Category Archives: fundamentalism

Political Polarization and Spirituality

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I am following this political brouhaha closely this year in part because it is such a look-see into the human psyche, individually and collectively. I’ve said many times, “We wage the war we are” (W. H. Auden) and that is true also on the individual and collective levels.

I’m really appalled at the overt hostility present today in the political process, the unabashed hatred of O’Bama in particular. At times, on the extreme, it is not even subtle. And I look at the other side…my side…and I see that we too, the “good guys” (wink, wink)…are dug in at the heels also. I recently casually noted to a couple of friends that the real problem in our country is a spiritual problem. But, I quickly backed down, realizing how dorky that sounded. And, merely trotting out the words “spiritual problem” can sound kind of dorky.

But, let me say the same thing but in different words. We have a problem of “values”. The issue is, “What do we value, individually and collectively?” Our need is some unifying ultimate value, “Ultimate” if you please, toward which we can strive individually and collectively. Without this Ultimate value we are inevitable fragmented and any collective purpose is difficult to achieve. Now as far as naming this “Ultimate Value” I have no problem with the word “God”. But that word has been so banalized and vulgarized that many people find it off-putting.

And let me close with a John Masefield sonnet which explains why this word has become so banalized, so vulgarized:

How many ways, how many different times
The tiger mind has clutched at what it sought,
Only to prove supposed virtues crimes,
The imagined godhead but a form of thought.
How many restless brains have wrought and schemed,
Padding their cage, or built, or brought to law,
Made in outlasting brass the something dreamed,
Only to prove themselves the things held in awe.

Masefield saw that so often the object of our worship, our “highest value”, or “God”, is merely our self.

The sin of bibliolatry

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I really like the Bible.  Now able to approach it as an adult, I find that it offers profound wisdom about the human experience and has practical direction for day-to-day life.  But, I don’t feel you have to view it the same way and if you don’t…even should you burn it…I WILL NOT BE TRYING TO KILL YOU!

This recent “trouble” in Afghanistan re the accidental burning of the Koran reflects one of the problems that comes with being a “people of the book”, particularly those who are extreme literalists. I would never harm or deface the Bible; even if it was quite tattered and worn and I did not want to keep it, I would take it somewhere and leave it for someone else to make use of.  Yes, I am so traditional that I will always treat the Bible with reverence.  BUT IF YOU DO OTHERWISE, I WILL NOT BE ATTEMPTING TO KILL YOU!

The problem with this fanaticism is that the “holy writ” is taken to be sacred in itself, not being merely “words” that point one in the direction of the truth.  The literal words themselves are taken to be sacred.  The admonishment of the Buddha is not taken into account, “the finger pointing to the moon is not the moon.”  Or, to use the words of Gabriel Marcel, “Words have meaning only when they ‘burgeon forth’ into a region beyond themselves.”  Therefore the word, for example, “G-o-d”, is not “God” but merely a sign/symbol that makes reference to that Ultimate Experience that we all hunger for and many of us find in some faint tenuous fashion from time to time in our life.  The “word is not the thing.”

Now this is relevant to personal identity and this issue itself is relevant to personal and collective identity.  For example, my name is Lewis but “L-e-w-i-s” is not “Lewis” as a name is only a sound that we have learned to respond to.  But if I am guilty of the sin of misplaced concreteness, I might venture to the extreme in which I would take my personal identity to be only memories of those subjective experiences that are evoked when I hear the sound “L-e-w-i-s”; or when I ruminate about myself.  And, if I have ventured to that point even  the sound “G-o-d” could come to mean the experience of “God” and I might have to kill you if you believed differently than myself!

Now actually, I’ve said all of that not to address the problem with other religions.  In our culture, and in the Christian tradition, there is the same tendency to be guilty of the sin of “bibliolatry.”  We definitely have extremes in our culture but thankfully we channel our anger and violence in such a way…that is, we “sublimate” it… that rarely is anyone in danger of being killed because of believing differently than ourselves.  But, beneath the surface the same arrogance, contempt and scorn are usually present.

Jacques Ellul addressed this issue in The Ethics of Freedom:

For we have to realize that Satan can use God’s truth itself to tempt man.  He even uses holy scripture…Thus obedience to the letter of scripture can be obedience to Satan if the text serves to bring about isolation and independence in relation to the one who has inspired it.  It can be a means of self-affirmation over against God in in repression of his truth and his will.  The biblical text, and obedience to it, do not guarantee anything.  They may be the best means of not hearing God speak.  (Ellul here points out that the Pharisees were) authentic believers, faithful adherents of scripture, and rich in good works and piety.  In reality everything depends on our attitude to the text of the scripture.  If I seize it, use it, and exploit it to my own ends...then I am obeying Satan under the cover of what the Bible says.  (Or, as Shakespeare noted, “With devotions visage and pious action we do sugar o’er the devil himself.”)

