maybe what people need is not a church serving one faith but a church
that represents spiritual conflict. and this may be more interesting
than a mere church with one dogma.
in a way, catholicism has elements of spiritual/cultural conflict
because it fused together both judeo-christian strains and greco-roman
pagan strains. still, the catholic church wants to ideologically put
forth a unified consistent theory. it's as though it's ashamed of its
syncretic nature.
but, how about a church that is openly syncretic and grapples with the
conflict between traditions.
the early christian churches in northern europe fused the christian
and the pagan. for example, some early germanic christians carried
around stuff such as thor hammer redesigned into a crucifix. but, as
time went on, the church weeded out all the 'impurities'.
but, it's conflict that makes spiritualism interesting. take wagner's
overture to parsifal which interweaves the christian transcendentalism
with pagan blood-and-soil vitalism.
so, imagine a church today that plays the syncretic game without shame
or trepidation. suppose a church that fuses jesus-as-messiah with
athena-as-goddess. of course, we could argue that such isn't possible
since christianity is monotheistic; as such, how there be a goddess?
and, athena wor****ppers could argue that if there's athena, then there
must be more than one god, and that means judeo-christianism is a lot
of hooey. okay, but such arguments are fun and good.
but, what's really fun is all the possible arguments that try to
explain how there can be both jesus and athena. for instance, if god
is all powerful, could he not create lesser gods? or, if there is
satan, then could he not create false gods like the pagan gods? so,
is athena the creation of god or the trick of the devil?
now, you may ask.. why would god create another god, even a lesser
god? but didn't he do this with jesus? didn't he create another god?
of course, we could argue that jesus is merely another manifestation
of god, so there's still only one god. but, we can make the same
argument for athena. if god created lesser gods--athena, zeus, thor,
odin, isis, etc--wouldn't they be manifestations of himself as well?
of course, we could argue that jesus's teachings were in keeping with
the god of the bible whereas pagan gods are of another tradition
altogether. but, suppose god wanted to have fun by messing with us and
so created these other gods. or, suppose god wanted his chosen people
the jews to have certain advantages. didn't the existence of pagan
gods serve the interests of jews? god told jews not to wor****p false
gods and idols, but he didn't tell that to other people. suppose god
gave the same command to ALL peoples. then, the jews would not have
been a special people. jews were special because, for a long long time
ONLY THEY had knowledge of this great yahweh. had yahweh revealed
himself to ALL the people around the world, what would have been
special about jews? so, while jews had only ONE god, it was in god's
interest to make pagan folks believe in other gods--lesser or false
gods. in that sense, we could argue that god invented lesser gods or
allowed them to exist in the minds of pagan people to keep the jews a
special people.
suppose there are many different peoples lost in the mist. among
these folks, the light from a beacon could be seen ONLY by a certain
people. so while this particular people moved toward the light, other
groups remained lost in the mist. so, pagan gods were this mist in
which pagans were lost. and, even as god told jews not to believe in
pagan gods or idols, god made sure that pagan folks believed in pagan
gods; only under such conditions could there be a special relation****p
between god and the jews.
eventually, god came to be known to all mankind thru jesus the jew.
BUT, jesus could not have been possible if not for the 1000s of yrs of
jewish history where jews were the special chosen people. and, if
rest of mankind didn't believe in false gods, there would have been no
point to spreading christianity--or islam. so, even false gods had
their purpose. or, maybe they are not really false. maybe god made
these lesser gods for lesser peoples. he showed his face to his
favorite people, the jews. but, god made lesser gods for pagan folks.
it's like a great professor teaches a class filled with his favorite
students while having his teaching assistants teach all the other
brats. so, even lesser gods and teaching assistants have their
purpose.
so, imagine a church of jesus-athena-conflict-meditation. the
architecture could have jesus on one side and athena on the other
side. the motifs could be both gothic christian and greco-classical.
and tensions would fill the air. instead of just praying and
accepting, people would have to think and search for meaning both
intellectually and spiritually on their own.
in a way, greek religion--now called myth--was fascinating and fun
because it was like thanksgiving get together where relatives
celebrated and argued together. there were many gods representing
different aspect of human experience. there was zeus the patriarch,
hera the matriach, apollo the golden boy, bacchus the party animal,
athena the militant fascist, diana the hunter, mars the bully, mercury
the witty gayboy, etc. maybe this is why greeks were great debaters
and thinkers. they took after their gods--or vice versa. though zeus
was numero uno, the whole greek god family were arguing and bickering
at the dinner table. they were competitive for power, for affection,
for truth, for respect, etc. and greek philosophers were like this.
there was no absolute certainty that people could bow down to. truth
was arrived at thru dialogues among the gods, among men, or between
gods and men. (and maybe the gay culture of ancient greece also
contributed to its democratic philosophy. a gay guy is confused about
himself. he's neither strictly This or strictly That. he has to define
and establish his identity, desires, place, purpose, and such by
thinking about all sorts of stuff that arise from his ***ual
confusion.)
in contrast, jews, believing in one and only one god, were much more
cautious about spiritual, moral, and spiritual matters. being smart,
jews liked to think but the perimeters of their thought were limited
by what the one and only god had said; if you veered too far way from
The Truth, you got stoned real good--greeks played with marbles than
with stones. sure, greek thinkers got killed to when they got too
weird too, but you gotta admit that socrates went really really really
far before he was executed. had he been a jew, he would have been
killed after the first heresy.
so, i say let's have kind of a pagan revival. since full scale
paganism of old is impossible and undesirable, we can do some mixing
and matching.
consider some combos. the thor-buddha conflict temple. people at
this church need to mediate on the conflict and the possible harmony
between pacificist nivanism and tough-guy-ism. one could drink beer
and then meditate on the effects of beer on one's psyche.
the odin-moses conflict temple. we could imagine moses and odin
meeting at a pub and having long conversations. it'd be fun. and so
on.
some folks may say this is a kind of new-agey idea. not really. new
age-ism is generic, bland, gooey, and toothless. it's vegan-ish. it
pretends that all cultures, faiths, peoples, and etc can all live in
harmony if we all do taichi and eat seaweed. it assumes that there
is no great conflict or tensions among religions and faiths. new agers
blame it all on 'instiutional religion'. but in fact, there is a
great deal of disagreement and conflict--as well much that is common
and universal--in all religions, faiths, and myths. and, we need to
take into consideration those conflicts. we live in a globalized
world where ideas from all over the world are converging. we need to
examine and meditate on how those ideas are converging.
so, imagine a church or temple of christo-islamic tensions. it would
be a place where people can discuss, think about, seek, argue, and
explore how the two traditions are linked, separate, complementary,
conflicting, etc. the main theme would be conflict. this doesn't
mean people need to fight or kill one another. it simply means people
need to honestly examine and look into our very different yet similar
cultures. there's no sense in pretending peace. there are always
tensions. indeed, there is tensions within every religion.
christianity has different sects; so does islam. and even within every
sect, every person has his or her own, individual, independent take on
god. so, within the heart and soul of every person is the possibility
of creating yet a new sect of religion. we need to look into these
conflicts big and small. conflicts which are intra- and inter-
religious.
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