Last March I put a
short essay on this blog with the title “religion is fun.” Ever since then I
have had second thoughts. I wonder if I took religion seriously enough. Or
better, if I took love seriously enough.
When I re-read the
piece, it seems satisfactory. But it does need to be supplemented.
My basic point in
that essay was that people do not continue to do things if they find no reward
in doing them. So if people keep “doing religion,” they must be getting some
kind of reward.
Philosophically,
that is pure utilitarianism, and it is not enough to describe how we human
beings behave. There are many examples of people who keep doing things that are
very costly to themselves. A philosopher could say “Well, yes, but they must be
getting some reward out of it when they do it.” But that does not take into
account how the people themselves would tell the story of what they are doing.
Even more
importantly, the philosopher’s statement does not take into account the example
that Jesus used: “There is no greater love than to lay down your life for your
friends.” It is hard to see how my giving up my life is going to result in a
reward for me.
The purist will
say “But the giver experiences a reward in the few moments before he or she
gives up life for someone else,” but I don’t think that is what is going on.
People who give up their lives for others are acting in the moment, without
thinking, and especially without thinking of themselves or their reward. I
suspect that if there is any story line going through their heads, it is, “God
will take care of me. I need to do what this other person needs, even if I lose
my life doing it.”
In other words, in
such life and death situations, religion is deadly serious, literally. It is
definitely not “fun.” It is love, pure and simple. I think of the statement in
the Song of Songs: “For Love is strong as Death, . . . Its arrows are arrows of
fire, flames of the divine.” (8:6)
Religion is not
only fun, but it is also deadly serious. It tells stories about ultimate
issues, and those stories help us to go on living, and even to quit going on
living because we love someone else.
I recently read a
book by two priests, Michael White and Tom Corcoran, who argued that the
biggest failure of the Catholic Church, and probably of other Christian
churches, is that we have come to see parishioners as consumers rather than as
fellow disciples of Jesus. Consumers act on the basis of rewards, on the basis
of what is “fun.” Disciples make their story the story of Jesus.
People need more
than fun. They need love, and love is even stronger than fun.
