(Ir)religiosity

If you don’t read Religion Dispatches you really should.  A great “progressive” (for lack of a better, more unambiguous term) religion blog that consistently posts good content.  Case in point: yesterday’s post on interfaith dialogue in a — thanks to social media and other forms of new technology — increasingly globalized world.

What if we thought of religion (and even science and philosophy) as a type of language or dialect?

If the “Nones” are a rapidly growing category (as the surveys suggest), then “religion” will need to change in order to remain relevant and viable in the complex world we’re heading into. To begin with, the idea that only one religion is true, while all the others are not, will have to be abandoned. Perhaps one way of hastening this process is to think of religion as being like language. Languages are not true or false. Rather, each different language seeks to express the shared history and life experiences of those people who speak it. In a rapidly globalizing world, people will increasingly need to be fluent in more than one language. [...] Likewise, it will become necessary to speak more than one religious language; not just for the sake of communication, but in service of human spiritual growth and enrichment.

Since my first real and meaningful encounter with the presence of other religious ideas besides evangelical Christianity in “Introduction to World Religions” fall semester of my freshman year in college — the first of many experiences which radically altered my view of interfaith dialogue and religious pluralism — I’ve thought it best to think of religion(s) as a type of language or linguistic structure.  A language or dialect isn’t completely wrong, but it’s not absolutely right either.  It conveys meaning to a particular community, a characteristic that makes it true, but no single language enjoys a monopoly on meaning or truth.  And any claims to complete hegemony are essentially illegitimate and equivalent to, for example, an American demanding that all the world immediately begin using English as a means for global communication.  It just wouldn’t work.  Communication couldn’t happen and some pieces of truth and meaning would die along with the lost languages.

Language, by its very nature, is limiting.  As a native speaker I can’t escape English.  No matter how many languages I learn in my lifetime (it won’t be many, it’s not my strong suit!) I will never be able to liberate myself from thinking in English.  It is my mother tongue.  Likewise as a Christian, I am, in some sense, limited in my religious thinking.  True, Christianity offers its own unique and helpful insights into the penetrating questions of meaning and truth, but like every other religion, it does so at the expense of others.  Understanding the double-nature of that reality — its benefit and its limitation — will go a long way in understanding and making room for other religious tongues in the future.

The bilingual and multilingual person is more of an asset than the one who is not.  Christianity will always be my mother tongue, but understanding and becoming fluent and conversant in the other prominent languages of the religious landscape will be vital and of the utmost importance in the future if we are to have meaningful interfaith dialogue.  Not only that, but becoming comfortable with and using more religious languages instead of merely “knowing about them” and assuming the superiority of one’s own — a modern symptom if there ever was one — will be the hallmark of mutual understanding and respect as religious “emergence” really begins to take root in the future.  To be sure, I don’t think that dilutes my Christianity at all, contrary to the usual accusations of syncretism — in fact I think it enriches it.  Not to mention it helps me become a more well-rounded human being.

We must acknowledge that we live within an inescapable language that is no better or worse than the others — it simply is.  We must become familiar and fluent in other languages so we can become conversant.  And, most of all, we must welcome and become comfortable with the presence, importance, and enriching value of other languages — not merely tolerate their existence.  The first two come fairly easy, it is the last one that is tough.  Yet I think the success and efficacy of future dialogue and evolution depends upon it more than anything.

In my mind, language is the best way to think about this.  It helps me understand it better.  What do you think?  Does it help to think of religion as a language?

I’ve decided to alternate my “Weekend Link Blast” series with “Friday is for Quotes.” This way I can concentrate on compiling a better, longer list of links. So, every other week I’ll post a quote that I find to be blogworthy. With school and everything else I don’t really have time to post full blown book reviews, though I’d like to. I’ll try to post quotes from things I’m currently reading and I promise I won’t just throw up one-liner clichés. If I have time I may even post some commentary to hopefully spark the conversation.

So here we go. The following is an exerpt from the Dalai Lama’s Ethics for the New Millennium. Not exactly a new book, but a good book nonetheless. Here he discusses the difference between “religion” and “spirituality;” an important distinction I think we too often overlook. However, he differentiates the two in a manner we (Westerners) often don’t.

“I believe there is an important distinction to be made between religion and spirituality. Religion I take to be concerned with faith in the claims of salvation of one faith tradition or another, an aspect of which is acceptance of some form of metaphysical or supernatural reality. . .Connected with this are religious teachings or dogma, ritual, prayer, and so on.

Spirituality I take to be concerned with those qualities of the human spirit—such as love and compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, a sense of responsibility, a sense of harmony—which bring happiness to both self and others. . .There is no reason why the individual should not develop them, even to a high degree, without recourse to any religious or metaphysical belief system. This is why I sometimes say that religion is something we can do without. What we cannot do without are these basic spiritual qualities.

. . .Each of the qualities notes is defined be any implicit concern for others’ well-being. . .Thus spiritual practice according to this description involves, on the one hand, acting out of concern of others’ well-being. On the other, it entails transforming ourselves so that we become more readily disposed to do so.”

It has been my experience that this distinction between religion and spirituality is usually made like this: religion is often described as an institution interested in spreading particular set of beliefs or dogma in order to further perpetuate itself. People will often describe this as “organized religion” making the connotation even more negative. This isn’t all that different from the Dalai Lama’s characterization.

The difference lies in his description of spirituality. It seems to me that many people now like to describe themselves as “spiritual,” but not “religious.” Most of them, at least in my experience are still using the word spiritual in a metaphysical sense (not that that is bad) and are rejecting the dogmatic, legalistic confines of organized religion. These persons still feel a connection with God, or ultimate reality, or some other metaphysical reality just without the rigidity.

Now, I don’t think there is anything wrong with that per se, in fact, I suppose I would fit into that category. But I think I can still be “spiritual” and miss the larger point the Dalai Lama is making—the emphasis on compassion, responsibility, reconciliation and so on—and in that sense I’m still holding on to “the religious.”

And to do that, I believe, is to deny the humanity that unites us all.

~bh ><>