Results tagged “theology” 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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Greenspan Passes the Buck

People are mad at Greenspan.  Yes, the Lord of the Stock Market, the One True God we worshiped, has failed us, we see.  Alan Greenspan, almost three years after retiring as chair of the Federal Reserve, is realizing that free markets don't always self-correct.  Last Thursday he told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, "Those of us who have looked to the self interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders' equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief."  (NY Times 10/23)

Lawmakers asked him to say, "I was wrong, and I'm sorry."  Pretty simple.  But Greenspan declined.  At a time when unprecedented numbers of people all over the nation are losing homes and now losing jobs, as well, the former Chair refused to accept responsibility for the crisis.  He did say, however, that his faith in deregulation has been shaken.  We were hoping you might have noticed sooner, Mr. Greenspan.  And since you have fiercely opposed deregulation for almost 15 years, one would hope that you would at least apologize for letting ideology rather than market realities determine our economic policy.  "The whole intellectual edifice . . . collapsed in the summer of last year," he said. 

This kind of real-world crash is what happens when leaders hold to a blind faith in abstract notions of how things work, to the exclusion of what is happening to real people in real time.  (Another good example of the dominance of ideology over common sense and the lessons of history is President Bush's belief that the war in Iraq would be quick and easy, and we would be "greeted as liberators.")

Did Alan Greenspan really believe that people would fail to act in their own (short-term) self-interest in a culture in which that is the absolute name of the game?  Did he think that most bankers would fail to sell mortgages to people, if these bankers had no risk of losing money and had every reason to gain?  Did he think that ordinary people who had always wanted a home but thought they might not ever be able to afford one would turn down a loan that was handed to them so readily?  Did he think that speculators would not try to speculate, when easy money is available?  I am not an economist--my field of study is theology.  But I could have told Mr. Greenspan, had he asked, that people do tend to act in their own self-interest most all of the time, even if their actions might very well hurt others--yes, even if their actions stand to cause massive social dislocation and the suffering of many. 

This is how it works, Mr. Greenspan.  With sin, I mean.  First you decide what you want to do, out of your own need, or greed.  Then you rationalize that this action is not harmful to others--in fact, it probably will even benefit others (consider the totally discredited "trickle-down theory").  Then you ignore the consequences of your behavior, when they don't match your rationale.  When it turns out that your chosen ignorance and your greed have harmed another (or many), you say, "Gee, I just didn't know!" 

Greenspan blamed our troubles on "the modern risk-management paradigm."  Theologians might use the word "concupiscence," meaning lust or greed.  Maybe you economists should consider lacing your curricula of mathematics and logic with a little study in ethics and theology.  You could even consider meditation and prayer, to attempt an engagement of the heart.

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