An article from the Cathedral Times
by
the Very Reverend Samuel G. Candler,
Dean of the Cathedral of
St. Philip
As Lent approaches, I was quite intrigued by the lengthy article, "Religion
for Everyone," by Alain de Botton, which appeared in
The Wall Street Journal this past Saturday, February 18,
2012. Surely his book on the same subject expounds his argument; but
clearly proposes that non-religious and secular people might learn
something about "community' from the Christian
tradition.
Indeed, the article seems to urge a
non-religious religion! He says "I, for one, believe that it is possible
to reclaim our sense of community"”and that we can do so, moreover,
without having to build upon a religious foundation." Hence, a "Religion
for Everyone."
I have two reactions.
First, I certainly welcome the positive acknowledgements from De Botton:
He says, "Everyone stands to learn something from the ways in
which religion delivers sermons, promotes morality, engenders a spirit
of community, inspires travel, trains minds and encourages gratitude at
the beauty of life. In a world beset by fundamentalists of both the
believing and the secular variety, it must be possible to balance a
rejection of religious faith with a selective reverence for religious
rituals and concepts.
Religion serves two central
needs that secular society has not been able to meet with any particular
skill: first, the need to live together in harmonious communities,
despite our deeply-rooted selfish and violent impulses; second, the need
to cope with the pain that arises from professional failure, troubled
relationships, the death of loved ones and our own decay and demise."
This is good and serious stuff. My second
reaction, however, is to question whether the same sort of community
that the Church has grown would be available to people who do not, or
cannot, share participation in the specific Christian tradition. I
remember a non-believing friend of mine, for instance, who spoke to me
about church. "My church," he said, "is the folk dancing group I meet
with every Friday evening. We are a close and committed group. We care
for each other, and dancing is our common ritual each week." I think I
knew what he meant, but I hope that the Christian Church is much
sturdier than that.
Perhaps De Botton has the same
sort of thing in mind when he proposes some sort of Agape Restaurant. He
is right that eating together develops deep and ritual connection. But
the Christian religion, in its history and complexity, contains much
more than just dancing and eating. It is both those activities (well, we
could use more dancing); and it is also story, and teaching, and
service, and building, and prayer, and history, and pain, and wonder,
and ... the Transcendent. I question whether we can truly find imminent
community without a genuine acknowledgement of its opposite:
Transcendence.
I am flattered, and a bit proud, that
someone wants to appreciate, and even to emulate Christian community in
our time. But I am skeptical that one feature of Christianity can be
genuinely duplicated without including much of our other ancient
tradition and practice.
What a surprise, then, to
read on the very next day (Sunday, February 20, 2012), a
brief editorial in The New York Times that
featured a similar argument to that of its "competitor," The
Wall Street Journal! There, Verlyn Klinkenborg suggested that
our culture might practice a kind of Lent without religion; "the
idea of Lent can be embraced by all of us, religious or
otherwise." Well! I had the same two
reactions.
So, I leave it to Martin Marty to have a
definitive reaction here. In Sightings
(February 20, 2012), Marty accepts the favorable comments of
De Botton, but Marty also proclaims the futility of an enterprise that
tries to recreate religion without
religion:
"Let me plug my [Martin Marty's]
favorite analysis, George Santayana's words in Reason in
Religion. A religion for everyone? He
writes:
"Any attempt to speak without speaking any
particular language is [just as hopeless as] the attempt to have a
religion that shall be no religion in particular. ... Thus every living
and healthy religion has a marked idiosyncrasy. Its power consists in
its special and surprising message and in the bias which that revelation
gives to life." Its vistas and mysteries propound "another world to
live in," and "another world to live in ... is what we mean by having a
religion." (Sightings,
February 20,
2012)
I agree
with George Santayana through Martin Marty! Yes, every healthy religion
has its marked idiosyncrasies, and its weaknesses. But it is our
religion, our language, our life. Churches, and synagogues, and mosques
offer the world another world.
In that spirit, I
invite you to enter this season of our Christian life, this season of
Lent. Come to Church, where we will engage in holy community yet again.
We will hear as full a presentation of the Christian story as we can, in
forty holy days: pilgrimage, suffering, death, resurrection. Yes, we
will eat together, too. We will be participating in a holy community
that is both intimate and transcendent: the fullness of Christian
Incarnation.
The Very Reverend Sam Candler