at a protest
this protest sign caught my attention.ecclesiates 10:19
A feast is made for laughter,
and wine makes life merry,
but money is the answer for everything.
Showing posts with label religion or christianity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religion or christianity. Show all posts
this protest sign caught my attention.ecclesiates 10:19
A feast is made for laughter,
and wine makes life merry,
but money is the answer for everything.
civil religion
i wrote this essay in the beginning of november about american civil religion. there's a lot more i could expound on... and probably will in the future, but for now, i think it's a decent base. the first paragraph is about an illustration we had to write something "sensibly sociological" about.The illustration from PostSecret, which reads: “I pretend to be religious because I want my life to have meaning,” speaks volumes to living within the nomos, the need to feel meaningful ongoingness in the face of meaninglessness, and externalization. There is also a corollary statement: “I pretend my life has meaning because I want to be religious,” which should also be considered because it speaks of the human-conceived cosmos as something that requires alienation in order for theodicy to offer explanation of the cosmos, which serves as a guardian against anomy, and promotes world maintenance to sustain the nomos.
Bellah places significance on the locations Kennedy chooses to reference God in his speech: in the two opening paragraphs and in the closing paragraph, which he argues provides “a sort of frame for more concrete remarks that form the middle part of the speech.” The references are found in many presidential pronouncements. Because they are not usually found in the draft stages, it is safe to assume they are added later, thereby bringing to the forefront that it is not part of the president’s agenda to push private religious belief, but rather demonstrates the saturation of civil religion.
Entering into Berger’s shade under The Sacred Canopy, one senses that there is a need for meaningful ongoingness in the face of meaninglessness. In response, Bellah states, “Though the will of the people as expressed in the majority vote is carefully institutionalized as the operative source of political authority, it is deprived of an ultimate significance. The will of the people is not itself the criterion of right and wrong. There is a higher criterion in terms of which this will can be judged; it is possible that the people may be wrong. The president’s obligation extends to the higher criterion.” (Emphasis added) The will of the masses is deprived of ultimate significance and it is the president’s duty to point to a higher criterion of significance. Uniquely, the presidential role provides allegory for theodicy: “the dimension of political life as recognized by Kennedy not only provides a grounding for the rights of man that makes any form of political absolutism illegitimate, it also provides a transcendent goal for the political process.” (Emphasis added)
The sacred text of the cosmos, the Declaration of Independence, is the fuel of presidential theodicy, witnessed through Jefferson: “All the political sentiments I entertain have been drawn, so far as I have been able to draw them, from the sentiments which originated in and were given to the world from this Hall. I have never had a feeling, politically, that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence.” In fact, Bellah points out that the declaration mentions God four times: first, “’Laws of nature and of Nature’s God’ that entitle any people to be independent.” Second, “all men ‘are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights.’ Here Jefferson is locating the fundamental legitimacy of the new nation in a conception of ‘higher law’ that is itself based on both classical natural law and biblical religion.” He goes on to talk about the constitution saying that God will both “protect the divine Providence,” and judge the world for its actions. More accurately, the Declaration of Independence is theodicy, and the president is a physical embodiment of that theodicy. A theodicy with feet.
Starting with the president as the theodicy with feet, other parts of the metaphor must naturally follow, namely, the cosmos and the nomos. The nomos of civil religion consists of individuals who, while they may participate to a small extent in the exercise of government, they are very much a part of every day civilian life, influenced by governmental changes. The government in civil religion plays the part of a “sub”-cosmos. While they recognize that there is a higher authority governing them, Kennedy referenced in his speech, they operate as a sub-cosmos underneath the greater cosmos.
Take for example, the cosmos-given rituals of the nomos: Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and Independence Day. The annual practice of these rituals gives light to the ongoingness of the nomos. When disaster strikes, these rituals say planted as beacons of hope that everything will go back to the way it should be. The most interesting note to point out about these rituals is that they were created, just as the seats of power in government. The individuals of the nomos collectively forget what they had created, and exist to provide function for. These rituals work because of alienation.
