Category Archives: Religion

Part I

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Part I

The mariner is an old guy. Too old to run and play. Too old to have any motivation for work or for that matter any inconvenience. Too old. Having nothing else to do but be old, he is liberated from ambition, competitiveness, rampant emotion, and has a great desire to allay accountability to any purpose. This leaves him with an amazing amount of physical and mental freedom.

Being similar in age to wizened elders of several religions that pursue unification with a world beyond four dimensions, he understands now that a different worldview comes to mind when one is not obligated to four-dimensional success. Others may call this mindset escapist, lazy, demented or delusional but there is an order of comprehension beyond the mundane.

One must eliminate false interpretations. Obviously, this means eliminate every faux religious or self-righteous activity. The list is immense but a few examples are provided:

  • Any, ANY activity pursued for the sake of personal gain or stature – whether mental, spiritual, physical, pursuit of success or pursuit of empirical reward. This statement eliminates thousands of pseudo-virtuous activities.
  • Escapist behavior pursued for benefit of the self. Eliminate any attempt to elevate self-importance for positive or deranged reasons.
  • Compassion as an act in the moment. Compassion will be evaluated in further detail later. Examples at this point are compassion for kittens and puppies, I’m-better-than-these-people compassion, He/she-is-ugly compassion, I-feel-better-now compassion, He/she-is-like-Kennedy/Reagan compassion, they-are-a-teammate compassion, etc. It is compassion derived from any external perspective.
  • Allegiance to anything. Allegiance constricts the mind more completely than any other behavior. The art of advertising is the art of shaping one’s belief that a certain product, concept, or behavior is the best choice. Surely you have met someone who buys only Ford vehicles. The supreme example in the twentieth century is Nazi allegiance. Other countries, though less brutal, are quite the same in allegiance by their citizens. Some countries may be too broken for citizens to have allegiance typically because of war or tyranny.
  • Homocentric gluttony is the practice of consuming beyond normal necessity – taking into account that the Earth is a finite source with a lot of people. The wealthy are especially prone to gluttony. Homocentric gluttony is the act of consuming earthly materials, earthly fresh water, earthly energy, and earthly space for no other purpose than to consume. A few of the most egregious are corporate farming, construction, real estate, travel and home consumption of all forms of energy. In the United Kingdom, basically made up of islands, there are homes that were built four hundred years ago or older – not because the Brits are virtuous, it’s the limitation imposed by limited real estate.

Oneness is chosen as the word to describe an understanding of the universe, life on Earth and one’s lack of need for the mundane world beyond the constraints of one’s need to survive. By its nature, oneness invites exceptions. However, to claim exceptions implies a misunderstanding of oneness. Perceived exceptions will be reviewed later.

Using oneness avoids talking about six dharsanas, four yogas, five virtues, salvation, miracles, naturalism, humanism, six pillars of faith, two parts of the human soul, and being impervious to snake bites and other superiorities. Oneness accepts belief however it is ordained by any human being. To believe is an unavoidable human characteristic – even if it’s a momentary belief that one will win the lottery.

As an aside, the supreme contribution of the Internet is that one can major in any subject in one day instead of taking fifteen college credits over three years – meaning if you want to learn more about religions of the world or any topic you may have in mind, visit the Internet. It saves the mariner from writing a thick book and saves you a lot of money needed for college tuition.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

Marriage

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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

Dealing with Humanism – I

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The mariner heard from a few readers that humanism is the future alternative to the common man’s source of ethic, morality, and the daily life of mankind. The following quotes, quite lengthy, will make you an expert on humanism. The mariner has several issues with the doctrine of humanism but would like to address these issues to a knowledgeable audience since secular humanism is rising in our culture without restraint.

“A solution would be for us to embrace secular humanism as a good thing, instead of rejecting it as an un-godly philosophy. The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights could be celebrated as mankind’s aspirations for life on earth. It is inevitable that we will never agree about religion, but we ought to be able to agree on what constitutes the good life–and that includes individual rights, tempered by care for the environment and each other.”

Or one from Wikipedia:

“It posits that human beings are capable of being ethical and moral without religion or a god. It does not, however, assume that humans are either inherently evil or innately good, nor does it present humans as being superior to nature. Rather, the humanist life stance emphasizes the unique responsibility facing humanity and the ethical consequences of human decisions. Fundamental to the concept of secular humanism is the strongly held viewpoint that ideology—be it religious or political—must be thoroughly examined by each individual and not simply accepted or rejected on faith. Along with this, an essential part of secular humanism is a continually adapting search for truth, primarily through science and philosophy. Many Humanists derive their moral codes from a philosophy of utilitarianism, ethical naturalism or evolutionary ethics, and some advocate a science of morality.”

Others:

“Accurate definitions are difficult to come by. When one hears the word ‘humanism,’ several different ideas may come to mind. For example, Mr. Webster would define humanism something like this:

“any system or mode of thought or action in which human interests, values, or dignity predominate.”