Conspiracy Theory

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I have a virulent disdain for conspiracy theories.  This stems from my youth where I imbibed a variety of conspiracies from my community, especially from my little church.  There was always the impending doom of “the communist conspiracy” that sought to overtake our country.  And on that note, I owned my own copy of John Stormer’s magnum opus, None Dare Call it Treason.  There were the “godless atheists” who wanted to destroy Christianity.  And there was a hefty dollop of anti-Catholicism conspiracy—the Pope waiting in a submarine off the coast on the eve of the 1960 election, ready to step ashore and take control of the government should Kennedy win.  And John Birch Society chatter was often in the air.  The “Tri-lateral Commission” was supposedly promoting “big government,” thus facilitating the ogre of them all, a “one-world government” that was an essential part of the “end-times” scenario.

Let me skip then to the 1990’s and Bill Clinton.  One of my all-time favorites was the notion then that Clinton was operating a drug-smuggling operation out of the tiny village of Mena, Arkansas.  And, most recently there is the falderal about O’Bama being a Muslim and not being an American citizen.

So, I have thrown the baby out with the bathwater and roundly dismiss anything that smells of “conspiracy theory.”  And I do this at my own peril; for, true enough, “conspiracies” do take place from time to time.

(Btw, one of the best books I’ve ever come across on this subject is Richard Hofstadner’s The Paranoid Style of American Politics)

Jacque Ellul critique of the church

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Jacques Ellul (1912-1994) was a French philosopher and law professor who wrote also extensively in the areas of religion and sociology. His most important book was The Technological Society in which he argued that the rise of industry had created a “technological society” which had more or less destroyed the soul of man. His thesis was that as mankind adjusted to machine age he did so with such success that he was basically nothing more than “The Hollow Men” noted by T. S. Eliot.

But my favorite of his books is an exegesis of the book of Jonah, entitled, The Judgment of Jonah. The preface to this book, by Geoffrey Bromiley, describes the book as a “Christological commentary.” I would describe it also as a hard-hitting indictment of Christianity and the church. He argues that faith has succumbed to the pressures of the age and has become merely a sociological phenomenon, that faith is basically the function of indoctrination. He argues that the truth of the Bible is for the needy, the spiritually needy, who do not have comfort from the accoutrements of civilization. For example, he notes, “God always takes seriously the cry of a man in distress, of suffering man, of man face to face with death. What, perhaps, he does not take so seriously is the cold, calculated, rational decision of the man who weighs the odds and condescendingly accepts the hypothesis of God.” He writes that mankind “has the pretension that he can solve his own problems” and consequently has invented technology, the state, society, money, and the state. And I would add “religion” to the list.

God responds not to our better feelings, but to the desperate cry of the man who has no other help but God. God responds just because man is in trouble and has nowhere to turn.

…when man has somewhere to turn he does not pray to God and God does not come to him. As long as man can invent hopes and methods, he naturally suffers from the pretension that he can solve his own problems.

 

Faith and doubt

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I was taught in my youth that faith and doubt were incompatible.  Now, I find they go hand-in-hand.  I feel that faith without doubt is largely dishonest, or as Sartre described it, “Bad faith.”

And note what Unamuno had to say on the subject:

Those who believe that they believe in God, but without passion in their hearts, without anguish in mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, without an element of despair even in their consolation, believe in the God idea, not God himself. ~Miguel de Unamuno

And William Butler Yeats puts this truth so pithily:

Oh God, guard me from those thoughts

Men think in the mind alone.

He who sings a lasting song

Must think in the marrow bone.

 

Purity and Extremism

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I recently posted a review of Reza Aslan’s book Beyond Fundamentalism and explained how he takes to task all versions of extremism, though his focus was on Islamic fundamentalism.

He addressed the purity emphasis of the Jihadist movement, noting that the Jihadists “consider themselves to be the only true Muslims. All other Muslims are imposters or apostates who must repent of their ‘hypocrisy’ or be abandoned to their fate.” He goes into great detail re the rivalry and hostility within the Muslim extremists as each sect tends to attempt to set itself apart as “the true Muslim” faith.

I’m personally sensitive to this type of lunacy as I grew up in a Southern conservative Christian sect which taught that it was the only true church. And within that sect there was the same “purity” emphasis which included, of course, moral purity but also doctrinal purity. The latter in particular often gave rise to dissension and “splitting” of churches.