Civil religion is a religion, not because of the beliefs and rituals contained within it, but rather because it fits into the explanation of what religion does: it provides comfort in the face of shattering events through world maintenance.
faith
i just had a new thought about faith. it's when something:hits the head, hits the heart, hits the streets.
what do you think?
open question:
can faith be socialized and still be legitimate?stay tuned as my answer is in development, but i'd like to hear your thoughts if you have them.
today
i was asked a question: how could i be a devout christian and fit into berger's model of defining religion? as you may recall, or follow the link to read - which would be far more helpful - berger basically says that we can sustain meaningful ongoingness is because we forget that we created the means by which meaningful ongoingness is sustained.in essence, the question asked: is berger's model self-defeating? does it ultimately collapse because the believer of the model has to forget that the model exists in order for it to be successful?
to some degree: yes. but ultimately, the answer is no. especially in the case of someone like me.
i subscribe to berger's model - yes, i believe humanity created religion - and remain, i hope for the most part, non-heretical. hear me out.
we have this being who ultimately cannot be described, who is ultimately unknowable. we say this being is personal, and we attribute qualities to this being, such as omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence. we also declare that this being has a name: God.
what we are doing is describing something that cannot be described in the best possible way we know how - through language - but still fail to come to grips as to what this being is. our language and descriptions create a picture of God, similar to the way a picture of a soda can is not the actual soda can. to be concise, the word "God", is not actually God. the word God is a human construct. it is the way we attempt to define the unknowable.
however, God does exist, even though our construction of God may not exactly match up, we try our best. but now consider that this God, of whom the depths of which cannot be fully known, chose to build his image (we'll use a personal pronoun in light of the christian tradition) inside of us. the full gravity of that choice, we will likely never understand, but it has something to do with us being able to know God. not only do we have the image of God inside of us, but God stepped into our time and defined what he was doing and continues to do, in the language of society and culture. God said to moses: "I AM." God stepped into our time as the form of Jesus, at the very least, to show us what God looks like in our skin.
even in the creation story at the beginning of the bible in the book of genesis, we have God in the beginning who speaks creation into existence. and God said, "let there be light." and there was light. now it may not actually be that God spoke words, but it's the best way we can describe what it is that God did when he created the heavens and the earth. it makes sense that God would speak things into being. we have a God who through his story, uses our language so that we may know him better and more fully, that we may glimpse what it was that he did.
at the end of the day, i realize the need to develop these thoughts more. i consider it nothing but a miracle all the incredible things that God does. it makes God feel so big. that he could take a system so inadequate for description and tell a story through it... in ways that we can understand. he takes broken things and uses them for his purposes. imagine, if God can use our language... how much more can he do with us?
let me ask you a question:
have you ever wished you could go back to when you were xx years old with all that you know now?yes?
well... not me.
have you ever had to repeat a class that you understood everything, but my not have gotten a great grade? i think repeating life with "what we know now" would be like it. i think it would be incredibly boring. part of the excellence in life is the discovery of new things... while we could definitely discover things if we were to live life again with a cursory knowledge of events, we may be constantly trying so hard not to make a mistake that we'd fail to enjoy it the second time around.
or perhaps, we'd be so fast-tracked through life, being a six year old in college, because we're unable to enjoy kindergarten because it's so far below us, that we'd miss out on a lot of life experiences we would have had otherwise. life as a genius might be nice if you want climb intellectually, but it doesn't suit the majority of us who aren't intellectuals.
anywho, just thoughts.
would you go back with all you know now?
i begin to write
phrases so simple they could only compose a piece of a larger symphony. the sound swells around me. growing, evolving revolution to my ears. the swaying rhythms run helter-skelter only to discover i am in tune with a greater universe. something spiritual is in the room with me.when i open my eyes to the world awake,
i feel a need. a need to create.
something has been occurring to me recently. humankind not only has an innate ability to create, but also we have something placed deep within us that kindles the desire.
as creatures, we naturally externalise. not only do we create in our heads, but we also create outside of ourselves. we create art and compose music, we write books on philosophy and religion, we travel the world and share our experiences, we broadcast our ideas of God and the greater cosmos, and we form societies and cultures. all of this happens within ourselves and moves outward. all of this happens in community.
any person remaining in solitude will eventually go mad. this is not a traditional descent to madness, but rather the need to externalize becomes so strong that one begins to seek externalisation from inexternalisable objects. (1) there is a natural need within us for community. if we cannot find it, we seek to create it.
i have been learning that God is, God has been, and God will be. within this, i am discovering that God exists around us, outside of us, and within us. christian theologians say that God has three parts. this is known as the trinity. as best as i can impart: God can be described as the perfect unity of the father, son, and the holy sprit, who exist altogether equal as God. just one part would not be enough to describe all of who God is.
i believe we have a necessity to externalise because every human individual has the image of God built inside them. any interaction with another person is a sacred treasure. this is why our greatest commands are to love God and to love our neighbour. (2) these cannot be separated. it would make sense that someone would descend to madness if they had no interaction with the visible image of God built into other people.
follow me as we take a significant leap:
God knew to give us the command to love our neighbour, because God, in creating us, knew that we would need this interaction. (3) while we are commanded to love and serve the people around us, it is even more basically a command to have people around us. when we disobey the command to be relational, our worlds fall apart. we cannot begin to love God if we cannot begin to love our neighbour.
