Should We Blame Religion?

Thanks for all of your thoughtful comments on the unbelievable scandals overtaking the Catholic church at the moment.

You had wide-ranging suggestions for what lessons we might draw.  From memory, you suggested that the problem might be:

• letting sociopaths run rampant in the church
• yes, priestly celibacy reaping what it's sown
• the devil infesting the Vatican
• treating these issues as sins rather than criminal acts

And there were more.  But I find myself reflecting on our fair blog name: Not the Religious Type.  Clearly this is a little impish.  Most of our commenters here, myself very much included, are the essence of religious--many of us are regular churchgoers and some of us run churches.  To the naked eye, this looks religious.

So we're using the word in a technical sense that might be relevant here. The "religion" we're "not" in this setting is the New Testament religion of the Pharisees, who were, now that we think about it, the most religious people in the New Testament and Jesus opposed them to the death, literally.  "Religion" in this view is a demonic spirit that persuades us that we have the truth and that others who don't see things the way we do are the enemies of God and must be opposed.  In that sense, this blog community has set itself up as the sworn enemy of religion.

And, in this sense, is it the absolute extreme of religion that's gotten the Catholic church into this mess?  The sense that these acts--which, to the outside observer, look scandalously criminal--can't really be understood by outsiders and must be handled in house, where people know better?  The sense that the church, which has the most important task on earth, must not be compromised or brought down by such things?  The--to public view at least--appearance that serious discussion about ways that the sheer wide-spread-ness of these pedophilic crimes should reopen a serious conversation about requiring priests to be celibate hasn't been engaged in?  

As an outsider, the pope's public response to each new report has struck me as amazingly tone-deaf.  But maybe this explains it.  It's the demon Religion at work.  Which would go back to many of those opening bullet points.

So...should we blame our nemesis Religion?

Comments

[leah]

Wow, that seems harsh, though certainly fair.

Do you think the Catholic church can cast out this spirit of religion? Or are they (in opposite fashion from the US banks) too big to succeed?

[Vinceation]

Interesting that we've had posts like this on our blog and also posts like "Are we all really just Catholic?" It signals to me that the semantics game is really hard to get around, as much as we're not interested in playing it. Catholic mysticism (as learned from guys like Rohr) we're crazy about, yet Catholic politics we're disgusted with. Many of us here are quintessentially religious on some people's terms, yet the opposite on our terms.

[bsergott]

This is a great topic. I haven't commented for a while, because I was in Belmopan, the capital city of Belize. I was with one of the missions directors for the Vineyard churches, and the two of us were exploring the possibility of setting up a missions partnership with that country. It is interesting, because the churches down there are highly religious. Many of them, while the pastors are good people with great hearts, are set up as miniature kingdoms, with the senior pastor reigning as king. There are a number of churches there being run by American pastors who intended from the beginning to turn their churches over to nationals, but somewhere along the way they changed their minds. They decided that they can do it much better. So, and I am not being judgmental, but just repeating what the people on the street told me, they are perceived as highly religious and completely irrelevant. When asked whether they would be interested in being a part of a new church (these were all unbelievers) they said, "Not if it is anything like the churches we have here already."

I think there is a spirit of religion in all parts of the Body of Christ, and it is the most destructive force in the Church today. There is a theologian I know who was writing a book called, "The Masturbating Church", but his publisher refused to even look at it, because they felt that the church could not handle that kind of truth. The Church has and does exist for itself and its members, when it should exist for the sake of the world. I am hoping that the conversations in this blog, and others like it, will open the door for true faith, free of institutional religion. Too many sins are glossed over in the name of power, and it is the people, especially the helpless and broken, who get beat up in the process.

[Dave T.]

