Once More into the Breach
When last we discussed religion, here, Sam was suggesting that Robb and I were using religion in different ways. I think that that's basically true: Robb is focusing on "religion" in the contemporary culture wars, and I am interested in religion as a set of beliefs that "the religious" share and that the "irreligious," or whatever better term you want to use, do not.
I find that, as an outsider, so to speak, I find religion in this second sense much more interesting than many who would be counted among the religious. I guess that I find the subject more interesting because I don't have a dog in the fight, in the sense that I don't care whether a particular sect believes in Original Sin, Jesus' Status (Prophet, Son of God), the Immaculate Conception, the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, the Trinity, infant baptism, the priesthood, etc. What I find interesting is how the beliefs of various sects fit together. In a sense, if you're interested in belief systems (for lack of a better term), then religion is a great place to mine your ore.
That's one reason why I find Mormonism so-o-o-o fascinating. Of course it's a sham, but I think that about religions in general. What's interesting is what a brilliant sham it is. Really, Mormonism is a work of genius. It's perhaps the greatest American masterpiece in any medium.
So I am less worried than Robb about religion's place in the political debates of our time. Because the integrity of religion doesn't really motivate me. I think that it should motivate religious people, but if it doesn't . . . that's their business.
Btw, Sam and Rebecca's blog is a great read. They're such an interesting, smart, brilliant couple, one wishes that one could have them over for dinner. But then again, they live in Wales . . . . And Rebecca is right. Good and negative energy, that comes back to you. Now, is that a religious belief? Am I going New Age on y'all?
posted by Number Three @ 8:35 PM
6 Comments:
Mormanism has two Super things going for it: 1)Super-secret underpants "membership card" and 2)Supernatural spectacles. Who wouldn't find these things terribly fascinating??
Well, tarn, I'd say that Mormonism has other things going for it, as a belief system. My faorite part of Mormonism is that it eliminates all the Christian paradoxes/mysteries. There's no Trinity, because God and Jesus are conceived as separate beings. And they are conceived as corporeal beings, which eliminates the mystery of what God is (i.e., some kind of "incorporeal Being"). God is not omnipotent, in a Christian sense, which eliminates the problem of Evil. Mormonism transforms the story of Adam in such a way that this world is not viewed as evil, but such that "Man is such that he should have Joy," or something like that.
At the same time, Joseph Smith kept things "Christian," although you won't see a cross in Mormon religious architecture. So Mormonism is a kind of Christianity that doesn't require an Augustine to make it make sense. (And probably couldn't take an Augustine, for a number of other reasons. This is a church without theology, only doctrine. And a completely lay priesthood.)
There's much more to say for it, as a belief system. I think that it's easy for non-Mormons to mock certain elements of Mormonism, like the undergarments (which are silly). And I'm not a Mormon, either, Just someone interested in it from the outside.
Although I can't claim to have quite the same Mormonism jones that Em & Frannie do, I still find it a thrilling beast. My reasons are the flip of theirs (or "yours" depending on who's reading).
To me, Mormonism shows just how much religion depends upon imagination rather than reason, a point made in different ways and to different effect by Harold Bloom and Karen Armstrong. This may be an obvious point to non-believers, of course. But what's striking about Mormonism is how brazenly illogical it is: golden tablets, magic stones, a lost tribe of Israel turned into American Indians, a barely literate (and even less coherent) scripture, a polygamous set of racist, god-aspiring prophets who will call their ladies into the afterlife, and the list goes on. Oh yeah, sacred underwear! The South Park satire nailed how this must inevitably look to anyone on the outside. The Mormons could never have their own Augustine, because the religion is unsalvageable to any self-reflecting rationalist. Who could honestly believe this stuff, especially in our modern, demythologized age?
The answer is millions (6M in the U.S.?), most of whom are completely rational, functioning, decent members of civilized society. So reflecting on Mormonism for a Christian is a big gaze in the mirror. This is how we all look: the Trinity, virgin birth, yada yada yada. We can skate around the oddity of these doctrines knowing that a lot of very brilliant people managed to make sense of them, but at some level, we all face the problem that Mormonism throws brazenly in your face: to embrace a religious doctrine is at least in part to sacrifice logical coherence for the imagination, the logos for the mythos. Now, I would say that the impossibility of cognizing the experience of death rationally makes this religious imagination a human necessity, and I'm sure that Emery would disagree with me here, even if I can count not just Augustine and Calvin and Smith but also Plato and even Aristotle within my camp. Yet the point remains. There is something very humbling about the Christian encounter with Mormonism. I guess, if nothing else, it is a good reminder of why Christians put so much emphasis on the sin of pride.
So how much are you charging for rent?
A follow up point to my earlier comments. I don't want to dismiss the religious imagination simply because of its irrationality, even though, both as a mainline Protestant and as a student of philosophy and political theory, that is my natural inclination. The imagination gives religion much of its vitality, and if there's a clear cut reason why Mormonism (not to mention other imaginative and irrationalist faiths like Pentacostalism) is expanding while mainliners are declining, that's probably it.
Specifically, much of the power of Mormonism lies in its view of the afterlife. By combining two elements--(a) the radicalized self-assertion of man becoming God, and (b) the reunification of family life as the transcendent manifestation of that godhood--the Mormons offer an intensely satisfying and distinctively American vision of eternity. We're a "man's home is his castle" culture where SUVs and cow pasture palaces replace cathedrals and pope-mobiles as the signs of spirtitual striving, and the Mormon heaven captures that beautifully. Too bad they got rid of the polygamy, since that perfectly expressed the American dream that you can "have it all," an unlimited accumulation of all the goods of the private sphere. Of cousre, this is one reason why Mormons are so happy in the GOP. Meanwhile, those of us who like to think of ourselves as self-reflecting, rationalist Christians, and who, as a result, tend to acknowledge that any talk of the afterlife is unknowable mythos, and that it inevitably carries some disturbing ethical implications, find ourselves on the outside looking in at the most vital religious experiments of our era. So, a "tragic" Christian rationalism.
Emery, I can't help but break your respond-to-the-post rule here. TMcD, when you say "religious imagination" is something that you are inclined to eschew as a "mainline Protestant," what do you mean? The resurrection is something that agnostics likely view as highly imaginative, don't you agree? And don't you also agree that within the text of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Jesus himself is quoted as discussing the afterlife? If you think that his discussion, as recorded in those books, can be dismissed as "mythos," can you really claim to be a "mainline Protestant?" Would you perhaps be more comfortable writing as an acknowledged Benjamin Franklin-style Deist?
A quick answer, I hope, to Stephanie. No, this is not a "deist" position, for the simple reason that I do not envision God as a distant and rational watchmaker, but as actively engaged in human (and, indeed, all) life. To be clearer about the logos/mythos point, let me say that I do not consider "mythos" to imply falsehood, but instead to be an imaginative exploration of a truth beyond strictly rational discourse. This is a pretty common position within Christianity, one held by C.S. Lewis (if I recall correctly) among others, although it certainly does not please contemporary fundamentalists. I know from your earlier post that you do not fully agree with Lewis--I don't either, since I think he builds too much Manicheanism into his Xianity--but I'm curious if you agree with this part of his argument.
Post a Comment
<< Home