Religion v. Wisdom

A very dear friend pointed this out to Chris and I last night. This is posted on the Hood County Sheriff’s Office official Facebook page. This is blatant Christian nationalism. It’s also a deeply disturbing response to the Uvalde massacre. pic.twitter.com/gBeHk0R29Q

— Mendi Tackett (@mentack) July 13, 2022

I’m trying to get back to the subject of religion v. wisdom. But it needs more contemplation than I can give it right now.

I’ve been focusing on the similarities between religion and superstition. Yes, that’s the common ground of critique by the New Atheists; but that’s not what I mean. What I mean is that tweet; or the backstory of the villain in “Thor: Love and Thunder.”  Which means I have to make a diversion.

The villain of L&T is Gorr, the God Butcher.  When the film opens we see him in a wasteland with a child, his daughter.  They are dying because all around them is devastation.  In despair he prays to his god for salvation for his child:  literal physical salvation.  Of course, he doesn't get it, and then he meets his god in an oasis paradise, as lush and green and full of food and water as his world was without those things.  The "god" here is a bad imitation of a Greek one; petty, self-interested, and unconcerned with the lives of the people of the planet Gorr is from.  So Gorr vows that all gods must die, because all gods are worthless.

First, this is a comic-book pantheon of gods, right down to Thor, Zeus, and all the gods (from various cosmic cultures) who make an appearance in the movie.  I'm not trying to draw deep theological lessons here.  The movie itself avoids comparisons between these gods and the God of Abraham. But the disappointment and anger of Gorr clearly rests on the idea that the role of the gods is to protect the innocent.

(This is not a unique idea in the MCU.  In "Avengers: Endgame," Thor goes to the dwarf Eitri (who, in a nice turn, is actually a giant), whose first plea to Thor is to ask why he didn't protect Eitri's race from the ravaging of Thanos, the major villain, as Asgard was supposed to provide.  Seems the attention of Asgard was elsewhere.....  So in an interesting way this film is picking up that narrative thread.  But I digress....)

The idea that gods should protect the innocent is a still nobler idea than that the gods should provide a home, a car, and 2.5 kids, with enough income for vacations and generous tithes to keep the pastor in riches, too.  The latter is actually closer to the sentiment in that tweet above.  The idea in L&T is that gods should act in extremis, when the need is dire and those in need are beyond the limits of their resources (Gorr's planet is ravaged seemingly by some natural disaster; Thor's first appearance in the film is to defend a race being attacked by another race because their god (and protection) has been killed, presumably by Gorr.  Eitri, in the earlier film, is asking Thor for protection against an overwhelming evil, namely Thanos.)  Again, it's a fairly simplistic notion of divinity, but it's rooted in the idea of justice and protection of the innocent.

That tweet is rooted in the idea that God alone can act, and we can abdicate our responsibility to Jesus, who at best will show up at your house and what:  scare you into faith?  Several problems with this theology (aside from the Christian nationalism, which is another problem):  1) God is not a cosmic slot machine who pays off when you pray enough (drop enough coins in the slot and pull the arm enough times). (Prayer is not for God; it is for us.)  2) God's compassion is not expressed only for those who pray or who believe in the God this guy believes in (I, for one, don't.  And yet I still consider myself a Christian, so my statement is not a sign of/support for atheism.) 3) Christianity is not (IMHTheologicalO) about power.  Yes, we have "power and authority from Jesus."  But that power is to visit the imprisoned and the sick, help the poor and lame, and be last of all and servant of all.

Do you get any of that from this diatribe?  One of the oldest teachings of Christianity is that, the minute someone starts talking about "evil" and identifies it in someone else, that person should look at the log in their own eye, rather than the splinter in their sister's eye.

Let me just be so bold as to compare the prayer offered here with the lesson on prayer offered in the gospel of Luke:

On one occassion he happend to be praying some place.  When he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us how to pray, just as John taught his disciples."

He said to them, "When you pray, you should say:

Father, your name be revered.

Impose your imperial rule.

Provide us with the bread we need day to day.

Forgive our sins, since we too forgive everyone in debt to us.

And please don't subject us to test after test.

--Luke 11:1-4 (SV)

I won’t do a point-by-point comparison between the prayers; but could they be more different?  The prayer of Jesus there is entirely about humility.  One thing is asked for:  the bread we need day by day.  As to opposing evil? "Forgive our sins, since we too forgive everyone in debt to us."  And suffering evil?  "Please don't subject us to test after test."

God in Heaven we come to you and your son Jesus and

we ask the following in his name. God remove the spirit

of violence from our schools, remove the spirit of

oppression and the bully spirit, remove the spirit of

confusion, remove the spirit of depression and poverty,

remove the spirit of hate and jealousy, remove the

haughty spirit of pride. Remove the spirit of murder

through words and deeds, remove the spirit of sexual

depravity, and God replace all this evil with your Love,

Peace, Kindness, Faithfulness, and most of all with your

Power, God we thank you for what your about to do in

this country and we praise you and your son Jesus, God

help us to be the Men and Women you have called us to

be. We will not bow a knee to evil and will only bow to

you Jesus. In Jesus name we pray. Amen and Amen!!!"

When Jesus speaks of poverty or oppression or confusion or pride, hate, jealousy, in the gospels, he makes one thing clear: that's on us.  We are not oppressed by "spirits."  We are the enemy, we do that to ourselves.  Poverty is the result of injustice, just as murder is the result of injustice.  We can't wish those "evils" away; we have to take responsibility for them, and end them by, in one phrase, asking for God's imperial rule.  What that means is a whole other discussion, too; but it isn't the superstitious invervention of magic (or divine muscular, in the MCU) power; it is up to us.  How it is up to us, and what we should do about it, are the teachings of wisdom.  Which is to say, the teachings of Jesus and Paul rooted in the law of Moses and the lessons of the prophets and even the lessons of Abraham.  But it's not about magic formulas and magic prayers and declaring you ask in a certain name (which was actually Joshua in Aramaic; Jesus is a transliteration, so....).

Yeah, I gotta big problem with this abuse of Christianity.  And the key to the problem is the distinction between wisdom, and religion.  This Facebook post wields religion like a club, creating a group that is "in" and those who are "out." And if you're out, while you aren't necessarily evil (not sure what evil is doing to kill so many schoolchildren, but let's leave that aside too, for now), Jesus may come knocking on your door; and Lt. Johnny Rose doesn't make it sound like Jesus is coming to see about you.  Lt. Johnny Rose, you see, has power, including the power to pray and make Jesus come straighten you out.

There is no wisdom in that at all; and, I would argue, precious little religion.  Not true religion; but that's like arguing no true Scotsman would write this post, either.  It's not a failure of religion; but it's the problem when religion is divorced from wisdom.  There is no wisdom without religion; but there is no religion without wisdom, either.  Still, it's far easier to divorce wisdom from religion, and then use religion like a club; than it is to stick with wisdom, and use that like a club.*

And one other thing about "in" and "out":  when the disciples come to Jesus and tell him they saw people casting out demons "in his name," Jesus wisely said:  "Whoever is not against us, it with us."  Wisely because that formulation is far more inclusive than the one we usually rely on:  "Whoever is not with us, is against us."

*Well, arguably, that's what Socrates did; so there's not a lot of wisdom in my categorical statements, either.  But we'll come back to that, too.  I hope.