“Others may think of a liberal arts education. Both of these are well and good, but what we are seeking is a definition of the worldview known as Secular Humanism.”

“First, Secular Humanism is a worldview. That is, it is a set of beliefs through which one interprets all of reality—something like a pair of glasses. Second, Secular Humanism is a religious worldview. Do not let the word “secular” mislead you. The Humanists themselves would agree that they adhere to a religious worldview. According to the Humanist Manifestos I & II: Humanism is “a philosophical, religious, and moral point of view.

Not all humanists, though, want to be identified as “religious,” because they understand that religion is (supposedly) not allowed in American public education. To identify Secular Humanism as a religion would eliminate the Humanists’ main vehicle for the propagation of their faith. And it is a faith, by their own admission. The Humanist Manifestos declare:

“These affirmations [in the Manifestos] are not a final credo or dogma but an expression of a living and growing faith.”

“What are the basic beliefs of Secular Humanism? What do Secular Humanists believe?

Theologically, Secular Humanists are atheists. Humanist Paul Kurtz, publisher of Prometheus Books and editor of Free Inquiry magazine, says that “Humanism cannot in any fair sense of the word apply to one who still believes in God as the source and creator of the universe.” Corliss Lamont agrees, saying that “Humanism contends that instead of the gods creating the cosmos, the cosmos, in the individualized form of human beings giving rein to their imagination, created the gods.”

“Philosophically, Secular Humanists are naturalists. That is, they believe that nature is all that exists – the material world is all that exists. There is no God, no spiritual dimension, no afterlife. Carl Sagan said it best in the introduction to his Cosmos series: “The universe is all that is or ever was or ever will be.” Roy Wood Sellars concurs. “Humanism is naturalistic,” he says, “and rejects the super naturalistic stance with its postulated Creator-God and cosmic Ruler.”

Secular Humanist beliefs in the area of biology are closely tied to both their atheistic theology and their naturalist philosophy. If there is no supernatural, then life, including human life, must be the result of a purely natural phenomenon. Hence, Secular Humanists must believe in evolution. Julian Huxley, for example, insists that “man … his body, his mind and his soul were not supernaturally created but are all products of evolution.” Sagan, Lamont, Sellars, Kurtz—all Secular Humanists are in agreement on this.

Atheism leads most Secular Humanists to adopt ethical relativism – the belief that no absolute moral code exists, and therefore man must adjust his ethical standards in each situation according to his own judgment. If God does not exist, then He cannot establish an absolute moral code. Humanist Max Hocutt says that human beings “may, and do, make up their own rules… Morality is not discovered; it is made.”

Secular Humanism, then, can be defined as a religious worldview based on atheism, naturalism, evolution, and ethical relativism. But this definition is merely the tip of the iceberg. A more complete discussion of the Secular Humanist worldview can be found in David Noebel’s Understanding the Times, which discusses (in detail) humanism’s approach to each of ten disciplines: theology, philosophy, ethics, biology, psychology, sociology, law, politics, economics and history.

Copyright © 1996, Summit Ministries, All Rights Reserved – except as noted on attached “Usage and Copyright” page that grants ChristianAnswers.Net users generous rights for putting this page to work in their homes, personal witnessing, churches and schools.

Question: “What is secular humanism?”

Answer: The ideal of secular humanism is mankind itself as a part of uncreated, eternal nature; its goal is man’s self-remediation without reference to or help from God. Secular humanism grew out of the 18th century Enlightenment and 19th century freethinking. Some Christians might be surprised to learn that they actually share some commitments with secular humanists. Many Christian and secular humanists share a commitment to reason, free inquiry, the separation of church and state, the ideal of freedom, and moral education; however, they differ in many areas.

Secular humanists base their morality and ideas about justice on critical intelligence unaided by Scripture, which Christians rely on for knowledge concerning right and wrong, good and evil. And although secular humanists and Christians develop and use science and technology, for Christians these tools are to be used in the service of man to the glory of God, whereas secular humanists view these things as instruments meant to serve human ends without reference to God. In their inquiries concerning the origins of life, secular humanists do not admit that God created man from the dust of the earth, having first created the earth and all living creatures on it from nothing. For secular humanists, nature is an eternal, self-perpetuating force.

Secular humanists may be surprised to learn that many Christians share with them an attitude of religious skepticism and are committed to the use of critical reason in education. Following the pattern of the noble Bereans, Christian humanists read and listen to instruction, but we examine all things in the light of the Scriptures (Acts 17:11). We do not simply accept every declaration or mental perception that enters our minds, but test all ideas and “knowledge” against the absolute standard of the word of God in order to obey Christ our Lord (see2 Corinthians 10:5;1 Timothy 6:20). Christian humanists understand that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ (Col. 2:3) and seek to grow in full knowledge of every good thing for Christ’s service (Phil. 1:9;4:6; cf.Col. 1:9). Unlike secular humanists who reject the notion of revealed truth, we adhere to the word of God, which is the standard against which we measure or test the quality of all things. These brief comments do not fully elucidate Christian humanism, but they add life and relevance to the clinical definition given in lexicons (e.g., Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, which defines Christian Humanism as “a philosophy advocating the self-fulfillment of man within the framework of Christian principles”).

