Results tagged “faith” from Marilyn Sewell

During Archbishop TuTu's recent visit to Portland, some of us were asked to participate in panel discussions on several related topics.  I was asked to be on a panel entitled "Religion as a Bridge to Reconciliation."  The following is part of what I said in my introductory remarks:

The word religion comes from the prefix re, meaning back and the Latin ligare, which means "to bind" or "to bind back" or "to reconnect."  One might say that the function of religion is to repair the illusion of our separation.  Religion should play a natural, a logical role in reconciliation--to bind us together in common values of love, compassion, justice, and forgiveness.

Unfortunately, religion--and I can speak with real authority only of the Christian religion, which is my own--religion most often seems to do the opposite: it serves to separate and to divide.  Christianity has such a bad reputation that the very use of the word in the common vernacular connotes "one who is rigid in belief," and people who are not religious are wary of those who are, for these unconverted individuals--those unwashed in the blood, so to speak--too often have been targets for conversion and have not been respected as the persons, theological and otherwise, that they are.

Of course, all religious people are not Fundamentalists by any means, but even so, when any group of people begin to say, "My way is the way, my path is the only path," the result is division and acrimony.

In fact, religion then becomes no different in this way from any other ideology, whethers an idealogy of communism or capitalism or racism or deconstructionist thinking.  One who becomes an ideologist, or a true believer, begins to exist in a closed system.  Whatever fits into this chosen system is labeled "true" and whatever does not is labeled "false."  The curiosity, spontaneity, and growth of such an individual become limited.

Because each of us is troubled by a multitude of interior forces we do not and will not ever totally understand, it is our nature to look for a system which explains our angst and which makes us feel safe within the walls of that system.  We do not see that system as arbitrary, as created by humans who are terrified of our own inevitable demise, and so we reify those structures--that is, we come to believe that there is a concrete reality there.  Therefore, we cling to these beliefs as to life itself, and whatever threatens them must be challenged--or perhaps stemped out, eliminated.

Given this very human and very pervasive problem with religion, one can see why religion often fails to be a sturdy instrument of reconciliation.  At the same time, we know that there have been instances when it has been.  I'm thinking of enlightened leaders who have internalized the radical way of being that seems to be at the heart of all major religions--the radical way of love, compassion, peace.  Violence and retribution have no part to play.  I'm thinking, for example, for Martin Luther King, Jr., who taught non-violence in the Civil Rights movement; or Gandhi, who practiced satyagraha, or passive resistance, to free his people from British rule; or a more recent example, the Amish, who forgave the man who gunned down their children in a Pennsylvania schoolhouse a few years ago, because these gentle people could do no other: forgiveness is their way of being.

So if we mean by religion, a spiritual commitment to love and compassion and non-violence--if we mean by religion, a radical change of being in which the individual or community understands that we are all one and that love and forgiveness are central to their being, then yes, religion is the essence of reconciliation and a path to that difficult state.

But if we mean by religion--which we generally do--an institutionalized set of beliefs, then, no, just the opposite.  For religion in that sense divides people into the righteous and the unrighteous, the saved and the unsaved, the good and the evil.  And of course if we have made "the other" evil, then the righteous must have control over the evil ones.  We righteous ones can then project all of our shadow side onto these evil ones, and then Christians can smile as we say things to gays and lesbians like, "I hate the sin, but love the sinner," or say to those of another faith tradition, "If you haven't accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you're going to hell."  Not to mention the generations of wars between believers of various faiths throughout the world, throughout all time.  Make the people of a different tribe or race or religion "other," and they are much easier to kill.

So is religion a path to reconciliation?  Not until its practititioners mature as religious beings.  Not until its institutions become more devoted to the heart-lessons of their prophets than to the divisive theology of their true believers.

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A group of anti-faith folks are conducting a campaign--you may have seen the motto plastered on signs or flashing on TV: IMAGINE NO RELIGION.  When I saw this phrase, I actually thought it was a pro-religion group, asking people to imagine the loss we would feel if there were no religion.  But apparently the intent is just the opposite: they believe that the world would be a much better place without religion.

This sentiment fits perfectly the message of a number of best-selling books which have crowded the bookstores in recent years: Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, in which he says that belief in a personal god is delusional and "when many people suffer from a delusion, it is called religion"; Sam Harris's The End of Faith, in which he points out the remarkable insight that the Inquisition was a bad thing; and then Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great, in which he disses not only St. Augustine (OK, so Augustine had a problem with sex), but also the Dalai Lama, St. Francis, and Gandhi. 

Who are these people, anyway, who write with such vigor and authority about God?  Are they theologians, who have studied for long years?  Are they philosophers?  Are they ministers or priests, who know the territory from the inside, by practice?  Actually, Dawkins is a science writer.  Hitchens is . . . a clever iconoclast.  and Sam Harris dropped out of Stanford, where he was majoring in English and 11 years later went back there to earn a B.A. in philosophy.  They are not exactly Tillichian.  They are all over-the-top angry, and they all point out the worst excesses of religion--without bothering to point out the worst excesses of science, of political ideology, and of secular leaders.  News flash: people are imperfect.  As my grandmother used to say, "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."  "All" would be inclusive of religious people.

