Greetings to my few and faithful readers. I have been absent for a number of reasons, not least of which is that I've been once again re-examining my role here and my 'place' in the blogosphere.
Some of you will remember that I wrote earlier this year that this site would no longer focus on politics. I am now retracting that statement. Allow me to explain why.
I've been doing a lot of reading and thinking over the past year and I've reached a conclusion. When this blog began it was specifically focused on religion, but not religion in and of itself, but religion as it is portrayed in Western culture and how a Christian specifically responds to that portrayal. My very first essay at Contratimes, "Krugman, that gnostic", was a criticism of New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and his understanding not just of Christian cosmology but Christian thought as a whole. But what Mr. Krugman essentially exemplified was the philosophy not of leftism per se but religious leftism. Thus Contratimes began as a critique of the religious left.
As a result of the time I've spent immersing myself in sundry books and articles, and reflecting on that reading, I return to a conviction I simply forgot I held: My friends on the left are far more likely to make a religion of politics and the state than my friends on the right. This conviction is reinforced in my life at every turn. I witness it on a daily basis: at the local recycling center this weekend, I heard two people I know rather well, two devout Democrats, speaking of their activism as an all-consuming religious duty. Their speech was about creating a leftist theocracy; the establishment of a utopian state the perfect fruition of their unflagging zeal.
I have repeatedly turned to the idea of idols and idolatry at this site. I return to it now. My vision is perfectly clear and sharp: People of any political strain may fall into idolatry -- and often do. I understand a strange religious devotion to the state held by some of my conservative peers. But this idolatry is far less evident and pervasive in my life's experience. Granted, this is arguably due to where I live, steeped as New England is in a deep individualism with Unitarian-Universalist dreams that everything works together to the glory of humanity. Forgive the flippancy; I admit it readily. But there is indeed an effective influence the UU church has over New England religious and political thought, a controlling one. What is that influence in essence? Perhaps it is that there is nothing that is ultimately true other than what one chooses to be true. In other words, the idol to which we are to fall prostrate is Will.
Therefore, I am writing about politics because it is clear that politics is indeed a religion.
Peace.
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2 comments:
The Will is certainly the foundation for both sides of the political spectrum. I wonder, however, whether the true idol is the agency exercising that will? Is it the individual or the collective? With one comes responsibility and accountability; with the other, a blessed indifference to plight of one's fellow man, because after all, it's the collective's obligation. Thus, the evangelical fervor at the recycling center. When one can achieve moral superiority by the simple toss of a Coke can, one doesn't need to worry about the individual who needs a job.
Cheers.
Krugman is an economist.
Not an expert on Christian history and theology.
He's bound to leave people who are or even have a solid grasp of it wanting.
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