Before we consider a Christian response to secular humanism, we must study the term humanism itself. Humanism generally calls to mind the rebirth or revival of ancient learning and culture that took place during the Renaissance. During this time, “humanists” developed rigorous modes of scholarship based on Greek and Roman models and attempted to build a new Latin style (in literary and plastic arts) and political institutions based on them. However, long before the Renaissance “Christian humanism” thrived in the works and thought of Augustine, Aquinas, Erasmus, and others. Some even see in Plato, a pagan philosopher, a type of thinking that is compatible with Christian teaching. While Plato offers much that is profitable, his assumptions and conclusions were certainly not biblical. Plato, like Nietzsche, believed in “eternal recurrence” (reincarnation); he (and the Greeks generally) paid lip service to their gods, but for them man was the measure of all things. Contemporary expressions of secular humanism reject both the nominal Christian elements of its precursors and essential biblical truths, such as the fact that human beings bear the image of their Creator, the God revealed in the Bible and in the earthly life and ministry of the Lord Jesus, the Christ.

During the scientific revolution, the investigations and discoveries of broadly trained scientists who can be considered humanists (men like Copernicus and Galileo) challenged Roman Catholic dogma. Rome rejected the findings of the new empirical sciences and issued contradictory pronouncements on matters lying outside the domain of faith. The Vatican held that since God created the heavenly bodies, these must reflect the “perfection” of their Creator; therefore, it rejected the astronomers’ discoveries that the orbits of the planets are elliptical and not spherical, as previously held, and that the sun has “spots” or colder, darker areas. These empirically verifiable facts and the men and women who discovered them did not contradict biblical teachings; the real turn away from biblically revealed truth and toward naturalistic humanism —characterized by rejection of authority and biblical truth, and leading toward an avowedly secular form of humanism — occurred during the Enlightenment, which spanned the 18th and 19th centuries and took root throughout Europe, blossoming especially in Germany.

Numerous pantheists, atheists, agnostics, rationalists, and skeptics pursued various intellectual projects not beholden to revealed truth. In their separate and distinct ways, men like Rousseau and Hobbes sought amoral and rational solutions to the human dilemma; moreover, works like Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, and Fichte’s The Science of Knowledge laid the theoretical foundation for later secular humanists. Whether consciously or unconsciously, contemporary academics and secular humanists build on the ground laid before when they promote exclusively “rational” approaches to social and ethical issues and antinomian forms of self-determination in such areas as individual autonomy and freedom of choice in sexual relationships, reproduction, and voluntary euthanasia. In the cultural domain, secular humanists rely on critical methods when interpreting the Bible and reject the possibility of divine intervention in human history; at best, they view the Bible as “holy history.”

Going by the name of “higher criticism,” secular humanism spread like gangrene in schools of theology and promoted its rationalized or anthropocentric approach to biblical studies. Starting in Germany, the late 19th century “higher criticism” sought to “go behind the documents” and de-emphasized the authoritative message of the biblical text. As Darrell L. Bock has noted, the speculative nature of higher criticism treated the Bible “as a foggy mirror back to the past” and not as the inerrant historical record of the life and teachings of Christ and His apostles (“Introduction” in Roy B. Zuck and D. L. Bock, A Biblical Theology of the New Testament, 1994, p. 16). For example, in his Theology of the New Testament, Rudolf Bultmann, a leading exponent of higher criticism, relies heavily on critical assumptions. As Bock points out, the author is “so skeptical about the New Testament portrait of Jesus that he barely discusses a theology of Jesus” (ibid).

While higher criticism undermined the faith of some, others, like B. B. Warfield at Princeton Seminary, William Erdman, and others, persuasively defended the Bible as the Word of God. For example, in responding to skeptics who questioned the early date and Johannine authorship of the fourth gospel, Erdman and other faithful servants of the Lord have defended these essentials on critical grounds and with equal scholarship.

Likewise, in philosophy, politics, and social theory, Christian academics, jurists, writers, policy-makers, and artists have wielded similar weapons when defending the faith and persuading hearts and minds for the Gospel. However, in many areas of intellectual life the battle is far from over. For example, in American English departments and literary circles beyond the academic world, the siren call of Ralph Waldo Emerson continues to hold sway. Emerson’s pantheism amounts to a denial of Christ; it is subtle and can beguile the unwary to turn away from the Gospel. Emerson held that the “Over Soul” within individuals makes each person the source of his or her own salvation and truth. In reading writers like Emerson and Hegel, Christians (especially those who would defend the faith once and for all delivered to the saints [Jude 3]) must exercise caution and keep the Word of God central in their thoughts, and humbly remain obedient to it in their lives.