But let me tell you a real story about real people.  A Methodist minister told me that a few weeks ago, a woman came to his church one Sunday, looking for help.  She was in an abusive relationship, and she was frightened, with nowhere to turn.  After the service, the minister talked with her, and got her the support she needed, from the appropriate agency.  This woman was a stranger, not a Methodist, not a church-goer at all.  Why did she choose to go to this church, then?  As she said, "My assumption was that there would be somebody there who cared."

Yes, religion is imperfect, because human beings are imperfect.  We can take a message of love and new life from a prophet and turn it into a message of hate and death.  But that doesn't negate the original message, nor does that negate the institutions that try to embody that message.  It doesn't negate believers, people of faith like myself, who fail so often to do the good, and yet who, the next day, brush ourselves off and try to do better.

Imagine no religion?  Imagine not having a place to go where you can assume that somebody cares.  Imagine that.

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One of my congregants read a passage from the late Walter Lippmann today at a meeting, and I found his words both moving and relevant to our current political/financial crisis.  The passage is from Lippmann's essay "The False Gods," Today and Tomorrow, May 20, 1932.  In part, it reads: 

"What is it that has shaken the nerves of so many?  It is the doubt whether there exists among the people that trust in each other which is the first condition of intelligent leadership.  That is the root of the matter.  The particular projects which we debate so angrily are not so important.  The fate of the nation does not hang upon any of them.  But upon the power of the people to remain united for purposes which they respect, upon their capacity to have faith in themselves and in their objectives, much depends.  It is not the facts of the crisis which we have to fear.  They can be endured and dealt with.  It is demoralization alone that is dangerous.

"A demoralized people is one in which the individual has become isolated and is the prey of his own suspicions.  He trusts nobody and nothing, not even himself.  He believes nothing, except the worst of everybody and everything. He sees only confusion in himself and conspiracies in other men.  That is panic.  That is disintegration.  That is what comes when in some sudden emergency of their lives men (sic) find themselves unsupported by clear convictions that transcend their immediate and personal desires."

We have a situation now in this country in which nobody knows what to do, and nobody trusts the good will of our leadership.  In the face of the current financial meltdown, no more do we believe that "actually, someone is in charge; somebody knows more than I know about how things work--I need not worry."  Instead, it has come down to our "immediate and personal desires."  How does this crisis affect me?  Or, in the case of some people, "How can I profit from this crisis?"  Or in the case of some of our Congress people, "What must I say or do to be re-elected?"

We see conspiracies everywhere.  We fear that power given will be power misused.  What seemed perfectly clear a few weeks ago is no longer on the radar screen at all.  Hardly anyone is thinking like a citizen; many seem to being thinking how to gain advantage, rather than how to help and to heal.

The remedy?  Try honesty and trust.  Try integrity.  Try being sensitive to the needs of the poor.  "The world is flat," Thomas Freidman says, and all of us are one. All of us are one, yes, but not only in terms of our flow of money and goods, our fast-food joints, and our pop music--we are also one much more more literally, much closer to the flesh.  We cannot be separated, one from the other. What is good for one is good for all; what hurts one, hurts all.

We know that withdrawing honesty, trust, integrity from any relationship destroys that relationship.  We also know that whatever we do for ourselves alone is not enough, it is never enough.  We move through each day of our lives only with the support and care of many others.  The complex systems of families, communities, institutions, and governments that hold us are there only because of the common faith and trust of many who are present now and the many who came before. 

The power of the people depends upon our faith in something larger than our immediate needs and desires.  We need leaders of integrity and vision who can bring us together.  We need leaders who can summon us to a future that is worthy of our lives.

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Question: "How does a mother deal with difficulties with her grown daughters?"

Answer: All of us who have adult children know that parenthood never ends--we will always be moms and dads to our children, and we will always be concerned when they are in ill health or when their lives seem to be going awry, for any reason.  I'm not sure what kind of difficulties you are referring to, but generally parents get in trouble when we try to exercise control over our grown children.  About all we can do is to be there for them and to be sensitive to their stated needs--in other words, to be a loving presence in their lives.  We should always let them know that we care about them, and we should not withhold approval and praise, for even though they are grown, they need this kind of support from their parents and will continue to need it, whether they are 25 or 65.

Question: "How do you love someone who continues to hurt you?"

Answer: You would have to be something of a saint to love someone who is continuing to hurt you.  I'm assuming that you have some control over the relationship.  You should not allow anyone to hurt you, even if this person is a relative or close friend.  I suggest that you tell the individual how and why you are hurting, and if the behavior doesn't stop, then withdraw from the relationship.  At this point it will be much easier to practice forgiveness.  Remember, however, that forgiveness does not necessarily include reconciliation and renewed pain.

Question: "What is the best way to mend a broken heart?"

Answer: This is not my area of expertise, believe me!  Longing for love, we internalize in our very flesh the memory of belonging and connection from the last intimate relationship we experienced.  We must grieve that loss, and then, in my experience, we must find a new love, else memories of the old love will continue to haunt us.

Question: "How can our faith help with the anxiety and despair we have over the environmental crisis?"

Answer: There must have been other times in history when people thought that surely the world would end--perhaps during the Black Death of medieval times or during the World Wars of the last century.  The fact is that we do not have ultimate control.  All we can do is to face reality with courage and to do what we can to heal our earth and its people.  If we are depending upon ourselves alone, that is a frightening prospect, indeed.  But remember that we are partnered with the Holy.  That is the assurance that makes us strong and faithful in challenging times like these. 

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