Mariner had a conversation yesterday with a person of good mind and sound scruples. It started with the topic of Lent, which is upon us, but grew into a conversation about the contemporary Christian perception of ‘church’.

During Lent there are additional worship services, as there are for any special season in the liturgical calendar. Mariner challenged the role of the church today as a center for the promotion of what Jesus represented in the New Testament and what protestant founders like Martin Luther, John Wesley, John Smith and Jakob Amman perceived as the role of the church.

At the time of the Protestant Reformation, founders were adamant about submission to the spirit of God’s will. The central premise was to live life according to what God wanted rather than follow the will of false gods like wealth and self-aggrandizement. Mariner suggested that the modern church had lost its way; yielding to political authority (Pharisees), social gratification (pew Christians) and industrialized management of God’s will (name any protestant rule-setting authority).

Mariner proposed that the church, as a Christian entity, had the responsibility of evangelism, missions and social outreach – all of which are richly represented in the New Testament.

Mariner’s guest suggested that personal faith was more important than institutional (church) definitions; that the world today is not the world during Roman possession of Israel and not even the human reality of life during the Reformation. In essence, the guest was suggesting that morality and social responsibility is a condensation of the social psyche; the tools were sympathy, empathy and fairness.

Mariner suggested this was faith as a derivative of existentialism, that is, faith was a modernly equipped sailboat drifting with the weather rather than sailing with a rudder and predefined destination. The guest countered that at this moment in the twenty-first century there is no social destination, that morality is a response to a society in flux that has no traditional interpretation of social justice – let alone theological perceptions.

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A fascinating conversation for sure. The conclusion for mariner and the guest is that the traditional church of even one hundred years ago no longer exists. The doctrinal strength of Christianity does not meet the need of people in today’s topsy-turvy world. Even traditionalists who stand by the rituals of the church use the church for other reasons related to self-assuredness in a shifting society, a rule of thumb for responsible behavior in an existential world and even as a tool to joust with the political influences of government and as social standing in the community. This does not suggest that Christian responsibility is not practiced; togetherness, charity and authority as expressions of humanness are everywhere.

It is not an easy time in history to know what theologically-based faith requires. Is another reformation due?

Ancient Mariner

The great dilemma for all religions since World War II days is that local society over much of the world became aware of the international world. Adding to the dilemma was the broadening awareness through television in the 1950s. Worldwide communication became available inside the home when the Internet grew in the 1980s and broadband came along in 2000. Today, 5G technology in an instant will provide all the information of the entire age of humankind in one’s handheld device.

Since the first recorded goddess Cybele six thousand years before Jesus, religion has been the link between the suprahuman forces that shape reality and the personal worth of humans within that reality. In the earliest years, lack of correct understanding required that worth be linked through myth – stories that were based on personal experience, empirical reality and a functional relationship with the suprahuman forces.

Being anthropomorphic creatures, humans have been required to translate the forces of reality into anthropomorphic value systems. Simply stated, rules of godly behavior had to be defined in human terms requiring personality, motive and human-centric cause and effect. Reza Aslan, a well-known contemporary theologian, suggests that in order to be meaningful, one’s god must be very much like one’s self.

The most important role of religion is to establish human scruples and morality in a way that is compliant with the rule of God. This is where the Torah (Judaism), Bible (Christianity), Qur’an (Islam), Puranas (Hinduism) and Tripitaka (Buddhism) become important. These holy works articulate the rules that bind self, society and God into a way to understand the relationship between universal reality and human reality. These works integrate myth, existentialism and personal feelings into a working structure that defines theology, doctrine and ritual (who is God, what are the rules, how do I comply).

It is rare, indeed very rare, that studying the Bible to understand Christianity one begins by breaking the content into commentary about theology, doctrine and ritual. Most frequently, individuals start by reading the Torah (Jewish holy works). The myths of Genesis are learned without consideration of modern knowledge. One is exposed to continuous allegorical descriptions of faith easily misconceived as historical.

As the new student moves through the Old Testament, they learn that God is a personal creature who has human prejudices and acts accordingly directly with human history. Hence the common belief that it is God that bequeaths touchdowns, wealth, and behavioral worthiness. The New Testament part of the Bible (Christian) suggests that God is not so personal but rather is a creative force called love – universal, all-encompassing love. One does not need to part the Red Sea to demonstrate God’s acceptance; one does not suffer the variabilities of God as Job did. One needs, not so simply, to create love in God’s manner and if one fails, God’s love, ever present, forgives transgressions.

The major issue about the Bible is that today virtually no one reads it or has read it. Having no knowledge of religious content – in any holy work – leaves an individual on their own to fathom virtue in today’s hodgepodge world. Speaking simplistically, just as Cybele gave way to Roman mythology and Roman mythology gave way to Christian mythology, what will replace Christian mythology?

In mariner’s post “The Age We Live In” (February 9), mariner quoted Mike Allen saying, “we are aging, comfortable and stuck, cut off from the past and no longer optimistic about the future, spurning both memory and ambition while we await some saving innovation or revelation, growing old unhappily together in the light of tiny screens.” Is this a symptom of lack of myth, a loss of guidance in today’s version of suprahuman forces? Is there something to which humans can tie their worth in the universe?

God knows.

