Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Can you be too religious?

Can you be too religious?
When considering this question, note that Jesus himself was hostile to religiosity – and that fundamentalists suffer from a lack of faith
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o    Giles Fraser
o     
o    theguardian.com, Tuesday 24 December 2013 09.00 GMT

Actually, I seriously dislike the words religion and religious. First, there is no such thing as generic religiosity. There are Christians and Jews and Muslims and Hindus. No one practises religion, as such. And second, precisely because the word "religion" describes the common outward format through which these very different belief systems express themselves, it cannot describe each in its specificity. This is particularly tricky when it comes to Christianity, because at its heart is a figure who was thoroughly suspicious and condemnatory of religion. "Jesus came to abolish religion," says the Washington-based poet and evangelist Jefferson Bethke. His YouTube poem Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus received 16 million views within two weeks of it being released.He's right: the New Testament must be one of the most thoroughly anti-religious books ever written. It makes Richard Dawkins look very tame fare indeed.

Jesus spent much of his time laying into the pious and the holy and lambasting the religious professionals of his day. And this was not because he was anti-Jewish – as some superficial readings of his anti-Pharisee, anti-Sadducee, anti-Temple polemics would have it – but precisely because, as a Jew himself, he came out of that very Jewish prophetic tradition of fierce hostility to religiosity. Here, for instance, is the prophet Isaiah on feisty form.

The multitude of your sacrifices – what are they to me? says the Lord.
I have more than enough of
 burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. Stop bringing meaningless offerings!
Your incense is detestable to me. New moons, sabbaths and convocations – I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.
This is the sort of theology to which Jesus looked for inspiration. And partly, it was this uncompromising anti-religiosity that got him nailed to a cross.
You may think I am being slippery with the word "religion". So let's take, for instance, the French sociologist Emile Durkheim's influential definition of religion as that which divides up the world into the sacred and the profane. But here again, the Jesus stories have him as thoroughly anti-religious, not least in those narratives that surround his birth. For the idea that God might be found not in the spiritually antiseptic space of some sacred temple, but in the smelly cow shed out the back, is about as hostile an idea to religion as one can possibly imagine. When it comes to Christianity, just being a little bit religious is being too religious. Religion is a pejorative term. So the answer is yes.

Of course, I'd say you cannot be too Christian. That's a different kettle of fish. And if "being too Christian" makes you think of Christian fundamentalists, I'd want to insist that they are simply not Christian enough. Indeed, that it's their lack of faith that makes them cling to a bogus form of certainty and literalism. Mostly, Christian fundamentalists worship a book. They like the safety of having pat answers. But this is just another form of idolatry of which the Hebrew scriptures regularly warn. Worshipping a book and worshipping God are two totally different things. Falling down before a baby, with all the inversion of power that this implies, takes courage not intellectual suicide. It is about the world being turned upside-down, the mighty (including the religious mighty) being cast down and the weak being held up. It is about placing something other than oneself at the centre of the world. And no, I don't think there can be too much of this.

Monday, December 23, 2013

Christmas shopping



In the Spiritual Exercises, the classic spiritual guidebook for retreat directors, St. Ignatius Loyola invites the retreatant to contemplate the great mysteries of the Incarnation and the Nativity. The starting point for these exercises, however, is not the grandeur of the Trinity, “seated, so to speak, on the royal canopied throne,” as Ignatius writes. Instead, he first invites the retreatant to see and consider the various persons on the earth, “so diverse in dress and behavior...some in peace and others at war, some weeping and others laughing, some healthy and others sick, some being born and others dying.”
St. Ignatius then describes God’s compassionate response to so much blindness, suffering and death in the world. He counsels us to hear what the Trinity says, “Let us work the redemption of the human race,” and to see what the Trinity does, “bringing about the most holy Incarnation.” Ignatius says the Lord was born “in the greatest poverty” and experienced “many hardships of hunger, thirst, heat, cold, injuries, and insults.” Though appropriately regarded as royalty by the angels in heaven and the visiting Magi, Jesus was born in a manger, and the family was displaced by the threat of violence.
Those living on the street and in shelters share in the Holy Family’s experience of transience and insecurity. But how often are they welcomed with reverence and joy? Years ago our culture referred to these persons as “down and out” or “Bowery bums,” distinguished from the “deserving poor” who had “pulled themselves together” and were thus worthy of concern. The Christmas message, however, reminds us that those who are without homes are human beings and deserve care. Do we see them that way?
According to a nationwide survey conducted in January 2013 by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, there are approximately 610,000 homeless people in the United States on any given night, with two-thirds living in shelters and the rest on sidewalks, benches and in cars.
The main point, often overlooked, of the feast of the Incarnation, is that when God entered the world in the person of Jesus, the whole of humanity was transformed. Every person, including that huddled person in the gutter, is Jesus inviting—daring—us to love.
Mike Evans | 12/14/2013 - 10:12am
Sadly, even though we know what works to materially assist the homeless get back on their feet and into safe and secure housing, our congress and state legislators refuse to provide the necessary funding. Every heart-breaking story is met with suspicion and then dismissed. The response seems to be that the homeless are suffering from only self-inflicted misery and so we have no responsibility to them. Shame on all of us.