Dallin Oaks is at it again, saying stuff that sounds crazy to me. Of course I no doubt impress him (and others) much the same way. In proof whereof I offer the following disjointed observations.
1. How are religious people being abused in contemporary Western society (especially American)?
Religious
people are being abused by having their private lives turned into
weapons that large corporations (that may identify as religious or
secular--es macht mir nichts) can use against one another to jockey for
market share.
The problem is that we have
hordes of people who cannot find religious identity without forcing
themselves unconstitutionally on other people, against the will of those
other people. When you break the hordes up into individual personae,
you discover that most of them don't actually want to engage in
litigation, culture war, etc., against "the enemy" in some individual,
personal way. Peter does not hate Paul and want to destroy him. But
Rome hates Antioch. Christianity hates Islam (and vice versa). Religion hates
secularism. Science hates ignorance. Republicans and Democrats hate
the other party (not their aunt who belongs to it, at least not the same
way). The individual feels powerless to exist without a community
(legitimately), and all communities (or the loudest, most politically
active ones at any rate) are currently led by people who demand that he
must join their fight against rival communities to have a place with
them. I must force you to wear my burkha because if I don't, then you
will force me to wear your cross. Religious freedom does not exist in
this contest. It has become an oxymoron, a dead letter that people
invoke as cover for what they are really saying: "My god has a bigger
dick than yours, and I am going to prove it."
Think
of Elijah challenging the priests of Baal. That is how we do religious
dialogue in the modern fashion. I pray to my god, you pray to yours.
We go to court. We duke it out. If the court fails us, we go to the
battlefield (and kill terrorists). Freedom in this context is just
Nietzsche's will to power. Having told myself that I am painted into a
corner, that I must fight for my religion or be crushed ruthlessly by
yours, I lash out and try to destroy you before you destroy me. I don't
see your humanity. I don't see your vulnerability. I don't see that
your motivation, your movement, is fractured, fragile, fragmented, and
falling apart (the same way mine is). I put my chin up and charge into
the fray.
2. Is religion failing?
It
is not the failure of religion or science that confronts us today, it
seems to me, as much as the failure of leadership. We have forgotten,
if we ever knew, how to contend well with those around us (be they of
our culture or not). We don't deal in
dialogue, compromise, inaction, etc. We are all business, all about
making decisions and then doubling down when they prove bad. We are
fighting dogs that value gameness over survival, over anything really,
because we think that loss is impossible (inadmissible, evil, cowardly,
wrong).
I
don't personally believe that religion is dead or losing anything.
What is changing in society is what has always been changing. Religion
is simply changing its clothes, putting away the frock it wore yesterday
and making (or buying) something new to
cover human nakedness (itself a garment, the clothing of Nature).
Religion will only really die with the last human being (who will be
religious, on my view, no matter what he thinks about anything or does
with those thoughts).
Secularism
is just another kind of religion, with a new pantheon of gods (that
like different rituals). And it is not really that new, from my
perspective. (The very word "secular" comes to us straight from Roman
religion, which lies close to the heart of our Western political
culture, historically very much a religion. A religion that strives to
be ecumenical, sometimes, but that does not make it any less religious.)
3. Should we invoke politics to strengthen religion? (No!)
I
would argue against Oaks (and others who agree with him) that the strength of religion must be built
outside the US court system. To the extent that religion relies on
civil law for its strength, it loses that strength, conceding that we do
not make important religious decisions outside the courtroom, a move
that makes our only really powerful religion the US government. I hate
that idea. I see that idea as one to avoid legitimizing at all cost.
Religion
is stronger and more powerful as it needs less external civic
intervention, not more. The religion that must invoke violence
(politics, court orders, police, military) to assert its strength has
already conceded incredible weakness, practically admitting its own moral
bankruptcy. If I cannot strengthen families, live a decent life, love God and my fellowman, etc., without charging into the courts and demanding that you live my life against your will, insisting that I make no concessions to your weakness and you none to mine, then decency becomes impossible. Dialogue becomes impossible. The open society dies, and we get yet another iteration of Plato's kallipollis (a theoretical utopia on the books, and in courtroom babble, that manifests in reality as hell on earth). Eso no quiero, no busco, no deseo jamás. Mejor en pie morir (o en la cruz, los que queramos ser Cristianos auténticos).
"My kingdom is not of this world." As a Christian, I invoke these words from the Lord to justify my decision to walk away deliberately from Elijah's stupid quarrel with the priests of Baal. "Depart from me, ye that work iniquity."
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