Christian and secular humanists have sometimes engaged in honest dialogue about the basis or source of order in the universe. Whether they call this reason or Aristotle’s prime mover, some secular rationalists correctly deduce that moral Truth is a prerequisite for moral order. Although many secular humanists are atheists, they generally have a high view of reason; therefore, Christian apologists may dialog with them rationally about the Gospel, as Paul did inActs 17:15-34when addressing the Athenians.

How should a Christian respond to secular humanism? For followers of the Way (Acts 9:2;19:19,23), any legitimate form of humanism must view the full realization of human potential in the submission of the human mind and will to the mind and will of God. God’s desire is that none should perish, but that all should repent and inherit eternal life as His children (John 3:16;1:12). Secular humanism aims to do both much less and much more. It aims to heal this world and glorify man as the author of his own, progressive salvation. In this respect, “secular” humanism is quite at ease with certain religious substitutes for God’s true Gospel—for example, the teachings of Yogananda, the founder of the Self-Realization Fellowship. By contrast, Christian humanists follow the Lord Jesus in understanding that our kingdom is not of this world and cannot be fully realized here, God’s promises to Israel notwithstanding (John 18:36;8:23). We set our minds on God’s eternal kingdom, not on earthly things, for we have died and our lives are hidden with Christ in God. When Christ—who is our life—returns, we will appear with him in glory (Colossians 3:1-4). This is truly a high view of our destiny as human beings, for we are His offspring, as even secular poets have said (see Aratus’s poem “Phainomena”; cf.Acts 17:28).

One does not have to be a Christian to appreciate that humanism powered by pure reason alone cannot succeed. Even Emmanuel Kant, writing his Critique of Pure Reason during the height of the German Enlightenment, understood this. Neither should followers of Christ fall prey to the deceitfulness of philosophy and human tradition, or be taken captive by forms humanism based on romantic faith in the possibility of human self-realization (Colossians 2:8). Hegel based human progress on the ideal of reason as spirit “instantiating” itself through progressive dialectical stages in history; but had Hegel lived to see the world wars of the 20th century, it is doubtful that he would have persisted in detecting human progress in this debacle of history. Christians understand that any form of humanism set apart from divinely authored redemption is doomed to failure and false to the faith. We ground a high view of man in a high view of God, since mankind is made in the image of God, and we agree with Scripture concerning man’s desperate situation and God’s plan of salvation.

As Alexander Solzhenitsyn observed, humanism offers no solution at all to mankind’s desperate condition. He puts it this way: “If humanism were right in declaring that man is born to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to die, his task on earth evidently must be of a more spiritual nature.” Indeed. Mankind’s task is to seek and find God (Acts 17:26-27; cf.15:17), our true redeemer who offers us a better than earthly inheritance (Hebrews 6:9;7:17). Anyone who opens the door to Christ (Revelation 3:20) will inherit that better country, which God has prepared for those who love Him and are called according to His purposes (Ephesians 1:11;Romans 8:28; Hebrew 11:16; cf.Matthew 25:34;John 14:2). How much more excellent is this than all the proud and lofty goals contained in secular humanist manifestos?

Is your spiritual home right here on Earth?

Are you searching for a path which focuses on Earth and the Cosmos, rather than some imaginary beyond? Are you more concerned with saving the planet than saving your eternal soul? With making the best of your one life here, rather than longing for life in an imaginary paradise?

Do you find it hard to believe in supernatural gods, and difficult to conceive of anything worthier of the deepest respect than the beauty, power and mystery of the Universe?

Do you feel a deep sense of peace, belonging, and wonder in the midst of Nature?

Are you looking for a spirituality that respects individual choice and the rights of all living things? One that values reason and science over adherence to ancient scriptures?

If so, then you will feel at home in the World Pantheist community.

Can a spirituality be based in Nature?

In the World Pantheist Movement we revere and care for Nature, we accept this life as our only life, and this earth as our only paradise, if we look after it. We revel in the beauty of Nature and the night sky, and are full of wonder at their mystery and power.

By spirituality and spiritual we don’t mean any kind of supernatural or non-physical activity. We mean our deeper emotions and aesthetic responses towards Nature and the wider Universe – our sense of our place in these, and the ethics and values that these feelings imply.

We take the real Universe and Nature as our starting and finishing point, not some preconceived idea of God. We feel a profound wonder and awe for these, in some ways similar to the reverence that believers in more conventional gods feel towards their deity, but without anthropomorphic worship or belief that Nature has a mind or personality that we can influence through prayer or ritual.

Our ethics are humanistic and green, our metaphysics naturalistic and scientific. To these we add the emotional and aesthetic dimensions which humans need to cope with life’s challenges and to embrace life’s joys, and to motivate their concern for Nature and human welfare.

