Hi Jeff, I'm finding myself in an unusual position of agreeing strongly with half of what you say and not being so strongly in agreement with the other half -- even disagreeing some -- here and there. I suppose that merits a comment. If we all agreed all the time about everything that would probably not be a good thing.
Lying on my reading stack of books is "In Search of the Sacred" by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, the famous Muslim Scholar. Much of his personal and academic history (since his college days) has aligned with the same sentiment that you cite in regards to the notion that it is a big, fear-inducing social experiment to believe that we can order society in a moral way with exclusively secular patterns of thought and behavior.
We're not really sure about this yet, so it's a good conversation starter.
I spent 10 years of my mid-life studying and ministering as a Christian pastor in an ordinary, small town, Presbyterian Church (USA) setting (declining so-called 'mainline' Protestantism), so I have some pretty well-formed opinions on how religion can functions generally in culture based on years of experience lived inside a religious worldview. (In deference to any intersectional emphases that may be in play here, I am male, WASP, hetero/cis, urban/rural, Christian, leftish, able (almost fully), educated, poor/rich (been both), 57-years-old, married, DINK.
Here's my takeaway. I feel that we should consider carefully the waning of religion in the same way that Ruth Bader Ginsburg prohesied the gutting of the Voting Rights Act. She used the now famous analogy that getting rid of the voting strictures on racists counties would be like getting rid of an umbrella in the rain because you're not getting wet. And she was right. Once the coercion of the law was removed, the old, ancient, human instincts for power and control resurfaced, spawning a plethora of immoral anti-democratic voter disenfranchisement programs. Of course, one might reason that the "old human instincts" have been here all along, regardless of fidelity (or even the appearance of fidelity).
In the same manner of explanation of Ginsburg's analogy, the law, either from God or men (and now women), has historically always been deemed necessary to prevent the eruption of bad behavior rooted in response to pain and suffering. As long as there is "the law," and respect for it, this prevents people and societies from descending into chaos and bedlam when things get rough. So there's value there.
Note here that, contrary to some forums, and because I am psychologically and spiritually oriented, I don't place fault in this situation with the radical actors across the left/right spectrum. First, there's no good use at blaming people -- this never works. People are just responding ideologically to their own personal pain and suffering by fomenting against only lightly considered opponents -- with whom they actually share the common experience of becoming radicalized by the experience of realizing no one cares so much about them. Culture is disintegrating and for every profound soul feel the authentic fear and pain of this, there are 2 people yelling and screaming in utter relational disconnect. This is not good.
The law only works when people respect the law. And I don't see a lot of respect for the law these days inside the Republican Party, respect of either a religious or secular nature. Further, and worrisome to me, is that many Republicans identify with a form of Christianity that would be unrecognizable to Jesus, rooted as it is in the same identitarian manner as are the radical left, of whom they complain much.
To be fair, I think the religiosity of the Democrats is in the same identitarian silo -- they're just bonded with a different constituency.
So without playing too much politics here -- though I've obviously made my bias clear -- I'm really quite concerned that there does not appear to me -- based on my experience of pastoring -- to be a critical mass of people practicing religion in anything other than a entry-level -- and sometimes even superficial -- way. I wonder whether the allegiances of moderate Christians on both sides of the political aisle will be enough of a counterbalance against the raging politics of demagoguery currently ongoing.
I'm not really opposed to decline of traditional religion, but I do think that we really need functioning interim models of these traditional religions in conversation with emergent newer strands of culture in order to stabilize society. Chanting "lock him/her up" is not going to solve anything, and we are facing multiple crises. We need something like a renewal of old working paradigms of emergence of something novel and new.
Hi Jeff, I'm finding myself in an unusual position of agreeing strongly with half of what you say and not being so strongly in agreement with the other half -- even disagreeing some -- here and there. I suppose that merits a comment. If we all agreed all the time about everything that would probably not be a good thing.
Lying on my reading stack of books is "In Search of the Sacred" by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, the famous Muslim Scholar. Much of his personal and academic history (since his college days) has aligned with the same sentiment that you cite in regards to the notion that it is a big, fear-inducing social experiment to believe that we can order society in a moral way with exclusively secular patterns of thought and behavior.
http://www.sacredweb.com/online_articles/sw26_nasr_review.pdf
We're not really sure about this yet, so it's a good conversation starter.
I spent 10 years of my mid-life studying and ministering as a Christian pastor in an ordinary, small town, Presbyterian Church (USA) setting (declining so-called 'mainline' Protestantism), so I have some pretty well-formed opinions on how religion can functions generally in culture based on years of experience lived inside a religious worldview. (In deference to any intersectional emphases that may be in play here, I am male, WASP, hetero/cis, urban/rural, Christian, leftish, able (almost fully), educated, poor/rich (been both), 57-years-old, married, DINK.
Here's my takeaway. I feel that we should consider carefully the waning of religion in the same way that Ruth Bader Ginsburg prohesied the gutting of the Voting Rights Act. She used the now famous analogy that getting rid of the voting strictures on racists counties would be like getting rid of an umbrella in the rain because you're not getting wet. And she was right. Once the coercion of the law was removed, the old, ancient, human instincts for power and control resurfaced, spawning a plethora of immoral anti-democratic voter disenfranchisement programs. Of course, one might reason that the "old human instincts" have been here all along, regardless of fidelity (or even the appearance of fidelity).
In the same manner of explanation of Ginsburg's analogy, the law, either from God or men (and now women), has historically always been deemed necessary to prevent the eruption of bad behavior rooted in response to pain and suffering. As long as there is "the law," and respect for it, this prevents people and societies from descending into chaos and bedlam when things get rough. So there's value there.
Note here that, contrary to some forums, and because I am psychologically and spiritually oriented, I don't place fault in this situation with the radical actors across the left/right spectrum. First, there's no good use at blaming people -- this never works. People are just responding ideologically to their own personal pain and suffering by fomenting against only lightly considered opponents -- with whom they actually share the common experience of becoming radicalized by the experience of realizing no one cares so much about them. Culture is disintegrating and for every profound soul feel the authentic fear and pain of this, there are 2 people yelling and screaming in utter relational disconnect. This is not good.
The law only works when people respect the law. And I don't see a lot of respect for the law these days inside the Republican Party, respect of either a religious or secular nature. Further, and worrisome to me, is that many Republicans identify with a form of Christianity that would be unrecognizable to Jesus, rooted as it is in the same identitarian manner as are the radical left, of whom they complain much.
To be fair, I think the religiosity of the Democrats is in the same identitarian silo -- they're just bonded with a different constituency.
So without playing too much politics here -- though I've obviously made my bias clear -- I'm really quite concerned that there does not appear to me -- based on my experience of pastoring -- to be a critical mass of people practicing religion in anything other than a entry-level -- and sometimes even superficial -- way. I wonder whether the allegiances of moderate Christians on both sides of the political aisle will be enough of a counterbalance against the raging politics of demagoguery currently ongoing.
I'm not really opposed to decline of traditional religion, but I do think that we really need functioning interim models of these traditional religions in conversation with emergent newer strands of culture in order to stabilize society. Chanting "lock him/her up" is not going to solve anything, and we are facing multiple crises. We need something like a renewal of old working paradigms of emergence of something novel and new.