I guess I've had a few interesting religious experiences over the last few days.
On Friday, I saw Happy Feet. Although I wouldn't ever class seeing a movie as a religious experience unless it was a fundamentally religious movie, this particular movie did seem to have a particular secular undertone that would dissuade any viewers from following religious beliefs on the basis that they're made up by old people to scare, manipulate and maintain power over the younger generations. The secular plot saw the penguin population turn against the old bigots when the falsity of their beliefs became evident, and even the old bigots themselves eventually let their religious teachings go in favour of following the new way. I guess secularisation is becoming the flavour of the month. When our armies were fighting political wars late last century, the ideology of the masses became anti-institutional, with free love and socialism becoming some of the popular ways to oppose the institutions governing them. Now, with our armies fighting thinly-disguised religious wars, the ideology of the masses has become anti-religious, with fundamental religion coming to be seen as something that causes hatred and dissention and should therefore be avoided.
As a Christian, and probably one who would attract the "fundamental" label because of my evangelical beliefs and associations, I can't help feeling short-changed by this. I know that our Western society can no longer be called Christian, any more than an Australian like myself can be called an Englishman - the ties of origin might still be there, but my nation has moved on and become its own a long time ago. Western society is secular. The capitalism of Western society is secular. Even the leaders of the West give secular reasons for making war at this time - they say that our way of life is in need of defence, and that they are therefore attacking those who desire to take it away from us, and as our way of life as a society is very much secular this must be a secular reason. And yet this poses the problem that either our leaders are blind or they are lying: either they don't see that the enemy is fighting for religious reasons, or they themselves are sending us to war for religious reasons but don't want to tell us that. I think that we all believe our politicians are liars and cheats, and therefore we jump to the second conclusion, and then move further on to the conclusion that religion causes wars. And why stop there? Blame it for colonisation, for the destruction of cultures, for all the social evils in the world and for any injustice that you can see. Blame it even for capitalism, because the freedom "Christianity" gives to those who live in "Christian" countries to do whatever they please just gives way to greed and lust. I feel short-changed by this because I know that this is not the fault of Christianity, but of those who claimed to be Christian just because the rest of the culture did, and who either just didn't care a thing about the ways of God, or were led into false ways by an often-corrupted and therefore itself wayward Church.
Jesus fought injustice, brought mercy, and overflowed with compassion - even towards those who His society saw as enemies - and He taught us to do the same. He taught us to love as He loved us. He taught us to bring love to the whole world by bringing both His message and His mercy and compassion to it. It is no wonder that there are people who are shunning all things religious when those who, through the centuries gone and even right now, are making war and purporting to be Christians. Islam sees the West as Christian, but it is not. It is secular to its core these days, because its core is the economy and the greed and lust that are its lifeblood. Even the majority of people in the West now this. Can we as Western Christians possibly make headway when we are bound to a system of greed and lust? As much as a blessing as it is, maybe we should seek to value our security and our acceptance into our own society less, so that when we are accused our accusers may be put to shame because they see the way in which we live. That is, after all, how we were taught to live.
The second religious experience I've had is that of going to Hillsong Church. I'll talk less about this. I found the message challenging, because it was on something that I've been challenged about a lot recently - social justice. Well, that's what it spoke to me. It was really poorly based in Scripture, even containing one reference that was completely wrong. Another shorter message earlier in the service miscontextualised a single verse to make a point that could have been made very strongly with a good few other whole passages taken in context. They played the crowd too, which I don't think is appropriate, as it doesn't reach out to people where they are. However, I think the Spirit really is alive in that Church, or at least in parts of it. I actually think His power is more evident in my own Church, St. Barnabas Broadway, despite our semi-rigid applications of Anglican service structure, just because we have no showmanship amongst us - there is love, there is power, there is truth, there is movement, and though there is the typical Anglican unwillingness to get off our bums and do anything (or is that just me?), there is great work being done amongst us.
Okay, I need to end my rant here I think :o)
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