Man, what a can of worms. You're a great provocateur! Here's my take: a gang of questioners like us is safe, but we offer no leadership and no direction. To offer direction you need to risk leading others down an actual path. Allow me to offer a comparison: Nazi Germany went down an actual path taking away things from others unilaterally. The Allies went down a path unified, together, to stop a single foe. (Italy was not much to worry about, and we never talk much about China being an ally, but they were in the battle with us against Japan.) Terrible forces were stopped by being out-manned in unity. The only way the Catholic church changes direction is if enough unified Catholic people defy its direction with money, time, pressure, etc. A single person or entity will have no effect. Just as "turning away from celibacy" will have no effect on anything. You want a better word for religion? Something is a religion when it is assumed by the indians that the chiefs are in charge and they ain't budging. Then the indians are submitting to the religion (though maybe most actually are submitting to God and just cooperating with the religion they can't really seem to be able to fix). It's no longer a religion when it has moldability, when its flexible, when it's alive. Catholics need to pressure the church to change, and do so with some enduring world-wide unity. How do you keep that flexibility? It may come from below, but it has to remain at the top. John Paul addressed some issues with needed flexibility. Did he address all he knew? We'll never know. Believe it or not, but church-splits are at least a sign that they're alive. I hesitate leaving it at this but it's all I have time for right now.

[Russ]

I was having a conversation today about revolutions. Revolutionaries with high ideals energize the masses and try to overturn a tyrannical government. Turns out that once the revolutionaries are in charge, the ideals take second place to staying in power. Guess what the revolutionaries become a lot like? ... the people they just kicked out. It really makes me appreciate people who put their ideals ahead of themselves - people that are willing to lose in this life that they might win something greater. Here in the US, the revolutionaries might have proclaimed themselves kings. But no, the founders of this nation had something special - that ability to put their ideals ahead of themselves. I wonder if it exists in the world today?

So I wonder, is it "religion" or is it human nature to cling to power once achieved? Sadly, when done in the name of something greater than ourselves (for freedom, or in God's name) then I think we all find it that much more repulsive when it turns out badly.

[Paul]

My own input would be that all, Catholic ( of which i am one) or otherwise, must examine their own faith walk... not just searching out idividual sin but also corporate sin ( as in casting lots during elections with political bodies on the basis of one issue while overlooking all others, and then asserting the right to speak for God in directing how people should vote, or how they might validly treat whole classes of people (point being, check for the beam in one's own eye before looking for the spec in the others)

[Mary Matthews]

First: in the REAL first century, the Pharisees were the good guys. When you're reading the Christian Testament, wherever it says "Pharisee," THINK "Sadducee." I'm reasonably sure that whether or not he flirted with the Essenes, Jesus was born and reared a Pharisee. For one thing, he broke bread with Pharisees, who did NOT eat with non-Pharisees.

Second, I don't think religion itself is the problem. I think virtually all problems in religion are caused by those who have deified their own view of religion. This is easiest to see in militant Islam, in Mormonism, in Scientology, and in Roman Catholicism.

I agree that the reaction of Pope Benedict (whom I continue to think of as "Joey the Rat") has been amazingly tone-deaf, and I believe it comes from his decades of defending R.C. orthodoxy. In my opinion, first-century Christianity was a religion of absolute equality -- "male and female, Jew and Gentile, slave and free," etc. -- and Roman Catholicism has morphed this equality into a rigid, androlatrous hierarchy of power. According to THEM, one can only approach God through the intermediation of the R.C. Magisterium.

I believe Roman Catholicism is facing a major crisis of structure, and the BEST I can envision is a schism in which American R.C.s break away from the bishop of Rome. Joey the Rat continues to defend the status quo (he says the problem is inadequate education in R.C. seminaries!), and the status quo is doomed.

Does one need the vast edifice of Roman Catholic hierarchy, or can one interact with God without it? Does one need to worship R.C. dogma (e.g., papal infallibility), or can one worship God without it? If only males can represent God at the altar, doesn't that mean that Genesis 1:27 and 5:1-2 are lies? What if there IS NO "hell"? What if Jesus was right when he told his followers they were just as capable as he was of interacting with God and doing what he did?

If the Magisterium is right, if you can only interact with God as an obedient Church brownshirt, why did JESUS never say so?