(1) wilson the volleyball in the movie castaway.
(2) deut 6:5, lev 19:18
(3) in the biblical creation account: adam had no suitable helper, so God created one for him. Gen 2:18
youtube
youtube is pretty much always a safe medium for finding worship songs to share with people so they can learn them for leading worship. the only problem with them is that occasionally... actually... more often than not, they can be really cheesy. i think the majority of the time, this is okay, but then i realize that most of the videos as the authors have commented on, "have been shown in church." i'm not getting contentious, at least i'm not trying to... i'm just speaking my mind. take a look at some of the images from a more recent video:
i'm not sure if this is illegal...
"because salvation is by grace through faith, i believe that among the countless number of people standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands (revelation 7:9), i shall see the prostitute from the kit-kat ranch in carson city, nevada, who tearfully told me she could find no other employment to support her two-year-old son. I shall see the woman who had an abortion and is haunted by guilt and remorse but did the best she could faced with grueling alternatives; the businessman besieged with debt who sold his integrity in a series of desperate transactions; the insecure clergyman addicted to being liked, who never challenged his people from the pulpit and longed for unconditional love; the sexually-abused teen molested by his father and now selling his body on the street, who, as he falls asleep each night after his last 'trick,' whispers the name of the unkown God he learned about in sunday school; the deathbed convert who for decades had his cake and ate it, broke every law of God and man, wallowed in lust and raped the earth.
'but how?' we ask. then the voice says, 'they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.'
there they are. there we are - the multitude who so wanted to be faithful, who at times got defeated, soiled by life, and bested by trials, wearing the bloodied garments of life's tribulations, but through it all clung to the faith.
my friends, if this is not good news to you, you have never understood the gospel of grace."
-brennan manning, the ragamuffin gospel
today at school,
I watched a film that was released to scare Americans. the whole purpose: to make them fear Muslims. I will link to this later when I get on my computer. not only does it breed religious intolerance but it also does a fair job of putting all Muslims at an extreme with its large collection of unfounded facts. it would be important for americans to remember that muslims have died protecting the so called freedoms of this country. while I don't agree with war, I think that the people who do need to really figure out who their enemies actually are. most of the time it's probably not other Americans. again I'll add links later and maybe a compelling picture or two.
movie website
sightings article about the move
an interesting contrast
this kind of things gets to me because i don't view differences as being a bad thing. it's an opportunity to broaden our horizons and learn about something new, or see the world through another set of eyes. it can be transformative.
tough tuesdays
boyd and piper?:In spite of their deep reverence to each other, Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore engaged in protracted debates more than once. These debates exemplify the philosophical differences between the two most famous Indians at the time. On 15 January 1934, an earthquake hit Bihar and caused extensive damage and loss of life. Gandhi maintained this was because of the sin committed by upper caste Hindus by not letting untouchables in their temples (Gandhi was committed to the cause of improving the fate of untouchables, referring to them as Harijans, people of Krishna). Tagore vehemently opposed Gandhi's stance, maintaining that an earthquake can only be caused by natural forces, not moral reasons, however repugnant the practice of untouchability may be.[50]
(wikipedia - gandhi)
reading
i've been doing a ton of reading lately. and i'm learning things.i'm learning about malcom x and martin luther king junior
i'm learning about how hip hop became a political party
i'm learning about how we're all religious. yes, even atheists.
i'm learning about the supreme court, economics, and presidential candidates.
i'm learning about religious belief.
i'm learning about religious purpose.
i'm learning about american civil religion.
i'm learning about how religion happened.
i'm learning about freedom, and what it means to not have to go back to egypt.
i'm learning about the african american civil rights movement.
i'm learning about privelege, wealth, power, and possessions.
i'm learning about people entering into the kingdom of God.
i've also been doing a lot of thinking about the things i'm learning.
i'm learning about how being right isn't always profitable.
i'm learning about my friends.
i'm learning about mandolin.
i'm learning about guitar.
i'm learning about a lot of things.
and i'm really excited.
and i'm really excited to have the capacity to learn.
and to understand.
and to breathe new things in.
all the time.