Our beliefs

Our beliefs and values reconcile spirituality and rationality, emotion and values and environmental concern with science and respect for evidence. They are summarized in our Pantheist Statement of Principles, which embodies the following basic principles:

  • Reverence, awe, wonder and a feeling of belonging to Nature and the wider Universe .
  • Respect and active care for the rights of all humans and other living beings.
  • Celebration or our lives in our bodies on this beautiful earth as a joy and a privilege.
  • Strong naturalism – without belief in supernatural realms, afterlives, beings or forces.
  • Respect for reason, evidence and the scientific method as our best ways of understanding nature and the Cosmos.
  • Promotion of religious tolerance, freedom of religion and complete separation of state and religion.

If you want to see why other people have chosen this spiritual approach, then check out Members’ Voices.

The benefits

Most people have a sense that there is something greater than the self or than the human race. And indeed there is. It’s the planet, and at a broader level the entire Universe.

Pantheism’s naturalistic reverence for Nature can satisfy the need for a feeling of belonging to a greater whole, without sacrificing logic or respect for evidence and science. As one WPM member put it, it is spirituality without absurdity.

  • It does not require faith in miracles, invisible entities or supernatural powers.
  • It accepts and affirms life joyously. It does not regard this life as a waiting room or a staging post on the way to a better existence after death.
  • It has a healthy and positive attitude to sex and life in the body.
  • It teaches reverence and love and active concern for Nature. Nature was not created for us to use or abuse – Nature created us, we are an inseparable part of her, and we have a duty of care towards her.
  • It enthusiastically embraces the picture of a vast, creative and often violent Universe  revealed by the Hubble Space Telescope. We need a spirituality in keeping with this new knowledge, not one that seeks to deny or explain away parts of it.
  • It does not simply co-exist uncomfortably with science: it fully embraces science as part of the human exploration of the awesome Cosmos. However, this does not mean we believe that science can answer all questions, nor that we endorse all modern technologies regardless of their impact on Nature.

Utilitarianism is a theory in normative ethics holding that the proper course of action is the one that maximizes utility, usually defined as maximizing happiness and reducing suffering.

 

Unintentional Reformation

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The mariner was watching “Book Talk” on CSPAN2 recently. The author, Brad Gregory, presented his book The Unintentional Reformation. By his own admission, the book is a hard read. It is about the unintentional ramifications that arose when the established church (Holy Roman Catholic and Anglican) was no longer the universal keeper and interpreter of morality, ethics, God and daily behavior.

The state protected the right of people to choose their faith. Consequently, the “church” was no longer keeper and interpreter of common good. Each denomination could define common good from its own perspective.

This meant that individuals also could choose not to abide by any definition of the common good. Thus arose secularism, a new movement uncommitted to any definition of common good – the unintentional reformation.

Gregory defined the behavior of today’s masses as not having religion. He defined religion as a natural element in life that provides personal ethics and moral direction. When the reformation occurred, many did not look for a religious definition of morality and there was no universal interpreter of common good to advise them. Further, there were many definitions of common good that, by default, meant none was the true common good.

Gregory went on to say that the collapse of common good has led to extremism, fragmentation in government, greed and abuse in businesses and has left stranded lives. Religion is not present. What interested the mariner is the author’s separation of “religion” from organized churches. His only contention was that there must be a keeper and interpreter of the common good that is abided by the masses. He did not say who the keeper should be today, only that the Reformation unintentionally unleashed secularism, a movement that has no keeper of common good.

The Unintentional Reformation is an elaborate, intellectual accounting of the influence of commerce, politics, science and demographics that over time led to the Reformation. The book won the ISI Henry and Anne Paolucci Award for Excellence.  However, it is a history of the Reformation, not a guide for today’s troubles. Who is the keeper of the common good today? The Government? HA! We must ponder this a bit.

The mariner has written of the decline of pew-based faith. Many have left the church to join the secularists – even as they continue to sit in a pew. This may not mean that many have abandoned the common good that their church provided for them. However, one is hard pressed to believe the moral behavior of the new secularist will be sustained.

Many moralistic individuals believe there is a common good. Some are noteworthy and even influence large groups of people. What comes to mind first are the very rich who organize charitable projects. The rich operate outside the reach of governments and provide moralistic services to those in need. The mariner thinks of Warren Buffet, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates and a host of show business personalities. Are the rich the keepers of religion in our lives? Economically, the rich are a problem in our economy, leaving many people poorer for the sake of the rich.

The Roman Catholic and Protestant Christian movement certainly is far from dead, though it shows signs of abiding secularism even as it proposes inadequate reinforcement of the common good. Organized religion provides significant funding for numerous charitable programs similar to the rich. The organized church is a major influence regarding moral behavior in society but, as Gregory indicated, it is not the only interpreter of morality, ethics, God and daily behavior. What is needed to unify the common good is a single source with the authority to impose the common good on today’s culture. That includes all elements: personal behavior, corporations, communities, and government.

Therein lays the dilemma. Once Henry the Eighth was able to break away from the Roman Catholic Church and once the Reformation broke the chains of church authority in favor of individual rights, government had the upper hand. Governments allow religious organizations to exist but take from them the authority to interpret and enforce the common good. Ironically, the concept of individual rights is a linchpin in secularism.

