How not to do it (Pt II)

Yesterday in mentioned two ways the Christian chruch in the past has dealt with periods of decline, that I consider harmful. In a way one can say that the purpose of this blog is to explore other alternatives. There are some that can be found in history that can function as an inspiration, but I think ultimately one has to reinterpret Christian doctrine anew with this context in mind.

Why? After all today, what we see is more of a tendency to avoid such reinterpretation. However, this too is a reaction.

I think a conservative religiosity in general can be a reaction against insecurity and fear caused by decline. You glorify the past when the future dries up, as Bono sang. Religious people have a tendency to project their feelings on their religious milieu: when they feel stress caused by environmental or political factors, they experience it as corruption of the faith: thus they might end up blaming the liberal theologians for what is wrong in the world.

Conservatism is a rather complex term when used on religion. One should separate between moral conservatism, doctrinal conservatism and conservatism when it comes to religious traditions. A person that calls him or herself a conservative Christian can mean it any of these meanings or any combination of them. And it should be noted that Christianity as a whole in a way can be considered conservative: it is after all in all its forms basing its teaching on a very old book! But what I call conservatism here is the placing of the ideal religion somewhere in the past, be it 50, 500 or 1500 years in the past. While such an ideal form of religion rarely is found using historical methods, it can be a very powerful idea in the religious mind. And it will lead to the idea that the solution to today’s problems is to try to emulate this ideal form of religion.

I think the massive growth in relevant strength of conservative religious movements in the recent decades can be seen as a indication of that there is much hidden fear over the future. I would not like to disregard the possibility that some kinds conservative religion can be a constructive thing in a declining culture, by providing continuity in a rapidly changing world. But it seems to be clear that it can be very harmful, because it often is combined with a disinterest in parts of life that are not considered to belong the religious sphere, which can make it vulnerable for manipulation. I think this is the case when religious conservatism is combined with political conservatism. This is something I’d like to explore further in another post.

So, when I speak, as I did in my first post, about religion as a key to survival in a culture in decline, I do not speak of it in the senses discussed above and in the post before this one. I hope this discussion has made my purpose for this blog a bit more clear.

How not to do it (Pt I)

There are some ways in which religion has previously reacted to decline in society that are not useful. In this post I will discuss two, and tomorrow I will discuss a third, more general such reaction, all of them of the kind we see commonly today.

For instance, lack of security or a direct threat to one'’s way of life have often sparked intense periods of apocalyptic speculations. We see some of this today, with all this "Left Behind"” nonsense, and this is very much a matter of history repeating. Why do I consider this kind of speculation about the "“end times"”, the struggle to try to match some obscure parts of Scripture (primarily Revelations) with current political occurrences, to be negative? Well, to begin with it is not a very "biblical"” way to read the bible, rather one usually ends up with some very forced interpretations. More importantly, the whole concept is based on a kind of determinism, the idea that history is written in advance, that is completely at odds with Christian doctrine, especially the deeply Christian idea of the free will of human beings.

The real problem is what these kinds of speculations lead to. They tend to foster closemindedness in Christian communities (the belief to belong to a elect group of people never led to much care for other people), authoritarianism based on fear (do I belong to the elect group?) and resignation (since everything will happen as foretold, what could I possibly do to prevent it?). So, while these apocalyptic speculations might bring some sense of meaning and even a kind of hope to the people that engage in them, they are not fruitful for society as a whole, they do not bring stability of joy to the people, and they do not create environments where people can grow as human beings.

Another way that Christian communities have in the past reacted to periods of decline in the world is by trying to incorporate a dark aspect to their concept of God. This occurs when people interpret what happens as God'’s punishment for the wicked ways of the world. Voices like these have been heard in connection with some natural catastrophes, such as the Tsunami in Asia or the Hurricane Katharina.

Again this is nothing new, similar ideas have occurred often during history, like in times of pestilence and war. Indeed, we find some of this way of thinking in the bible as well, especially in the Old Testament, where God in some texts does seem to have an almost evil side to him. However, I think one can successfully argue that this is a point where the new testament in some ways correct the old, insisting on a God which is love and nothing else. One should keep in mind that with the possible exception of the Flood, the occurrences that were interpreted as God'’s punishment in the OT, where rather limited in scope in comparison with what we have seen in the last century. Up to the Holocaust it was a widespread among Jews that the sufferings of the Jewish people throughout history could be interpreted as punishment for not living according to God'’s will. But who could deserve the kind of suffering that Holocaust meant?

At any rate, a religion going in this direction when faced with troubles has little constructive to offer its believers, except the possibility of self-righteousness.

First post

Why do I start a blog a this time, a few years after all the hip people? Is there any possible justification for such an undertaking, except pure narcissism?

Well, maybe, maybe not. It is my belief that a blog should be about something, and that it should be something that the writer has some real insight in. I have sadly never kept a journal of my personal life, and I will not start now. What I will use this blog for is to explore certain ideas that I as a working academic theologian feel I need to explore, and I think this might be an appropriate medium for this. Obviously a blog cannot replace proper scholarly work that is published in monographs and scientific journals, but this can maybe be a preparation for such work in the future. In a way these are thoughts that I at the moment do not have time to address in my work on my PhD, but there are thoughts that spill over from this work that might end up here. Ore vice versa.

What I want to discuss is the role of the – primarily Christian – religion in a world that is not progressing any more, but is heading towards a scenario with more injustice, suffering and meaninglessness rather than less. It is my belief that this is where our world is heading, and I feel this is something that most, if not all, modern theology does not address sufficiently. Faith in a pessimistic worldview, or God in a shrinking universe, as the title, stolen from a Muse tune, says.

My intuition is that religion is the key to survival in a scenario like this, in the sense that religion can provide the tools to live in a life that is not expanding. This is in part because faith deals in hope, but also because religion is about transforming ones values, something I feel is the key to a constructive way of living in a destructing world. Obviously, life can not be fulfilling if based on material goods, if these material goods are becoming harder to obtain.

In other words, I hope to be able to work out some tenets of a “pessimistic theology”, without becoming depressing. I believe this is possible, from the simple fact that even though I because of various environmental, political, cultural and economical reasons which I will address in time, believe that life in this world is heading towards crisis, this has not (so far) lead to any despair in my personal life. I am myself a bit puzzled by this fact. So, even if I will not be very personal in my writings here, I guess my writings will be motivated by some kind of self-exploration as well.

So, if this blog finds any readers, I welcome you to join in this undertaking. I am sure that I am not alone in having these feelings, and that there probably are others out there try to come to terms with these questions. If so, I look forward to hearing your input.

Patrik