Fuego Valiente

I wanted to spend some time fleshing out some thoughts regarding religion, I’ve recently encountered a lot of negativity from both Christians and anti-theists towards that word and I think both sides are misinformed.

It’s foolishness for Christians to try and somehow cleave their beliefs from the title of religion. While the anti-theistic opinion that religion is an outmoded, antiquated, irrelevant societal construct in today’s modern enlightened society that needs to be evolved out of the human fabric is an equally narrow and revisionist version of the facts. It’s true what they say, that religion doesn’t have a perfect track record and will have to answer for things like the crusades, the inquisition, and even current atrocities committed in its name. But the anti-theistic camp seems to forget notable historical figures from it’s past, people like Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin who were sadistic and exploitative of people in an effort to irradicate religion and other undesirables from their realm.

However, rather than ad-homenum attacks and unproductive criticism of anti-religious thinking, I would like to share some of the positive realities of religion.

• Arts and Culture

  In times past it was the religious institutions that sponsored the creation some of our most memorable works of art. A tour through the Prado museum in Madrid, or the Louvre in Paris easily confirms this.

• Community

  We need community, and religion has traditionally provided the protocols necessary knit a people together into functioning society. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that every current legal system has its origins in the protection of religious ideals.

• Social Responsibility

  You can thank Christianity for things like woman suffrage and the end of slavery.

• Critical Thinking

  I think this one is what would surprise most people, it was the one that most shocked me. I can’t speak for all cultures, but in both Islamic and Christian background countries, the most reknowned universities were originally established for pursuing theological training.

Many Christians don’t like the word ‘religion’, firstly because they’re ashamed of the atrocities committed in it’s name. However, given the positive realities of religion, and the sketchy track record of any main stream school of thought, I don’t think a Christian needs be ashamed of forming part of a religious collective. Secondly because it’s about Jesus, not religion, and on a certain level they’re right. For a Christian, the most important thing is Jesus, but that doesn’t impede religion from still being an important biblical concept.

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

—James 1:27 NIV

The above statement comes from the bible and the words there imply that God accpets religion but that it has its place. Religion is a tool to help us, the local body, better care for those marginalized by society and to not lose focus on the bigger picture; Jesus.

Webster defines religion as ‘scrupulous conformity’ or ‘a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith’. Religion, for all it’s faults, for the suffering it’s caused myself and loved ones, has profoundly and positively impacted my existence in ways that I haven’t even’t realized yet. There is only one world without religion and it’s animal.

That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.

— Christopher Hitchens, self described antitheist and champion of the ‘New Atheist’ movement.

And what evidence validates such an assertion?

There is something profoundly wrong with my arm but only a really astute observer would notice it just by looking. There is no bruising, or swelling, or scarring. I wear no brace, or sling or support, as there is none made for this issue. Yet none the less, many basic motions are painful, putting on socks, opening a door, etc.

There is something profoundly wrong with humanity, but at a cursory glance it’s something really easy to miss. People are generally cordial in greeting one another, respectful of other people’s property, and largely concerned for the well being of others. In my travels that has been largely the case with very few exceptions.

Yet I remember atrocities, horrible acts of violence carried out against fellow man, things like what happened ten years ago when some crazy people crashed airplanes into buildings in the name of religion. They willingly killed thousands and caused war to breakout.

In all the mayhem that ensued, I had to ask myself, how am I different from them? Am I somehow physically incapable of such hateful despite the fact that they are? It’s a scientific fact that I am human just like them, comprised of the same sorts of hormones, chromosomes and internal organs.

A godless world view allows room for love, friendship, and what is generally considered ‘good’ behaviour, but there is no obligation to it. With no higher authority than ‘community guidelines’, it cannot create an obligation to it. And when we remember events like 9/11 it’s a fair question to ask; where’s anti-theism when it hurts?

Society, like my arm is in need of a remedy. The difference is that man is endowed with the incredible ability to self-heal, man-kind, however, has no such power within. But:

The cross uniquely reveals not a God who is taciturn and disengaged from the human scene but a God who is right in the middle of our conflicts and struggles. This is not the Buddhist notion of retreating from the real world through monastic self-renunciation or of counteracting with good to offset the ever-present evil. This is not the Hindu notion of a pantheon of gods whose lives so transcend this earthly domain as to be wedded to myth inextricably. Nor is this the Islamic concept that endeavours to build an earthly kingdom by what means it takes, even the sword. This is the very incarnation, the embodiment of the Everlasting One, to communicate to a world that hungers for relational bliss and that yearns for a love so supreme that all else may be expelled—and yet a world that convulses with fractured kinships. —Ravi Zacharias in Can Man Live Without God?

God loves us and has high expectations of us, but in Him one finds meaning and ultimately a remedy.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. —John 3:16-17

I have tried to articulate to text exactly four other times what it is that I believe and failed. Which means I now have a much greater respect for those charged with the task of putting together doctrinal statements and manifestos. I’ve literally deliberated for years over what I could put down that could still be relevant by the next time I read it and the reality is precious little. But here is what I can say.

I will change

My beliefs and understandings will change and grow as time goes by. My parents have taught me a lot, my friends have taught me a lot, life has taught me a lot and books have taught me a lot. But friends, family, life and books aren’t done teaching me. The biggest problem I’ve had as I try and define myself, is that I change.

We need to teach kids to be good

If people are naturally good, why do we need to teach kids good behaviour? I start a lot of conversations this way. No one denies that kids need to be taught to be good, and everyone knows the difference between good and evil –or– no one needs to be told or convinced of their existence.

People then usually tell me that kids are corrupted by outside forces, TV, internet, etc. and I am sure years ago they would have included the radio in the list and years before that the village bard. It doesn’t matter because the implication of us being naturally and inherently good is that at no point the corruptive powers of external media could have ever existed to waylay unsuspecting children. We have a reasonable case for original sin. It’s only by admitting that an external force corrupted our genealogy that we can really account for the pervasive corruption of the human will. We are naturally bad, this is fundamental for me.

The second important point is that good and bad only exist when there is accountability to them. If murder were ‘bad’, but no force would ever act justly against it, would that be any different from ‘bad’ not existing? Is murder still bad if its committed beyond the jurisdiction of any authority? Would murder still be bad if the authorities decided that it was permissible in certain contexts? (The way authorities get around the stigma of the word murder is give it different names: abortion, euthanasia, ‘the final solution,’ etc.)

So I am inherently bad and I will be held accountable for my bad actions. Where is the hope? Can I just be really good to make up for it? Read Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables or even better the Bible, but in a word, no. Restitution must be made for every single bad action.

Now, I am a Christian, and I find hope in the following:

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life int Christ Jesus our Lord. – Romans 6:23

Jesus was good and made it possible for us to approach accountability as wholly good people. It’s great news and it’s a focus of my life. That won’t change.