The mariner leaves the situation as it is. He has no solution. There may be no way to enforce common good when individuals have individual rights. He agrees with Gregory that secularism was an unintended result of the Reformation.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

About the Conundrum

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The mariner had no takers on the difference between God and non theists who believe in a totally predetermined universe designed to be what it is and nothing more. The non theist idea is that everything is created with a purpose that completes the grand plan of the universe. Those who believe this way are called teleologists. There are many groups who don’t know they are teleologists and have composed parallel atheistic arguments against the presence of a God.

What separates Christians from teleologists is free will. A second element of Christianity is that there is a responsive relationship between each of us and with a God that loves us. A third element is accountability to love God and love our neighbors. These responsibilities are the two Great Commandments.

A nice metaphor is a wooded Indian versus a real Indian. The wooden Indian is a part of the grand design, completed. A real Indian has a life to live, choices to be made, to love, and to relate to a God that responds to him.

If the Conundrum was too obscure, the mariner apologizes.

Ancient mariner

Conundrum

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In replies to the mariner’s posts (replies are often more enlightening than his own post), one idea has been referenced that can be considered a conundrum. Many religions consider that God is omnipresent, that God is the creator of all things, and that God’s love is a power source available to all creatures. Yet there is an element of freewill, of obligation.

On the other hand, there are a number of non-theist groups that believe every piece of existence – from neutron stars, planets, life forms, chemicals and molecules – all have an awareness insofar as their role in the universe.

Do not dismiss this idea lightly. We all are looking for an answer to God’s creation and why we are part of it. Most obvious, at first look, is the absence of love and accountability. Yet, universal creationists see a complete and reasonable way that everything behaves according to a universal plan and accordingly we love and feel accountable because of that plan.

Many universal creationists accept Darwin’s evolution thesis as a description of how creatures evolve on this particular planet in the universe. We behave as we are meant to behave – as humans created according to the laws of the universe.

The conundrum is how is this different from a God model?

The field of these ideas is called teleology. Many books have been written on the subject over the ages. No matter which path you believe, what is the difference? The earliest citation the mariner could find is Cicero the author (just before Jesus was born), who said, “gods are our own graphic idealization of the life to which we aspire,” wherein he cynically accepts that we create our god to our convenience, falling short on heavenly knowledge. All elements of the universe have a purpose bound to the laws of the universe else they would not exist.

Is our existence God’s purpose? Is our existence the Universe’s purpose?

Is our behavior predetermined by a universe that has created our molecules?

A conundrum indeed.

Ancient Mariner

Watching the Gristmill

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There are many subjects and circumstances by which one can watch culture in transition.

Today’s example that always makes the news is the annual evaluation of secondary school texts by the Texas Board of Education. Watching this process in action is somewhat irritating both to creationists and to evolutionists. Every year there is a battle between conservative Christians and fact-driven centrists. It is an unsavory mix of religious faith and scientific analysis – truly an oil and water mix that will never find satisfaction.

What makes it a news item is the fact that Texas buys a proportionately large number of schoolbooks. Publishers have no interest in publishing more than one version because it is expensive. The publishers want to sell their texts across the country but because of its purchasing power, the publishers have to accommodate the Texas Board of Education as the Board attempts to withdraw evolution or at least defame it in the textbooks while at the same time giving credence to creationism. Other states, of course, may not want this approach to history.

Texas finally had to pass a law saying that Texas School Districts did not have to accept the textbooks approved by the Texas Board of Education. That is a significant concession that moves the bar to the left. However, this year, according to the Associated Press, the issue of global warming is added to the mix.

What makes the issue a study in cultural transition is to look at the changing attitude and belief statistics across time. It bounces up and down. What interests the mariner most is the increase in creationist and God driven evolution (Intelligent Design). Is this caused by our troubled economy and the growing disparity of our economic classes? Is it caused because religious institutions are available at the neighborhood level while science is promoted only in college and postgraduate institutions? Oddly, even as American Christianity grows more conservative, the Roman Catholic Pope welcomes atheists. The mariner is fascinated. Fascinated but he has no answers. All of us are in the gristmill of day-to-day history. It’s like watching sausage being made.

The Texas battle between belief and fact is not the only conflict. It has always been this way. It began with Jesus claiming to be the Son of God, which led to his crucifixion. Galileo was sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life by the Roman Church for defending the idea that the Sun was at the center of the Solar System rather than the Earth. Charles Darwin has been condemned by the Christian religion for his thesis on evolution. An open, unfrozen Arctic Ocean, a global rise in temperature of 1.5 degrees and oceans that are three inches deeper are dismissed as unreliable facts insofar as global warming is concerned.

If Christians would stick to the New Testament and not begin by reading the Pentateuch in the Jewish Bible, things would be a lot simpler.

