselves primarily with the institutional maintenance of existing congregations and denominations, this is an exciting time.  For those tasked with that maintenance it is a scary, anxious time.

The Limits of Dialogue?

In some religious circles, interfaith and intra-faith dialogue is considered to be a key way to mitigate the differences between people of different faiths and religions.  If only we listen to each other with open minds and hearts, so the thinking goes, we will break down the barriers of mistrust and misunderstanding between us.  The assumption subsuming this approach to religious reconciliation is that our differences arise out of mistrust and misunderstanding.

What, however, if our differences are at least partly genetic?  Recent research reported in a news posting entitled, "Twins study confirms genetic role in political belief," suggests that this may in fact be the case.  That study found that identical twins show a statistically significant congruence in political beliefs not shared by fraternal twins.  Given the close relationship between political and theological/religious views, it also suggests that our religious orientation as liberals, moderates, and conservatives may also be partly driven by our genetic heritage.  It has to be said that these findings are questioned by some other social scientists and nothing is nailed down or for surely certain.  The idea, based on earlier research, that political views are partly genetically driven was proposed some years previously and greeted with a good deal of criticism.  This latest study serves to reinforce the sense that those who think that genetics are part of politics may be on to something and a good deal more investigation is required.

The claim is not made our views on specific political issues are determined by our genetic heritage or even that our political philosophy is one hundred percent so determined.  Environment and personal experience play a role.  Conservative Hispanic voters, thus, may well vote for liberal Democrats because they represent views on the specific issue of immigration more nearly compatible with Hispanic concerns.  Still, the inclination is to be conservative, which inclination may have a genetic component.

If the same is true for our religious and theological views or inclinations, then our differences are not merely a matter of misunderstanding.  We are different.  Perhaps listening to each other in this case still has a purpose, but it may be a more limited one—still important, but less ambitious.  Instead of breaking down barriers, perhaps the role of dialogue is to put some windows in the walls between us so that we can better understand that the religious "other" is not insane, illogical, stupid, or devilish.  "I still don't see how you can think the way you do, but I do understand that you are not being perverse in how you think.  You have your reasons, as I do mine."  The goal of inter-religious dialogue, then, would not be mutual understanding so much as mutual respect.  That is still a worthy goal, just less ambitious—and maybe more realistic.

On Defining Religion

In a recent opinion piece entitled, "The spiritual scientist," Dr. Paul Willis states that the purpose of religion is to explain what is otherwise unexplained. He states, "This basic level of spirituality is also the basis of science except that science does not invoke unseen entities when it tries to explain the universe that we hold in awe. Science is a unique method of exploring our spiritual lust for an understanding of how the world works." Science is "fundamentally different in its operations and constructs, but it does share a common seed bed of spiritual wonder."

Allowing Dr. Willis his views on religion, I would still argue that there are other less restrictive and monochromatic ways of looking at the phenomenon of religion.  To begin with, the very concept itself means many things to many different people who are adherents of a large array of particular religions.  For some, the heart of religion is found in meditation and concepts of non-self.  For others, the heart of religion is in a moral code.  For still others, it is a personal relationship with the divine.  And for still others, the heart of their religious experience is embedded in a community of co-religionists.  In all of this variety, religion has differing functions and purposes.  To say, as Dr. Willis does that the purpose of all religion is, "explanations of the unexplained," without any modifications of the statement denies the reality of religion as a richly textured, multi-faceted human phenomenon lived and practiced by billions of people.  There is much more to religion than explaining things that are otherwise unexplained.

The Roots of Religion

All religions are inextricably bound to the social, spiritual, and cultural milieux from which they arose and in which they developed.  It is not prophets who create religions   Prophets are, above all, reformers who redefine and reinterpret the existing beliefs and practices of their communities, providing fresh sets of symbols and metaphors with which succeeding generations can describe the nature of reality.  Indeed, it is most often the prophet's successors who take upon themselves the responsibility of refashioning their master's words and deeds into unified, easily comprehensible religious systems.

