Sunday, February 21, 2010
Religion and non-religion
Non-religion: so-called spirituality, PCness or moralistic therapeutic deism. A sermon from Fr L.
One of the most disturbing things about the modern age is the fact that for many Christians religion has ceased to be religion. That is to say, it has ceased to be about a transaction between this world and the next and has denied the next world altogether.
Religion, if it is religion at all, is surely about man’s commerce with the supernatural realm. In this sense Paganism is a real religion. A priest sacrificing chickens or virgins to a monstrous deity in hope of supernatural protection and power is what I call religion.
Instead what was religion has been reduced to three things: a meaningless ceremony; a set of mild moral principles; and an inclination to make the world a better place. While these things may be laudable in their way, they are not essentially religious. They are the bland leftovers from what once was religion. The deep freezer of latitudinarian moralism, which some people understandably try to warm up by serving hot granola.
What is paradoxical is that this ‘religion’ of meaningless ceremony, social courtesy and good works is practiced by the descendants of the Protestant reformers who inveighed against a religion that was no more than empty ceremonial, social standing and good works. Or mirror worship really. (The neo-pseudo-pagans don’t really believe in the gods they say they’re worshipping.) As Fr L’s parody character Revd Lav says:
All of us have times in life when we think things are not going our way. It is at those times that we need to pull ourselves together and say, “It may not be going my way, but I will be doing it my way!” Or what’s wrong with Frank Sinatra’s song of that title. I admit I like a scrappy paisan underdog with that attitude (the plot of Rocky) but not some privileged boomer or his SWPL offspring with it. So shoot me.
 Full-blooded Catholic religion engages in an interaction with the other world. Arturo gets it.Labels: the Catholic faith
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