Ancient Mariner

 

More on the Church Issue

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It seems the mariner has stepped on a yellow jacket nest with his examination of the church and its lack of commitment to the principles espoused in the Gospels. He does not intend to quote the Sermon on the Mount and the many parables. He will not extrapolate the overarching principle of faith derived from the crucifixion. The mariner welcomes everyone to revisit their Christian faith by reading the Gospels for themselves. In this post, he focuses on individual church congregations. Connectional institutions will be addressed at another time. In preparation for connectional institutions, watch the movies “The Shoes of the Fisherman” starring Anthony Quinn (1968) and “Saving Grace” starring Tom Conti (1986).

Irrefutable points:

  • Jesus requires his followers to be humble. The second Great Commandment requires Christians to treat others as they would want others to treat them. There are no exceptions to this commandment.
  • Jesus requires that we must sell all we have and follow him. This is where religion, in general, conflicts with sociological arguments about culture. Two thousand years later, we are closer to being the Romans than the abused population in which Jesus lived. What priorities in lifestyle must each of us sacrifice to follow Jesus?
  • Jesus never intended the distraction caused by organized pursuit of worldly manifestations such as church buildings. Alternatively, Jesus wanted his followers to emulate the good Samaritan, caring for others at every opportunity – a personal responsibility, not an institutional one.

These three points are not debatable. They are virtual iterations of the word of Jesus.

Given these Christian requirements, one must consider the value of modern cultural distractions. In an earlier post in the Religion category (All Things Evolve – Even Christianity), the mariner makes the case that a Christian indeed is confronted by different conditions and asks how Christianity can be presented to the current culture. Cultural presentation and integration of Christianity must change to be effective. However, these changes cannot deviate from the three points cited earlier. Taken from the earlier post:

“We must live the word of Jesus. Words like forgiveness, kindness, goodness, acceptance, constitute a way of life. A Christian, no matter the historical account, is someone who is devoted to the happiness and wellbeing of others – no matter their style of life or their ethnicity. This is the message that must not fade in the midst of these troublesome days.”

The mariner has been in many denominational, Roman Catholic, and Greek Orthodox churches. With only one or two exceptions, the church is made of the finest materials appropriate to the economic neighborhood and built with as many square feet as affordable. These edifices are groomed as if they were the Golden Calf. These edifices have first priority in the consumption of contributions – that is, first after the professional staff is paid. Somewhere, way down in the budget, a few dollars are committed to the wellbeing of others.

How can this inverted priority be ignored? The Christian must ask, “What is the purpose of this building?” Most will answer, “It is a Holy place where God and Jesus are worshipped.” To what end, the mariner may ask. Another response is, “It is necessary to educate and attract the community to the Christian faith.” Yet so many churches are shrinking – except the TV evangelists, who appeal to a very broad audience of evangelical believers and couch Christians.

Interestingly, many individuals who are not affiliated with a church can be found working as volunteers in services for the poor or Habitat for Humanity or building schools in impoverished areas of the world or traveling to disaster areas to aid the local community. How does the church attract these purveyors of goodness? More importantly, how does the church emulate these purveyors of goodness?

Research into psychological and sociological reasons suggests that there are benefits to being part of a congregation:

  • Companionship – The mariner has witnessed the power of  the church when providing a positive and comforting environment for many  who otherwise would have no opportunity to share life with others.
  • Comfort – The promise of eternal salvation satisfies  the need to be accepted through faith that life does not end; that one’s  life has value no matter its station or circumstance. This is a legitimate  goal among all people.
  • Status – Belonging to a group such as a congregation bestows a  personal sense of importance, even as a non-participatory member.
  • Limited responsibility is the tendency for members to feel less responsible for their actions when surrounded by others who are behaving in a similar manner. Any church nominating committee can attest to the resistance of individuals to step into additional responsibility.

Limited responsibility also relates to activist behavior. A member finds it rewarding to perform within the church membership but stepping out into the community at a one-to-one level is not a desired experience.

The mariner acknowledges these benefits. However, if the major purpose, the major workload, the major investment is not to carry out the word of Jesus, which requires personal sacrifice of time, assets, and lifestyle for the benefit of those in need, then the church membership is not carrying its load as a representative of the Christian faith or in the manner that Jesus intended.

If the personal act of goodness to others is the reason each member comes together to magnify that goodness, then a church is a valid extension of the spirit of Jesus. Church members must see the light and become the light. To quote Peter Böhler, an ordained Moravian, “…preach faith until you have it and then because you have it, you will preach faith.” To paraphrase, do good until you want to do good and then because you want to do good, you will do good. Faith is doing good. Nothing more.

Ancient Mariner

Jesus and the Church

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The mariner has had feedback critical of his opinion about churches, that they are not a force that does good work as Jesus would want.

The mariner mentioned that a percentage of contribution to the church is spent on missions. However, it is the last priority and smallest percentage. The reader is challenged to review their church budget (atheist or theist). The mariner calculates that for every one thousand dollars in the budget, twenty dollars is deliberately allocated to missions. The dollar percentage demonstrates the distraction of a church from the force to do good works. Nevertheless, this train of thought is not the correct mindset to define goodness. One does not measure goodness with budgets or dollars.