Purity is a dangerous notion.  But when it is overly emphasized, one needs to beware as lunacy is beckoning. To be human is to recognize ambivalence, to recognize the presence of good and bad in all human hearts. Those that can’t handle ambivalence gravitate toward some form of extremism.

I strongly recommend Mary Douglas’s book, Purity and Danger.  Douglas approaches the purity notion from an anthropological stance and provides insight into its origin and function in tribal cultures.  And her observations are relevant to our particular “tribe”.

Group think and lunacy

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Here is the most brilliant sociological analysis of group-think and the lunacy that it can lead to.  It features Tom Hanks, Chris Farley, Michael Myers, and the rest of the SNL gang from the early 90’s.  You must watch this as it is hilarious but also will bite you in the but for all human’s have this tendency to isolate themselves in the comfort of a smug group.  (Unfortunately, you will have to copy and paste the link into your address bar.)

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/mr-belvedere-fan-club/1354072/

 

richard rohr

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I have quoted Richard Rohr frequently.  Here, he actually gives us permission to quote him freely without regards to copyright!  I will not abuse the privilege but I will quote him more freely.  My main intent today is to sell you on him.  He is a tremendous voice for the Christian faith and you can hear from him daily by going to his web-site and signing up.  He is very astute and very humble.

“You can catch more flies with a spoonful of honey than a barrel of vinegar,” says Francis de Sales.

Enlightenment cannot be manufactured, manipulated, or delivered on demand. It is always passed on from another. Jesus both claims to be the Light of the World and then says the same for us too! (See John 8:12 and Matthew 5:14-16.) It is surprising that most do not connect these two scriptures. Wisdom is not a do-it-yourself project. It is a mystery of transmission, contagion, and the passing on of life, as Francis de Sales did so well through his many loving messages in very hostile 17th-century Geneva.

I always tell people who ask if they can quote me that if it is true wisdom then I have no copyright to it. I learned it from someone else. If it is true wisdom it is always “common domain.”

Enlightenment is not about knowing as much as it is about unknowing; it is not so much learning as unlearning. It is more about entering a vast mystery than arriving at a mental certitude. Enlightenment knows that grace is everywhere, and the only reasonable response is a grateful heart and the acknowledgment that there is more depth and meaning to everything. A too quick and easy answer is invariably a wrong one.

Rohr understands that faith involves going beyond ideology, even “sacred” ideology and seeking the truth that lies beyond mere words.  For example, the term “jesus” is far removed from the experience of “Jesus.”  Or, as the Buddhists say, “The finger pointing to the moon is not the moon.”

Now if I can only humbly learn to practice what I here preach.

 

Reza Aslan on fundamentalism

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I am now reading for the second time Reza Aslan’s book, Beyond Fundamentalism: Confronting Religious Extremism in the Age of Globalization. Aslan, an Iranian born American citizen, explores fundamentalism of all stripes though his main focus is on Islamic fundamentalism. He thoroughly explores some of the basic concepts of fundamentalism and how that when core beliefs are taken to an extreme, the consequences can be severe.
For example, he notes that the word “jihad” in Arabic means simply, “a struggle” and comes from the verb “jihada” which means, “to strive for something.” Aslan argues that the word in its context implies “a struggle against the self, against one’s passions and instincts and the temptations that oppress the soul.” But that is a far cry from the popular meaning of the term in today’s world. This demonstrates how easy it is for anyone or any group to take a simple word or concept and interpret it to fit their own ends.
Ideologues of any stripe are dangerous people. If you run into one, give them wide birth! Unless, of course, it happens to me moi!
Aslan’s exegesis of the term jihad reminds me of Proverbs 25:28: He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls. And of course we know what happened back then if the walls of a city were broken down. The enemy could get in.

Republican identity crisis

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It is fun to watch the Republicans re-define themselves even though that is not what they had, or have, in mind.  They have a real identity crisis on their hands and I hope I live long enough to see how it ends up.  They are now poised to nominate Romney and he is so foreign to their ideals.  And in their virulent hatred of him and what he represents, they have been forced to attack basic Republican ideals, i.e. standard “business” practices.

But re-definition is good for us all and is applicable to all political parties and all concerns.  As T. S. Eliot noted, “We wrestle with words and meanings” and one purpose in life is to “purify the dialect of the tribe.”

Now this is really mean-spirited of me.  But all of you….ahem, both of you…know that mean spiritedness is not above me—I just love the notion that extreme right-wing, bible-thumping, fundamentalist Christians might have to choose between Mitt Romney (a “Mormon”) and a liberal Democrat who happens to be a “black man.”  That will put them in a tough spot.  My money is on the liklihood they will vote for “the Mormon” over “the black man.”  Yes, that delimma will get their panties in a wad.