From: Sam Norton (elizaphanian@kohath.wanadoo.co.uk)
Date: Thu Apr 07 2005 - 12:22:28 BST
Marsha -
Religion does mean to bind together (same root as the word 'ligament'), it
also has the sense of 'connect', presumably connect to quality.
But the interesting thing is whether it's good to be bound to a culture. I
would say that it is as good (and as inevitable and healthy) to be bound to
a culture as it is to be bound to our bodies and the physical appetites like
food. You don't want your life to be controlled by food, but it is something
that it is sensible to ensure you have an adequate supply of. In the same
way, our social level bindings shouldn't control us, but we should ensure
that those needs are well tended, otherwise we become emaciated in some
shape or form (socially and spiritually, if not physically).
One of the reasons why I occasionally make cracks about 'Protestant culture'
is that it seems to be trapped in the Lutheran moment, and obsessed with
separating itself out from social influences etc - as if it was possible to
do away with our sociality. We can no more do away with our sociality than
we could do away with our physical appetites. In just the same way that
religion allows someone to overcome their biological appetites there are
also resources which provide for the overcoming of the social level (it's
what drove the origins of monasticism) - as Luther found himself in reading
the Bible, and from being a monk.
I'm all in favour of not being bound by the social level etc. It's what
traditional Christian language calls 'the world'. I just don't think you
have to make a great drama out of it, and once you've recognised it and have
started along a higher path, you don't have to keep revisiting it and
defining your identity by that transition - another thing which I think
Protestant culture, especially in the US, succumbs to. (And, of course, I
don't see a religious commitment as the equivalent of a lobotomy, something
I know you disagree with, along with others here).
Sam
"God wishes to be adored by people who are free." Pope John Paul II
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