Ancient Mariner

[Bloomberg] $70,000 per minute. That’s how much money the Walmart-owning Walton family has made in the year since Bloomberg’s previous list of the world’s richest families. The Waltons top that list this year, with wealth of $190.5 billion. The Mars, Koch, Al Saud and Wertheimer (of the Chanel fashion house) families round out a top five. The 25 richest families in the world control $1.4 trillion, a figure which is up nearly a quarter from last year.

[Endangered Species Coalition] The Trump Administration put rules in place today that will put many more species on a path to extinction.

1. The Trump Extinction Plan removes protections for plants, fish, and wildlife designated as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act.
2. The Trump Extinction Plan encourages policy makers to calculate the perceived economic costs (but not the benefits) of Endangered Species Act protections to plants, fish, and wildlife . Under the Act, economic factors were intentionally not considered in listing decisions. Listing decisions should be based on science, not on money. This rule upends that.
3. The Trump Extinction Plan makes protecting habitat much more burdensome despite habitat loss being a leading cause of extinction.

In finalizing their changes, the Trump Administration ignored more than one million activists that submitted public comments and rejected the advice of hundreds of scientists, biologists, and wildlife experts who oppose the changes.

[CityLab] The Online Gig Economy’s ‘Race to the Bottom.’ On digital work platforms like Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer.com, you can also buy nearly any service—often from someone halfway around the world, sometimes for just a few bucks. On Fiverr, one of the most popular of these platforms, you’ll find offers for someone who will write an e-book “on any topic”; a person who will perform “a Voiceover as Bernie Sanders”; someone who will write your Tinder profile for you, and someone who will design a logo for your real-estate company. The people selling this labor live in Nigeria, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and Bangladesh, respectively. Each of them charges $5 for these tasks.

 There are members of mariner’s family who are at-home contractors (AKA gig workers). Will other nations drive down living wages for US citizens as these ‘gig’ services expand?

[Atlantic] And Then Job Said Unto the Lord: You Can’t Be Serious. God says to Satan, “You there, what have you been up to?” And Satan says, “Oh, you know, just hanging around, minding my own business.” And God says, “Well, take a look at my man Job over there. He worships me. He does exactly what I tell him. He thinks I’m the greatest.” “Job?” says Satan. “The rich, happy, healthy guy? The guy with 3,000 camels? Of course he does. You’ve given him everything. Take it all away from him, and I bet you he’ll curse you to your face.” And God says, “You’re on.”

That—give or take a couple of verses—is how it starts, the Book of Job. What a setup. The Trumplike deity; the shrewd and loitering adversary; the cruelly flippant wager; and the stooge, the cosmic straight man, Job, upon whose oblivious head the sky is about to fall.

Purchase the book – a rewrite of Job (Job: A New Translation by Edward L. Greenstein, Yale University Press) or see the article in the September Atlantic Magazine or check out:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/09/job-edward-l-greenstein/594769/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=video-series-editors-picks&utm_content=20190810&silverid-ref=NDkwMjIzMjA1Mjg2S0

Ancient Mariner

Mariner suspects the Atlantic Magazine reads his posts. More than once, mariner has presented a subject that Atlantic reports on in its next issue. Mariner’s post, “It’s Time for Religion” published on July 17, addressed the absence of religion in today’s milieu of confusion and lack of focus. Today, The Atlantic publishes a fine article on the relationship between organized religion and loss of community.

[The Atlantic] Secular organizers started their own congregations. But to succeed, they need to do a better job of imitating religion. Jul 21, 2019.

By Faith Hill, Assistant editor at The Atlantic.

When Justina Walford moved to New York City nine years ago, she’d never felt more alone. She’d left behind her Church, her God, and her old city, Los Angeles. . . By the time she turned up in New York, her faith had long since unraveled, a casualty of overseas travel that made her question how any one religious community could have a monopoly on truth. But still she grieved the loss of God.

When Walford shed her faith, she joined a large and fast-growing group—the “nones,” or the religiously unaffiliated. According to data from the latest version of the Public Religion Research Institute’s annual “American Values Atlas,” 25 percent of Americans today are religiously unaffiliated, up from single digits in the 1990s. . . If the sudden emergence of secular communities speaks to a desire for human connection and a deeper sense of meaning, their subsequent decline shows the difficulty of making people feel part of something bigger than themselves. One thing has become clear: The yearning for belonging is not enough, in itself, to create a sense of home.[1]

Belonging is a will o’ the wisp experience. It can’t be manufactured, bought, manipulated or imposed. Like will o’ the wisp, it can’t be held in the hand or stored in a closet; it can’t be negotiated. Belonging is a sensation that comes to someone unexpectedly after a period of time that involves shared responsibility, dependable trust and confidence. It isn’t like membership in a club or even a sport team; belonging consists of tenure, sharing and grace – religiously speaking, Divine Grace.

Being in a state of grace makes one aware of the subtleties of eternity, of surreal satisfaction and of unshakable confidence. As Faith Hill said in her article, it is easier if there is God.

Mariner quoted in his post Reza Aslan who said, “Humans want a god like themselves.” This is not flippant; it means humans need an understandable link to Divine and irrevocable authority beyond the human experience – but about the human experience. Without a godhead, atheists and non-theological ritual cannot easily invoke a divine force that relates to a human world.

Today, it’s time for religion.

Ancient Mariner

[1] For complete article, see: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/secular-churches-rethink-their-sales-pitch/594109/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=politics-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20190722&silverid-ref=NDkwMjIzMjA1Mjg2S0