Category Archives: religion

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)

Richard Rohr on Lent

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Richard Rohr in today’s Huffington Post (religion section) again addressed the issue of sham, enculturated religion, which people subscribe to to avoid reality, “everyday” reality as well as spiritual reality.  This is similar to the indictment of the church by Jacques Ellul about whom I blogged several days ago.

Rohr suggested that much of our religious experience consists of “self-help” pap that is often found in “motivational speeches.”  (And this is not to totally dismiss “self-help” or motivational speakers.)  With the Lent season in mind, Rohr posits the notion that “transformation” is what faith is about, not merely redecorating what the Apostle Paul described as “the flesh.”

His thoughts brought to my mind a residual blurb from my hyper-conservative religion past—someone accused most ministers of using their ministry as a “platform for the display of their carnal abilities.”  The writer was suggesting that many ministries…and the Christian life of many… was merely a “dog-and-pony” show for the fulfillment of one’s ego needs.

And, I might add that this “ego-needs” fulfillment issue is an issue for anyone with a spiritual impulse.  The ego is always there and is always needy.  I suspect that Paul might have had this in mind when he referred to his “torn in the flesh.”

When you get it figured out and resolved, let me know how to do it!

Below is the link though you will probably find the article easier by googling “Richard Rohr and Huffinton Post.”.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/fr-richard-rohr/lent-is-about-transformation_b_1282070.html?ref=religion

ADHD and “the pauser reason”

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Th’ expedition of my violent love
Outrun the pauser, reason.

In Macbeth, Shakespeare wrote, “The expedition of my violent love, outrun the pauser, reason.” I would like to translate that into, “The exercise of my fierce passion outruns ‘the pauser’ reason.” Though Shakespeare did not have modern neurophysiology to outline the role of the forebrain in handling impulsivity, he knew that a basic human issue was human emotion, or feeling, run amok. In Hamlet, he noted re the title character, “He cannot buckle his distempered cause within the belt of rule.”

With the “pauser reason” we can introduce what Deepak Chopra calls “the gap” into our experience. We are at times consumed with passion, but if things work out right we will have learned to “pause” briefly and consider the possible outcome of our behavior and/or words.

Years ago I had as a client a 16 year old male who had been diagnosed with ADHD. And he could have been a “poster boy” for that diagnosis, being unable to control himself in the classroom and at home. He was very intelligent and could articulate quite well regarding his subjective experience, even those times when he was totally out of control. And when he finally relented and followed his MD’s recommendation and took a stimulant medication, it had a remarkable impact on him. He noted to me one day, “Now, I have a choice. I have the same urges to “trash talk” and be “difficult” to my teachers, but now I have the choice of whether or not I want to follow through with my urges.” He had obtained “the pauser reason” (aka “an observing ego”) psychopharmacologically.

Unfortunately, he got tired of this restraint and began to balk about compliance with the stimulant medication. Soon thereafter his family moved and his treatment with me ended. But months later there was a sad ending to this anecdote. Apparently having stopped taking his medication, he was driving his ATV crazily across the countryside one afternoon. Something went awry, he wrecked, and was killed.

I was so sad and am very sad now as I relate the anecdote. He was such a handsome, intelligent, passionate, and insightful young lad. But as one of his teachers noted to me, “He simply could not live inside his own skin.”

Jacque Ellul and the Prophetic Function

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Thanks for the response to my posting re Jacques Ellul. I owe this to one of my
new friends in the blog-o-sphere who re-posted the matter.

Let me tell you a little more about Ellul. I’ve seen him described as a
“Christian anarchist” and I can understand that though I disagree. I feel he
merely served a prophetic function in our Christian culture and any prophet who
follows his calling it is always “anarchic” to the existing religious/spiritual
status quo.  If he was an anarchist of any kind then so am I but I firmly
renounce any such accusation—I believe too strongly in purpose in life and
feel that mature faith will always cling to hope and will always offer
purposeful behavior even when things appear the most dire.  I passionately
believe that there is “method to our madness” that divinity doeth shape
our ends, rough-hew them how we may.”  (Shakespeare)

I think Ellul was one of the most powerful voices in the 20th century in
religion though he does not get a lot of attention. Though I think The Judgment of Jonah was the most powerful of his books but I also highly recommend The Ethics of Freedom.

I would like to close with another quotation from Judgment, “From the moment faith develops in us, we must be permeated by the conviction that  that if grace is conferred on us it is primarily for others.  It is never for our own personal satisfaction.”

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 adversity

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Faith is easy when we are in our glory days.  But it is often more of a challenge when adversity sets in.  Please read the following article about a former evangelical pastor who is battling a losing battle against ALS.  (You will have to “cut and paste” as I have even yet to figure out how to import a link to this blog.)

Facing death, a top pastor rethinks what it means to be Christian

Faith is so easy when we can bask in the “sizz, boom, bah” of carefully orchestrated, entertainment-oriented religion.  It used to be so comforting to know that I belonged to a “happenin'” mega-church.  We were sooo cool.  God, what a false reality!.  I do not think that God had in mind creating a false reality when he sent Jesus into the world.  I think he had in mind a meaningful faith in which life’s difficulties were embraced, not covered up with sham, canned religion.

The Observing Ego

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The “observing ego” is that ability to self-monitor and make appropriate choices about public, social behavior.  Without this faculty one is knee-deep in abject narcissism.  And I argue that all of us have this problem to some degree, individually and collectively.  That is why we need to be socially involved AND to be sensitive to the feedback we get from others, explicit feedback and feedback that is more subtle.  Some have described it as having “antennae”.  And close, intimate relationships is the arena where the feedback is the richest as those people who are “close” and “intimate” see us best.

Here is Shakespeare’s observation re this issue in Julius Caesar:

And since you know you cannot see yourself,
so well as by reflection, I, your glass,
will modestly discover to yourself,
that of yourself which you yet know not of.

 

Meditative prayer…again!

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I have often quoted a line from Hamlet re prayer.  King Claudius is on his knees, in prayer, saying, “My words fly up.  My thoughts remain below.  Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”

That is a very subtle observation as is often the case when something is profound.  Shakespeare noted the distinction between a prosaic, formal, perfunctory prayer and one that is essentially meditation, “thoughts” and “words” conjoined.   Richard Rohr’s blog posting of today presents this notion more eloquently:

In what is commonly called prayer, you and your hurts, needs, and perspectives are still the central reference point, not really God. But you have decided to invite a Major Power in to help you with your already determined solution! God can perhaps help you get what you want, but it is still a self-centered desire, instead of God’s much better role—which is to help you know what you really desire (Luke 11:13, Matthew 7:11). It always takes a bit of time to widen this lens, and therefore the screen, of life.

One goes through serious withdrawal pain for a while until the screen is widened to a high-definition screen. It is work to learn how to pray, largely the work of emptying the mind and filling the heart—that is prayer in one concise and truthful phrase. Or as some say, “pulling the mind down into the heart” until they both operate as one.

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.

 

The Power of Thought

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Just a couple notes re the power of thought.

Mike Dooley noted, “Freedom from the past, or anything else for that matter always comes in the very instant you stop thinking about it.”

For, thought has a powerful hand in perpetuating our reality. This is true individually and collectively. It makes me think of an old bromide, author unknown, “Our thoughts become us.”

And peripherally related, Shakespeare noted, “Nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.”

And I close with another observation of Mike Dooley, “Thoughts are things. Choose the good ones.”