5/3/2016 9:49 AM
Standard survey question: “What is
your religion: Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, other, or none?” People who give
the last answer are called “nones.” About a fourth of the U.S. population now
falls into that category.
Here is why there are so many “nones.”
People don’t know how to do religion.
To do religion, you have to do
three things:
1.
You have to move your body. You can’t just think religion, or just feel it. You
have to do something that involves physical movement. The reason for this is
that, if you want to relate yourself to God, you have to do that with all parts
of your being, not just your mind or feelings.
2.
You have to do religion in relationship with other human beings. The reason for
this is that God is a community of persons, and God has created us to do things
in relationship with others.
This
is the most serious obstacle to religion in western societies. We have become
so individualized that we tend to approach everything as though we do not need
anyone else for anything. Above all, we think that we do not need anybody else
when we deal with God.
3.
What you do has to lead to an increase of beauty in the world. This is the
ethical dimension of religion.
I am reading a book on the Franciscan
approach to ethics. The author argues that Franciscan tradition sees beauty as
the foundation of ethical behavior. Beauty is expressed most powerfully in the
way we relate to each other as human beings. A human person fully alive is
beautiful. What we do must lead toward making humans, including ourselves, more
fully alive. What does not do this is “sinful” or evil.
Our capitalist cultures do not
value beauty, except for those with resources. We do not care if what we do
destroys beauty, as long as it increases profit. So we go though the world,
leaving behind ugliness and decay. Last Sunday I took a walk along the
Mississippi riverfront here in Quincy. I passed several properties overrun with
weeds, featuring the remnants of concrete foundations and abandoned stair steps.
In poorer neighborhoods in our beautiful city, houses features blue tarps on
the roof (covering shingles blown off by last summer’s windstorm), weeds and
trees sprouting up in the midst of what used to be sidewalks, houses whose
paint peeled off years ago, and windows covered with plastic or even boarded
up. Only the well-to-do (including me) can afford beauty.
Bottom line: if you think that you
can be religious just by thinking about God, and perhaps having nice feelings,
but never using your body; if you think you can be religious all by yourself;
if you think you can be religious just by trusting in the maximizing of profit,
you are not likely to be religious at all.
In earlier ages, followers of Jesus
Christ were focused on baptizing people as a way of “saving” them. Baptism was
a physical act, and it had to be done in relationship to others. If it led to
an imitation of Jesus’ approach to the world, beauty followed. We have gotten
away from that kind of baptizing, probably because we have downplayed the
importance of the physical, of relationships with others, and of beauty.
You may notice that nothing I have
said requires that you be Christian. The majority of people in the world are
not Christian. But if they use their bodies in worship, relate to others in
their worship, and work to create beauty, they are on the road to God. As a
Christian, I happen to believe that Jesus Christ has showed us the best way to
approach God, but I don’t believe that non-Christians are hopelessly out of
touch with God. I believe that God loves each of them, and takes care of them
in ways that I do not know.