Reza Aslan

No god but God (Random House Trade Paperback edition, 2011)

page 17

Losing

Chris Kluwe

Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe writes a blog, "Out of Bounds."  and in a recent posting entitled, "Smiling Faces, Hidden Places," Kluwe writes about what it means to lose in sports. He opens the posting by saying that, "Losing sucks. It’s the absolute worst feeling in the world, and anyone who tells you that losing is ok is lying to both you and themselves. The sensation is like a colony of fire ants gnawing away at your inner abdominals, spitting their venom all over your insides until you feel you have to scream to release the pain."  He goes on to write that losers can't say much in public other than, "We've put it behind us and are focused on the next game."  Publicly they have to take losing stoically.  Inside, however, it hurts and the hurt never really goes away.  He then writes,

 It fades after a while, the angry introspection of defeat, but it’s always there, always lurking in that mental prison, pacing restlessly behind its bars like a caged tiger, eyes agleam with savage hunger to rend and tear. You can never let that beast out though, lest it wreak your life and those around you. Some placate it with alcohol, some with religion, some with sex, some even with the hard earned serenity of acceptance, the realization that what’s done is done and you can’t change the past no matter how much it hurts.

Last year, the Vikings were 3-13.  This year they are in a "building year," which is football code speak for "expect more losses."  That's a lot of hurt.

It is important, however, that in the above paragraph he offers what seems to be the only effective way to cope, namely "the hard earned serenity of acceptance."  He doesn't equate serenity with religion, which he lumps together with alcohol and sex.  He also doesn't define it and doesn't seem to feel that serenity for himself.

It is telling that Kluwe lumps religion together with sex and alcohol as addictive coping strategies that are, evidently, unhealthy.  We can understand why he might do that, and in many cases he may not be wrong.  My own take would be, however, that Christian faith at its best takes us in the direction of serenity.  We lose at a lot more in life than sports, and we have to accept many things that we would just rather not accept.  A faith rooted in Christ will help us to navigate the losses.  At the end of loss is the possibility of comfort and serenity.  Without claiming that any of this is easy, one of the things faith should do for us is to open us up to embracing that comfort, which in turn should lead us to discover "the hard earned serenity of acceptance."  Amen.

Puzzling & Repellent Religion

"If our religion is something objective, then we must never avert our eyes from those elements in it which seem puzzling or repellent; for it will be precisely the puzzling or the repellent which conceals what we do not yet know and need to know."

C.S. Lewis,

"The Weight of Glory"

A  Sermon preached at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford, June 8, 1942

Religion & Brand Loyalty Revisited

In  a posting entitled, "religion and brand loyalty," Rabbi David Gottlieb reflects on the findings of recent research into the relationship of brand loyalty to religion, as reported in the paper, "Brands: the opiate of the nonreligious masses?"  written by a research team headed by Prof. Ron Shachar.  The research team found that loyalty to name brands functions like religion for nonreligious people.  Where the religious express their self-worth religiously, the nonreligious express that worth through loyalty to name brands such as MacIntosh computers or Ford motor vehicles.  When shopping, religious folks are more likely to purchase generic store brands where the nonreligious go for the name brand.  Brand loyalty, it seems, is a substitute "religion" for the nonreligious, which functions in the same way as religion does for the religious.

These research findings complement other research that points to the value of religion for well-being and the fact that religion is an important part of virtually every human culture ever known to exist.  Religion speaks to a deep-felt need in the human race, which has to be expressed even when religion itself is eschewed (or ignored).  It seems as though the human race comes with a built-in propensity for faith, that is for trust in an external "higher power" of some sort.  We normally use religion to express this propensity, but the rise of secularity encourages the nonreligious to express it in other ways.  Commentators have long observed how our national political conventions are eerily similar to camp revival meetings.  In a recent essay entitled, "Finding the Sacred in the Secular,"  Heather Wax reports on sociological research that found that in a sample of 275 scientists some two-thirds of the sample "have a spirituality" and that 22% of atheist scientists in the sample consider themselves spiritual.

The scientific evidence is mounting that we need some kind of faith, or spirituality if you prefer that term.  The itch that faith scratches does not prove that God exists.  It does do a couple of other things, however.  First, it allows us to say that believing in and putting our ultimate trust in God is a reasonable, logical inference from the scientific data accumulated thus far.  Those who see theism as merely blind ignorance are not paying attention to the data.  This is not to say that believing in and putting our trust in God is the only logical conclusion to be drawn from the data, just that it is not illogical to do so.  Second,  the evidence also forces on us the question of why human nature is spiritual.  Why do we need to have faith in something larger, outside of ourselves?  Our Christian response is that we are created with the need for faith by a Creator who is creating us to be something more than we are and for ends that we do not comprehend.  Can we prove this is the case?  Scientifically, no, of course not.  Yet, on the basis of our experience and understanding, we do believe that our need for faith reflects the One who created us.