I was reflecting last week on how we think about "religion" - what it is and what it is there for. I suggested that most religions offer coherence to a community with a set of beliefs about the cause, nature and purpose of the universe, a set of moral precepts to guide conduct, and a set of devotional and ritual performances. Ideally, I supposed, a creed is meant to give a higher meaning to our lives, a code of conduct is meant to put our lives into a broader context of values, and a cult to give us a deeper experience. Today we have individualism with some turning away altogether from any concept of a higher meaning or broader context to our individual lives and others picking and mixing their own "religion" maybe with a secular creed, a behavioural code inherited from one's kin, and sports or music as a means to get deeper experiences. Alas, with that comes the disintegration of coherence, often even in individual lives but certainly for communities. Today we also have pluralism, a global marketplace wherein one's own religion and traditions can no longer be taken for granted and societies which struggle to host different religious groups (which is only possible, if one "religion" plays the host and within the UK the two main contenders, Christianity and classical liberalism, are maybe no longer widely enough respected).
I pointed out that the strong desire to declare all religions equal (equally good or bad for us) is misguided as any concern with higher meaning must face the question of truth and falsehood, any code of conduct raises the question "who decides what is right and wrong?", and the different devotional practices are not really meant to gives us deeper experiences only but raise the question of the relationship between our realm and the divine. It would therefore be reductionist to evaluate religions simply on the basis whether they succeed in giving people a sense of being part of something bigger and help them to lead decent and fulfilled lives in the community. We must also ask about the relationship between the natural and the supernatural in any religion and how the two realms interact.
I then talked about how therefore in Deuteronomy 18:9-14 a culture is condemned and the people of God are called to be different. What is in view here is a religion that uses mechanical, a-moral means as it tries to get answers to the riddles of life and the future and to manipulate the divine realm. This is all swept aside in Israel in favour of prophecy as the means by which God, on his own initiative, makes himself and his will known to his people, Deuteronomy 18:15ff. Somewhat unusually within the ancient world, professional prophets within Israel often operated independent of other institutions, especially the palace and the temple, and so underline that the final authority lies with God. (Note also how prophecy is discussed last in this section of Deuteronomy, following instructions for king and sanctuary.) This of course makes it critical to distinguish between true and false prophecy and I talked a little about that before turning to Christ whose teaching is as instrumental in founding a new community and kingdom as was that of Moses for founding the old community and kingdom. Here I made a link to the Gospel reading (Mark 1:27), suggesting that the teaching of Jesus was new because it did not defer to previous authority but belongs to the new creation, leading to an enlarged creed, a deepened moral code and a changed cult.
So how do we think about our religion? We have been infected by a virus that will seriously harm our spiritual health, rendering us unable to function properly, if our religion is for us
- a merely personal set of beliefs not necessarily valid for others, plus
- a code of conduct we want to follow but others may not, plus
- a set of rituals that works for us but may not work for others.
- a set of beliefs that claim to be universally true,
- a challenge to live a life pleasing to God,
- devotion that can taken many forms but must be "in spirit and in truth" and
- above all: Christ himself - he is the one to whom we are bound.
