The mariner has written many times about the increasing chaos that already is in progress and increases in intensity as the world moves through transition to a new age. Such a transition has occurred under many names: the mastery of fire; organized language, the Greek age of wisdom; the Roman Empire; discovery of the Americas; the Enlightenment; colonialism; the industrial age, etc.

While easily encapsulated in a phrase, each new age took generations to emerge into a new state that was stable and understood by the masses. Each new age catapulted over old mores about culture, faith and productivity.

For simplicity, the mariner limits this treatise to the western hemisphere but acknowledges that the entire world suffers the same chaos. Further, he limits transition to religion, using it as a model for any subject.

In the western hemisphere, Christianity is the dominant religion. Once Henry the Eighth (and Elizabeth I) split from the Holy Roman church to form the Church of England, Christianity began moving into a new age that gave rise to reformation and an era of theological and liturgical freedom that continues today. Until the age of communication began with the introduction of the telegraph, telephone and television, religion was free to redefine itself parochially as the Baptists do and organizationally as the Methodists and other denominations do. Even cultural differences exist side by side. For example, the Mennonites and Amish, and the cultish branches that test faith with snakes, etc. Faux Christian groups are more or less accepted as well. For example the Mormons, Scientology and mega churches are part of the “normal” range of religious practice.

As the transition to a new age quickens, religion will lose its ideological independence. In the twenty-first century, religion will accommodate three wholly different disciplines: secularism, quantum mechanics and technology.

Secularism is founded primarily on the separation of state and religion. In the United States, James Madison is credited with the establishment of secularism. Secularism was slow to grow into a major “movement” because religious institutions remained influential in ethical and moral behavior. Still, the state and its citizens were free to improvise outside religious doctrines.

The state developed capitalism into a valid religion of its own. Today, capitalism so predominates that the ethics and morals of religion are virtually irrelevant except for those still active in congregations who, nevertheless, are capitalists first, religiously ethical and moral second.

The secular movement has fostered ethics and morality outside the precepts of faith. Secularism has permitted regionalization of ethics. The American South has changed little during the twentieth century. Other regions emphasize middle class morals and false Christian religions such as Mormonism, Scientism and mega church organizations with the trappings of Christianity but actually worship capitalism more than Christianity. The accommodation of capitalism into Christian practices is an excellent example of the move to a new age. The transition is far from over as religion struggles for a new identity.

Quantum Mechanics is the study of the smallest pieces of energy and matter – many magnitudes smaller than one atom. At these nanoscopic levels, physicists discovered that particles of existence behave differently than the assumptions accepted by classical physics. For example, one quark (a very small piece of energy or mass) can appear in different places at the same instant. The mariner could run on with many examples but he will leap to the oddly confusing assumption in Quantum Mechanics that there are eleven simultaneous dimensions and you and the mariner can be living different lives in each one. Do not feel inadequate about lack of understanding; only the rare few can perceive this possibility – and they likely are quantum scientists. Further, astrophysicists grow more certain that there are other universes as well.

Religion is in the same circumstance it had with Copernicus and Galileo hundreds of years ago. Science makes advances that blatantly challenge the Old Testament description of creation, Adam and Eve, Noah and the ark, the divine nature of humanity and many other biblical assumptions. The combination of religion, secularism and scientific advancement puts pressure on religion to reconsider the divine nature of Jesus.

As Copernicus and Galileo challenged the theological importance of man (the church) by clarifying that the Earth was not the center of the solar system nor was the solar system unique among others in space, Quantum Mechanics will challenge the vertical inheritance that flows from God to Jesus to man. Religion is bound at the moment to a singular focus between God and humans. Multiple dimensions and universes along with the growing acceptance of other life in the universe will stretch the vertical – perhaps reinventing the role of Jesus and increase the potential for Aryanism, teleology and determinism to be incorporated into religious ideology.

Technology is the engine that accelerates the end of this age. It propels us toward global relationships that are bound together not by geography, economy, culture or race – but by the ability to be part of the unity of all individuals via the Internet. Technology is a force that eventually will equalize human importance across the planet. Neil deGrasse Tyson has a term for this unification: Type One Planet. (Tyson was the host of the Cosmos series and an early advocate of Quantum Mechanics.)

Medical technology in particular will press religious definitions of birth and death as humans live longer and longer, eventually capable of virtually permanent life. The sanctity of work will be altered as more and more technical inventions change the way we live. Consider the impact of the automobile, airplanes, availability of food, and the atomic bomb. Technology can easily redefine what is important in our lives. It will continue to do so.

Put them all together and you have the knowledge base that will redefine faith, that which is sacred, and the manner by which we define our ethics and morals. There is still a way to go in this chaotic environment. We must reign in the corporations, entrepreneurs and others who are leveraging the chaos to their own benefit. In the end, as we adjust to the new age, the four horsemen will forge a new religion.

Ancient Mariner

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain

by Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson takes us on a trip through our own funeral. To that last moment when there is nothing left to know. Nothing to participate in. nothing to share. Nothing to feel. It is finally over.

