Why Spirituality and Not Religion? Part II
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| Google Image |
Back in
1976, Heschel wrote a book called “God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of
Judaism.” Even 38 years ago, it seems, the handwriting was on the wall about future
generations’ lack of enthusiasm for religion, and Heschel’s book still speaks volumes.
“It is
customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the
eclipse of religion in modern society,” he wrote. “It would be more honest to
blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was
refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid.
“When
faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit;
when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when
faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks
only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion – its
message becomes meaningless.”
Like all
human endeavors, religion can become irrelevant, oppressive, insipid and meaningless.
The questions is, is it the religion itself – its principles, beliefs and practices
– that is the problem or the people at any given time who lead or influence it?
They’re not the same. Do the doping scandals in major league baseball mean that
the sport is bad, or that some people who play it are bad? I believe many
people adopt the caricatures of religion to be able to easily knock them down.
Many
religions, including my own Catholic faith, believe that the church is human
but also divine because God had a hand it its birth. Religion’s purpose is to
help us in the search for God, and to the extent that we find him/her, help us
in our subsequent relationship to God. I believe Catholicism, and most
religions, fulfill that function and more.
But how
do you, really, search for a being who is invisible and unknowable? And an even
harder question, how does he/she search for you? Many people have found the way
through religion and religious leaders like Rabbi Heschel.
The
title of his book, says the America article, “expresses what is perhaps Rabbi
Heschel’s most distinctive or signature idea: It is not so much we who seek God,
but God who seeks us.”
For Heschel,
“God is always present to us. But because we are not always, or perhaps even
usually present to God, Rabbi Heschel suggests that God must ‘reach out’ to us
(from around us and from within us) to elicit our presence, our responsiveness.
We dwell within the sphere of God’s presence, yet God must strive to get us to
appreciate that presence. God dwells within us, yet God must awaken us to the
divine indwelling.”
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| Pope Frances and Rabbi Skorka Google Image |
Abraham
Skorka, the Argentinian rabbi, also wrote a book. His co-author was his friend,
Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the future Pope Francis. Written in 2010, it is called
“On Heaven and Earth,” and is a transcription of the conversations about faith,
life and the future of religion the two had over an extended period. Bergoglio
has suggestions about where to start in the search for God.
“What
every person must be told is to look inside himself,” Bergoglio wrote.
“Distraction is an interior fracture. It will never lead the person to
encounter himself for it impedes him from looking into the mirror of his heart.
Collecting oneself is the beginning.
“…I
would tell the people of today to seek the experience of entering into the
intimacy of their hearts, to know the experience, the face of God.”
To me,
this means that people need to be thoughtful, which I believe may be more
difficult than at any time in human history. When have there been more
distractions? When have people had “less time” to think? When has there been
less support for thoughtfulness?
Returning
to the theme of the problem with religion, Rabbi Skorka bemoans the smugness
involved in the habit of some religious people who apply dogma to practically
any human problem. This is nothing new. To illustrate, he uses the story of Job
from the Hebrew Bible.
Job, “a
just, upright man, wanted to know why he had lost everything, even his health.
His friends told him that God had punished him for his sins.” Job is comforted
when he has a conversation with God; in other words, when he prays. God doesn’t
answer Job’s many questions, the rabbi says, but “the touch of God’s presence
stays with him.”
Stories
from the Bible may seem unlikely to move us. Like all things “religious,” the
Bible has for many become throwbacks to childhood and childishness. So
commonplace, it may have become trite and stereotypical. What could it possibly
have to say to us today?
Looking inside oneself, as suggested by the future Pope, is just the beginning. Eventually,
the searcher for God must look seriously at what the Bible has to say,
and consider other timeless sources, including the experience of generations of
religious people and their institutions. To ignore them is to invite
aimlessness and continual detours on the path to God.
Like
reading a book that has an inviting title and cover but vacuous content,
it’s hard to be spiritual without religion.
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