Welcome to Brothers and Sisters, the weekly meetup for prayer* and community at Daily Kos. We put an asterisk on pray* to acknowledge that not everyone uses conventional religious language, but may want to share joys and concerns, or simply take solace in a meditative atmosphere. Anyone who comes in the spirit of mutual respect, warmth and healing is welcome.
We know all about religious dogma. It’s personally scarred many of us; if not, we’ve noted its deadly toll over the course of human history and continuing into the present day.
Many progressives believe religion itself to be at the root of human folly. A view that compels me more concerns a phenomenon too regular to ignore: “quality” religious beliefs informing individuals’ or communities’ quests for social justice. No, I don’t have statistics about religious involvement by progressive activists. I have only personal impressions regarding what characteristics “quality” spiritual traditions, those compatible with democratic-humanist social ideals, share. When they’re religious, progressive activists tend to subscribe to a religion that that includes a “tradition of heterodoxy,” a promotion of learned discussion and interpretation of religious teaching by believers. Religious progressive activists’ faith traditions, furthermore, emphasize an “equality among God’s people” in the eyes of the Creator, regardless of life circumstances or personal characteristics such as gender or race. (I will write about the latter in a future essay.) For now…
I am intentionally restricting my remarks to the influence of Abrahamic religions on social-justice activism, even though I understand that some spiritual practices outside Abrahamic tradition, e.g., Zen Buddhism, mesh excellently with the pursuit of social justice. My conceptual grasp of major Western religions, while imperfect, is better than my understanding of other paths, and therefore my use of terminology will be truer. Take my point-of-view for what it’s worth: I’m no expert, I’m sure I’ve made errors, and I sincerely hope no inaccuracies of mine offend or distract unduly. I’m using few or no scholarly attributions, but am relying on Wikipedia, shamelessly.
Let me introduce myself, and tell you why I think I have worthwhile things to say on this subject. I am a forty-something woman, and quite a regular participant in this venue since 2006. I was reared in a creed I won’t name, to which I still have family and cultural ties. Forget “equality;” the religious worldview I was steeped in from infancy supported rigid social hierarchies based on gender and race, and a “tradition of heterodoxy”? Hah! Nothing I was taught in church was, shall we say, subject to mortal interpretation. I’ve broken cleanly with my religious past, and am presently unaffiliated and agnostic. As a single person isn’t necessarily “looking to be in a relationship,” I’m more than happy, at the moment, to let my lack of religious ties ride indefinitely, while nurturing my open mind, human warmth, appreciation of various religious and atheistic viewpoints, curiosity, desire to understand and to contribute. I’ve delighted in this particular diary series as a sort of come-as-you-are “church” for a merry, ragged band of Kossacks, and have frequently surfaced in the comments following.
The Tradition of Heterodoxy
This is clearly present in many faith traditions. Let me focus on two, Judaism and Roman Catholicism.
Judaism
I see Judaism’s “tradition of heterodoxy” as intrinsic, stemming from the origins of the two parts of the Jewish scriptural canon. First of all, observant Jews of every origin and description, that I know of, regard the Torah as their sacred text. The books of the Bible, revealed to Moses on Mt. Sinai, form the backbone of Jewish religious teaching. But, besides the Torah, Judaism’s scriptural canon also includes rabbinic commentaries on the volumes, including the Talmud and other texts, depending on the specific tradition. The rabbis’ written exegeses of scripture, apparently, were originally attempts to make worship “portable,” not reliant on a physical temple, following the destruction of the Jewish commonwealth in Jerusalem in 70 AC. The Talmudic tradition—a tradition of learned discussion of scripture, by mortals—has been rooted in Judaism since ancient times when Jews were much more localized geographically than they are today and the religion itself was presumably more homogeneous.
Rather than being received “in one piece” from heaven on stone tablets, spiritual authority in Judaism is to be engaged-with, discussed, argued-about by mortals. Judaism inherently countenances many conscientious interpretations of scripture; one is not “better” than another. All are relative, all are to be appreciated in their historical contexts.