For those who insist on an institutional approach to goodness, the best example of a “church” is a free shelter for the homeless or a free soup kitchen. Another example of institution is relief efforts in areas of tragedy or great want, where volunteers drop what they are doing and work hand in hand with the unfortunate. The dollar contributions spent on these examples of churches is a lot more than twenty dollars out of every thousand; it may be the inverse. Bringing relief to those in need is the first priority. Institutional and logistic spending is allocated only because it is necessary to provide goodness. Goodness is the motivation; personal involvement and sacrifice demonstrate that motivation.

The mariner advocates these institutional efforts. Doing good, as Pope Francis suggests, is what it is all about. The mariner thinks, however, that goodness rests with an individual, not an institution. There is nothing wrong with many individuals coming together for the common good, if institutional structure is a minimized distraction. The one-on-one human experience is the root of goodness. A church can be one person. That is how it was with Jesus.

The mariner was at a church meeting a while ago. Two hours were spent on organization with barely a hint of interest in doing good. It occurred to him that a better use of the two hours would be to organize a flash mob so that in a moment’s notice, everyone in the room spontaneously would come to the aid of a specific person or group of people in the local area. Not much organization needed; goodness is the first priority.

In the last years of the mariner’s duties as a pastor, he had a growing feeling that so much of what he did was irrelevant to society. He finally left the ministry and took a job as a probation officer. Unlike the tasks in the church, his new tasks required him to spend time in poor neighborhoods. He talked with people on a one-to-one basis. He had a conscious awareness that these people were victims. They were victims of being born beneath the crush of a social system where money is king.

Some were able to stabilize their lives with manual labor jobs or even open a very small business. Most, however, had been damaged by family life, repeated failure in efforts to find an identity, and lack of goodness in the culture that entrapped them. Many turned to illicit activity for money and a sense of independence. These folks were his new congregation.

It was serendipitous that his supervisor was an unusual person. His supervisor was polite but always on task. Occasionally, the mariner would have lunch with him. This meant walking the streets of the red light district looking for homeless street dwellers. When he came upon one of these individuals, he would invite them to have lunch with him in one of the local eateries. It was obvious, however, that the individual gained a lot more than a meal. He received compassion – a rare commodity indeed.

The supervisor had the opinion that our job was driven by empathy, not by reinforcement. It is true that some would not respond and eventually return to the courts for violating parole or probation. However, the mariner learned from his supervisor how important it is to keep empathy at the forefront of one’s awareness.

One cannot perform goodness without empathy.

One cannot perform goodness when the institution supersedes goodness.

Pope Francis said faith is doing good. Nothing more.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

 

Atheists Find Faith

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The mariner read the Bing homepage this morning to discover an interesting link. It was about the emergence of atheist churches (is that an oxymoron? Etymology says “church” means ‘of the Lord’). If you are interested, visit

http://news.msn.com/us/atheist-mega-churches-take-root-across-us-world?ocid=ansnews11

Follow with the comments of Pope Francis:

http://news.msn.com/world/atheists-are-good-if-they-do-good-pope-francis-says?ocid=msnnws

The mariner likes Pope Francis.

The mariner had his days as a Methodist pastor. He never understood why a church had to be the center of the “faith,” receive the lion’s share of contributions, and be the greatest distraction from doing good. Now the atheists, who have no religion or theistic magnet to unite them, want to build churches. The mariner has a blind spot about churches. He often expresses his confusion by saying “What is more important – paying the church electric bill or buying supper for the unfortunate mother with children who lives four miles away and otherwise will have no supper?”

Sadly, theistic or atheistic, the mother goes unfed.

The mariner wrote a lesson booklet for adult study groups. It is based on the Gospels Matthew and Luke (for the purist, the Q Source). To put the booklet into a few words, Jesus never said build churches [The fundamentalist may claim that Jesus said Peter was proclaimed the rock upon which the church will stand; “church,” however, is a Greek word derived from kiriakon, later evolving into Middle English chirce via Old German kirche. The Greeks were famous for building temples with a moment’s notice]. Jesus’ life was spent entirely among those abused by the Romans and judgmental Pharisees. Pope Francis must have read the mariner’s booklet…

In an earlier post, the mariner recommended the new book, Zealot, the Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, by Reza Aslan. The book is written deliberately without Biblical sources even though Aslan is a name of renown among religious institutions. It depicts the horrible life of most Jews during the Roman occupation. No one had the money or dare the circumstances to build a church – if that idea existed in those Jewish times.

It is presumed that the atheists are building churches to avoid feeding unfortunate mothers and their children.

Pope Francis is correct: faith is doing good. Nothing more.

This commentary has led to thoughts about why institutionalization is so important. Readers will have to wait for another post.

Ancient Mariner