May 30, 2005
Ministry retreat
Friday afternoon I drove over to Urbana for a retreat, the third-annual Midwest Discordian Ministry Assembly. The attendees were mostly people I knew who in some way "minister" spiritually to people, though I use that term a little loosely. The faith traditions represented there were relatively diverse and not at all restricted to Christianity.
In particular, it included a number of disaffected Christians and some who were actively anti-Christian; the main reasons, for all of them, had to do with the churches being seen as bigoted, hypocritical, exclusionary, and chiefly interested in power. This is a difficult perception to counteract, because in the case of a lot of the Christians in power and that get the most press, it's pretty much entirely true. I don't know how we can solve this problem, but until we do, we'll only see an acceleration of the current trend where the good, smart, examined-life people leave, which of course just makes the problem worse.
A major theme of the weekend, as indeed of Discordianism as a whole, is the idea that seeming or even actual contradiction is not necessarily the end of the world. Especially when dealing with ephemeral, spiritual matters, as soon as you try to express a truth, you've made a simplification that makes the expression not quite right. If you make a different simplification, you have a different approximation that seems to contradict the first, and yet, both are expressions of a larger truth. The summary of this by "Saint Syadasti" is:
All things are in some sense true,To which the good Discordian should mentally append the doxology "including this", which really sums up the whole thing in a nice two-word nutshell. And although this sort of thing infuriates a lot of Protestants, it's quite compatible with a Catholic understanding of truth; our theology is riddled with seeming inconsistencies and contradictions, but each half of the contradiction can separately impart wisdom, and so the whole is useful, even if it is in some ways false and/or meaningless. Jesus himself said "it is all presented in parables, so that they will look intently and not see, listen carefully and not understand, lest perhaps they repent and be forgiven." (Mk 4:11-12)
in some sense false,
in some sense meaningless,
in some sense true and false,
in some sense true and meaningless,
in some sense false and meaningless,
and in some sense true and false and meaningless.
Another theme was the constant questioning of authority. How much do you believe just because someone said so? Why should you give anyone that much power over your beliefs? And again, this is entirely consonant with a Catholic understanding of spirituality and belief. We don't regard the Bible as the sole source of truth and literally correct in every detail. It goes hand in hand with our centuries of tradition to interpret it. And even when the RCC has an official line on something, it is still contingent on a personal formation of conscience: the RCC says all sorts of things, but, at least officially and doctrinally, all of it is tagged with an implicit "but don't take our word for it"; you must form your own conscience through thought and prayer, and it is this conscience you must follow, even if it is in discord with the (thus presumably incorrect) Catholic doctrine.
So, it was a really interesting and productive weekend. And now I've spent enough time writing and really need to get back to grading and other school-related things....
"I know you're usually more prone to reading things like the History of the Romanian Basketweavers Revolution and shit like that, but Potter's on par with LOTR and much less longwinded. It's kind of a "Chronicles of Narnia" for pagans. It's a must-read, if you want to keep up with the state of the mythological arts." --Jonathan Prykop
Posted by blahedo at 6:10pm on 30 May 2005I don't know how we can solve this problem, but until we do, we'll only see an acceleration of the current trend where the good, smart, examined-life people leave, which of course just makes the problem worse.
Unitarian-Universialism seems to be a refuge for people like you describe. Or at least, that's my perception from the outside. I actually haven't meet that many people who actually belong to that group.
Posted by ansible at 7:48pm on 30 May 2005Lots of people have been considering these questions for millennia. The institutional religions and their scriptures and traditions represent the condensed wisdom of a lot of people, and it's sort of silly to throw all that out the window just because you disagree with some of their conclusions.
Anyway, your initial claim is incorrect. You have increasing difficulty etc, etc, but there are a lot of smart, examined-life people out there that remain churched, or who leave their church but continue to believe in God. (Or gods.) If you can generalise anything, I think it's that smart people have a hard time with corrupt individuals and institutions, but that's not a particularly interesting or novel assertion.
Posted by blahedo at 12:47pm on 2 Jun 2005If you can generalise anything, I think it's that smart people have a hard time with corrupt individuals and institutions, but that's not a particularly interesting or novel assertion.
Indeed.
Something slightly more interesting is that the church (whichever one is local to you) has a lot less direct power over your life than it used to (like 300 years ago).
And switching religions isn't the shooting offense it used to be either.
Another interesting bit is that with increased communication technology, it is easier for aforementioned smart people to learn more about their church in much greater detail and scope.
Is someone aware of a good book which discusses these sorts of issues from a historical perspective?
Posted by ansible at 3:11pm on 2 Jun 2005Speaking as a Unitarian-Universalist (by birth, upbringing, and choice), I can say that it is true that many UU folks migrated from other religions. Their reasons, however, only occasionally have to do with the issues of authority, the source of truth, the contradictions in various scripture, etc. It is much more common for people to come to UU after having deliberately and vehemently discarded all organized religious institutions in reaction to an oppressive religious upbringing. They tend to be walking wounded, and the very mention of certain trigger words such as God and Christ or even amen or prayer will make them uncomfortable and upset. These are not people who have considered religion and decided they like one faith better than another, these are people who are seeking a church-like community that will not remind them of the unpleasant aspects of their childhood.
Such people make up roughly half the congregation I grew up in; the other half are mostly the examined-life types, which is largely made up of people who are born and bred UU. Not counting those under 18, who we can expect to be still figuring out what they believe, there are only a very few who are there more by habit than by decision. I will also mention that UU congregations are often very different from one another, so this mix is likely unique to my home congregation and should not be considered valid across the entire UU world.
I had a friend in high school who became a born-again fundamentalist Christian while I knew her. She had not been brought up that way, but had chosen fundamentalism after careful consideration and examination. I cannot fault her for that, regardless of what I might think of her chosen faith (or, more to the point, the vocal majority of people who have chosen that faith). I had several interesting and informative discussions with her, and it was clear that she had come to her chosen faith with her eyes open. By the same token, I cannot respect someone whose faith comes from one parent or the other without conscious consideration, regardless of how enlightened I might consider said faith. (Note that being of one's parent's faith does not necessarily mean that one did not consciously choose it, but that is most often the case.)
Posted by Greg at 11:15am on 3 Jun 2005