Modern-day religious-Jewish feminists and religious-Jewish members of the LBGT community, for example, feel entitled to claim and interpret the prayer, song, story, and injunction of ancient Holy Scripture that does not mention them, or that excludes them. Religious-Jewish campaigners for all manner of civil and human rights throughout history have felt licensed to grapple with the question of how to carry out Divine will in the world, where specific guidance isn’t offered in revealed scripture. Figuratively speaking, religious-Jewish social activists have appended the Torah with their own discourse. They are direct heirs of the Talmudic tradition.
Roman Catholicism
Catholicism has survived since ancient times, and was at one time the only Christian Church in the West. Despite its highly centralized, hierarchical institutional structure, and perhaps owing to its age and its size, Catholicism has inevitably fomented a tradition of heterodoxy. That’s a blessing to some, surely a curse to others.
The Pope heads the church, Catholics believe his spiritual authority comes from St. Peter, whom Jesus Christ famously exhorted, “Feed my sheep.” The Church sees its own role as “feeding the Lord’s sheep” by administering sacraments—rites such as the Eucharist, through which mortals celebrate Divine grace—and exercising charity.
At one time, the Pope wielded extensive temporal power in the West, in the spheres of politics, law, philosophy, science, medicine, and technology. Partly or largely because of an active, continuous, millennia-old tradition of heterodoxy, the influence of the Church has steadily waned since the Middle Ages. Thanks to believers willing to dissent when their views differ from Rome’s teachings, the role of the clergy continues to become ever less autocratic, more relative, and more focused on accountability. Notions of “feeding the Lord’s sheep,” compassion, and what scripture might really mean, undergo continual revision.
Papal authority sustained a dramatic and embarrassing body-blow in 1633. The Church, which was all-powerful in that time and place, tried the Italian astronomer and “uppity” Catholic layman Galileo Galilei for heresy, for his public support of the now-scientifically-undisputed view that the earth revolves around the sun.
Papal authority sustained an equally dramatic and embarrassing, but quite different, body-blow at the turn of the last century, when reports of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests, and a large-scale official cover-up by the Church, began to surface persistently in the media.
It's a terrible, unspeakable business, the abuse by priests and the cover-up by the Church. It would legitimately cause many to lose their faith entirely. But, as I was absorbing these developments, here is what dropped my jaw: many adult survivors of priest abuse coming forward were and are, to the day they publicly confessed the private betrayal they endured long before, observant Roman Catholics. The Voice of the Faithful, a lay organization in support of religious Catholics who were abused by priests as minors, now boasts 30,000 members. One of the stated organizational goals on their web site is, “To shape structural change within the Catholic church.” I’m still gaping.
Where I come from—in terms of religious belief—if you find your confidence in church leaders or church teaching badly shaken for any reason, you don’t stick around to make that known. You know a monolithic orthodoxy will never hear your puny voice, or won’t register your views in anything like a decisive, timely manner. Rather than waste your energy trying to get through, your choice is to stop believing. You do what I did in early adulthood, and you just stop going to church.
Walking away from church for good, “voting with one’s feet,” can be a potent form of rebellion--if enough believers practice it, and if church leaders are sufficiently curious as to reasons for the attrition. On the other hand, the religions to whom progressive-activist believers remain loyal, are flexible enough to admit controversy and scrutiny.
Now for Something Completely Different
My choice of an inspirational Sunday-night video consists of a series of still visuals to accompany the final chorale of a Bach cantata, BWV 11: Lobet Gott in Seinen Reichen.
The cantata is about the longing of the Soul for the Divine; it extensively uses Christian language and concepts, as nearly all Bach's choral work does. If you aren't Christian, or if you aren't religious, let's hope you also don't speak German. Then the chorale's overtly religious words shouldn't distract you.
Enjoy the universality of the visuals, and the sublime music. If you listen, the melody incorporates a repeated run of notes, a leitmotif, to suggest otherworldly splendor. The pictures don't rely on overtly religious themes to make their point, and, in these dark, uncertain times, what a "point" it is...
(How I wish I could actual embed the video here. Unfortunately, I have studied the process of embedding videos, and I still find it baffling. A link to YouTube will have to suffice.)