:_steve
going to church doesn't make you a christian any more than going to macdonalds makes you a hamburger
i've always enjoyed mackers. so satisfying. but i never was a hamburger. check out the screenshot of the salvation army site. it's especially awesome cuz i'm co-leading a study on acts this semester. i dig it.
tough tuesdays
because it is tuesday, and not the day after, or a few days after... i decided to beat olson to the punch. so in showing you this, i need you to realize that it was especially difficult. also know that it's due tomorrow afternoon, so i feel good about finishing it early. :)as a little background information, i'm taking a sociology of religion course. it's challenging in a lot of ways, but not in any of the ways i would have thought, i'm actually enjoying learning a lot of the theories and ideas that sociologists place on religion, but i'm realizing that "small r religion" that defines the purpose of religion, and brackets the religious beliefs and practices to push them aside, really doesn't get at anything thought provoking. it just is.
*edit* nearing the end of the semester now... i realize how thought provoking it actually has been, and how life giving to my faith it has been. incredible what God can use to draw me nearer to him.
so, without further delay, my assignment was to decide if the phrase "shit happens" expresses an essentially religious disposition toward the world or not, and to develop an argument that supported my decision. so, here it is:
Theodicy’s purpose is to defend the goodness of the reality that is above, behind, and within the humanly constructed normal world. It is a guardian against disarray and confusion because it serves to explain that the confusion has a greater purpose. It gives meaning for the abnormal, un-expectable or “shattering events”* within the normal. “The arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice”[King] is a theodicy. The epigram, “shit happens,” is a theodicy as well. Theodicy is innately religious.
Of course questions of the true purpose of the statement, “shit happens,” may arise. On the surface it is a crass statement with a casual attitude, bordering carefree. Digging deeper, an argument must be presented to its implicit meaning: things happen outside of society’s control, consequentially, business as usual. Theodicy begins its work with the statement, ‘things happen outside of society’s control,’ and guarantees its effectiveness with the word, ‘consequentially,’ which afterward, shows the outcome of theodicy successfully carried out. The main aim of theodicy is not to offer consolation, but explanation. Consolation will naturally follow as long as theodicy is successful. Behold, the full package of theodicy carried out: [r]eligion.
[r]eligion in supplying its purpose, “provides comfort in the face of shattering events.” One must keep in mind both that this comfort is not ‘being comfortable,’ and that these shattering events have ‘symbolic power.’ Comfort maintains that people feel safe and secure, a sense that things really can and will go back to normal, which can also be described synonymously, as “comfort in the face of threats to meaningful ongoingness.” Using symbolic power instills events with representative meaning or characterizes something abstract with something concrete. Put simply: symbols are metaphors, while power gives them significance.
Shattering events must always have metaphors and explanation, otherwise the precarious humanly constructed normal world, nomos, shifts into an abnormal state which humans cannot control, anomy. If religion is world maintenance, then anomy is world destruction, the great enemy of religion. Anomy is the threat to meaning, theodicy is the saviour of that meaning. Theodicy operates as a guardian against anomy, drawing its power directly from the cosmos: the reality that is above, behind, and within the nomos. When theodicy does its job, it ensures meaning to the nomos.
But, “shit happens,” and a descent to anomy begins. Just as society created the nomos, it created the meaning within reality, the cosmos, as well. Berger postulates, “Religion implies the farthest reach of man’s self-externalization, of his infusion of reality with his own meanings … Put differently, religion is the audacious attempt to conceive of the entire universe as being humanly significant.”[28]
When “shit happens”, society as a whole does not say, “we created the norm, and the cosmos, so we are doomed, because there is actually no nonhuman way of explaining this.” Instead, something entirely different happens. People forget. They forget they created the cosmos and start to rely on it for support, theodicy is put into action, and world maintenance can continue. The nomos can be restored.
Alienation allows the cosmos to repair the nomos. When society forgets it has made the cosmos, the nomos can be repaired. The nomos and the cosmos are bound together by a relationship between them called legitimation, or shared meaning. The cosmos gives meaning to the nomos, and the nomos gives meaning to the cosmos. Society is alienated from the nomos, “because that is just the way things are,” and so things continue as normal.
The epigram is religious. “Shit happens”, shows alienation of both the cosmos and nomos, because “that is just the way things are.” Because of alienation it becomes a theodicy, to offer solution to the cosmos, serving as a guardian against anomy, and promoting world maintenance, allowing things to progress normally.
Works Cited
* concepts discussed in class as part of lecture notes will receive only quotation marks as their indication to an outside source.
Berger, Peter L. The Sacred Canopy : Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. New York: Anchor Canada, 1988.
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