It is that moment with which we all are familiar. It is a moment we all know will come to pass. Will we feel, as Emily suggests, the drop down and down…and finish knowing?

Some may in their hearts seek this joy. The joy that will leave pain behind. A joy that replaces insecurity, inadequacy, anxiety, depression and defeat.

Some may in their hearts not care about that last moment. There is no joy, no sorrow, and no loss. There is no feeling, too. Nothing of value to miss. The drop down and down to finish knowing is not a step away from before.

When some may feel that funeral in their brain, they bring great anticipation of release into a believed existence far away, that upon finished knowing, move through that moment to paradise unknown.

Some may, in the service of others, have arrived by fire or bullet or starvation or oppression in behalf of those unknown, will they have regret? To those still knowing, the vanquished that drop down have great meaning. To the one that drops down and down, do they wonder the worth?

Perhaps as we feel the funeral in our brain, we look back at what is still knowing, still not finished. As we drop down, we become free of the bonds that held us. Do we see, at that moment, what life ought to be? Is our last knowing of the living finally filled with divine insight and understanding? Is Grace upon us as we finish knowing?

We will be missed by those who love us, who knew us, who knew our place in the world. That, too, will drop down, down and finish knowing beyond our own. It is then that we entirely pass from knowing and being known – then an ancient stone or an urn unknown or ashes cast back to the earth and never known.

To those of us waiting our turn at the funeral, are there things that must be done? Are there rights to be righted? What prepares you for the trip down, down and to finish knowing?

Ancient Mariner

An esteemed reader of the blog has asked for an opinion of the United Methodist Church’s rejection of homosexual marriage for the son of Methodist pastor Rev. Frank Schaefer of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, who presided at the wedding in 2007. Reverend Schaefer was found guilty of not following the Methodist Discipline (a thick book of rules and procedural statements, including rules for church property), which accepts homosexual individuals but not homosexual “consensual” sex (stupid). Pastor Schaefer was defrocked.

The mariner will not engage in this issue without considering the whole history of marriage and its impact on religious, social and political circumstances. The first issue to examine is the marital relationship between a man and a woman in earlier centuries.

“Chattel marriage refers to a form of marriage in which the husband owned his wife, and any children of their union, in a legal relationship similar to that of slavery. The term refers to the root word ‘cattle’, from which comes ‘chattel’, which refers to personal property as opposed to real property, such as land.”

Most European noblewomen were party to chattel marriages, although if they brought money or property with them to the marriage, there usually were contracts involved, and “dower rights” were preserved to the wives. While the Roman Catholic Church may or may not have been involved in these “noble” marriages, it stands to reason that matters of money were not subject to Scriptural interpretation.

Marriage in pre-Christian times always considered a woman chattel. Harems and concubines were common and acceptable and “philandering” was common – by both sexes.

Historical references do not discuss the sexual legalities of common people in the Christian era. The mariner suspects it did not matter to the Christian church, the couple being irrelevant to doctrinal priorities. Perhaps a local vicar performed marriages without much ecclesiastical oversight. Likely these marriages are typical of today’s common marriages, also irrelevant to today’s ecclesiastical doctrine unless the homosexual issue arises.

To make a long, long dissertation on marriage short, marriage boils down to convenience. That marriage is a convenience goes back to the early Egyptian era. What the mariner extracts from history is just that: convenience. He feels this is a pragmatic approach to the many ramifications of people that are united in all things. In the case of Reverend Schaefer, the pastor is a victim of transition. Today’s secular culture has begun to acknowledge the situation where homosexual unions need legal recognition. In the mariner’s mind, religiosity has nothing to do with this transition. It is all about convenience in the context of society. Even the Blessed United Methodist Church has mixed feelings about homosexual marriages.

Now to the legality of homosexual marriage in the United States. As a secular concept, homosexual marriage complies with history – it is convenient. However, there are tax and property issues not dealt with by State and Federal law that, by specific definition, never considered the situation of homosexual marriage. This omission is because of religious standards set by strident movements of the Reformation. The framing of the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights more or less coincided with religious authority in the eighteenth century. Laws must be modified to acknowledge the convenience of two homosexuals who desire to be married. This is happening at this moment. The legal issue is related to the Constitution rather than to a specific religion.

Homosexual marriage would not be an issue except for those individuals or organizations who remain in the sixteenth century practicing chattel marriage – a marriage that required a man and a woman. Those individuals may be glad not to have lived during the age of Roman emperors when pedophilia and homosexuality were acceptable.

The mariner has opined many times that we live in a tumultuous era of cultural shift that will not pass until late in the century. The issue of homosexual marriage is just one confrontation to be resolved along the way. He thinks the conflict eventually will give way to the historical norm: what does the society consider convenient? Obviously, it is more convenient to rewrite a few phrases of tax law than to turn back the pages of religious history.

As to the United Methodist Church, I question their intent based on Mark 12:33: “To love him [God] with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” Homosexual marriage surely is included in that mandate.

Ancient Mariner