The Problem of Abstract Religion

In a post about a Christmas romance series, I tackle the issue of the physical versus the ineffable:

The series--about an angel ornament that helps couples--starts in the mid-eighteenth century and ends in the modern era. The first three books use the angel in frankly paranormal ways (but not so much that a plot is lost). In addition, the angel in the first three books is frankly pro-physical love, neither embarrassed nor squeamish that each couple has a sexual relationship.

Over the course of the books, the paranormal element fades while the angel becomes a far more fastidious character than established originally. Less the frank and fleshy nuns of Brother Cadfael (or even the well-lived nun of the Father Dowling Mysteries--or Sister Mary Clarence) and more like...I'm not sure. I have a hard time thinking of a literary comparison since I don't read religious books with prudish nuns or angels. (Or watch shows with them either.)

The change from a non-prudish angel to a prudish one matches similar changes in the last 300 years, changes that result in modern shock and reproach.

We 21st Century folks like to imagine that we are so bold and frank and open-minded or--depending on who's talking--salacious and obscene and indecent.

The fact is, we aren't anywhere close to any of those things, no matter how we present or castigate ourselves.

Mostly, we're offended by everything: women breastfeeding in public, the idea that God might not be opposed to sex, bare bodies bathing or dressing together, religious ceremonies that focus on the physical form, frank discussions of sexual matters, women as sexual beings, men as sexual beings, people as biological beings, people sharing rooms, people sharing bathtubs, women giving birth, women giving birth at home, other people being present during births, National Geographic magazines, the nude in art, romance paperbacks, romance paperback covers, songs that mention sex, manga, bawdy humor.

The testicle joke in f Witness is

far more realistic to agrarian cultures

than modern attitudes account for.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that all this offense is coming from the right. Or that all this shocked unease is coming exclusively from religious people. Christianity makes a good scapegoat. But old-time Christianity had no trouble discussing sex as a reality. From Paul to Augustine to young pregnant single girls praying to the Virgin Mary, sex was something real to grapple with.

I maintain that the two biggest influences on modern attitudes regarding sexual matters are the growth of privacy and the worries/theories of intellectuals. As human beings gained privacy (post 1750), they become far more prudish. In an earlier post on Votaries, I call this "prudish prurient permissiveness whereby a partially clad body is instantly sexualized by those who take offense and by those who take an interest while both the offended and the interested are scandalized at the idea of having to share a bedroom or bathroom."

Reality: Puritans told bawdy jokes. And slept together before marriage. And knew all about sex since living near animals kind of gives the plot away. They were well-aware of the palpable vagaries of the human, physical form.

Never trust a historian or a politician or an offended commentator (and there are lots of those out there) who tries to tell you that once upon a time, people were ever so naive and closeted--or innocent--and didn't know all the things we know. Instead, ask yourself what our ancestors would find to laugh about when it comes to us.

The connection here to utopias is that utopias almost always fall to pieces around the subject of sex. I will come back to this issue in a later post. Here I want to comment on the utopian penchant for purely abstract/philosophical religions--so much so that one of my idealistic students once passionately try to convince me that the "good" Ancient Egyptians didn't have any of that dark, sin-oriented, negative stuff in THEIR religion(s). 

The student was, of course, wrong, which I pointed out. But I've encountered the same attitude regarding cleaned-up, prettified Eastern religions in America. I am sorry to say that I didn't know until quite recently--within the last ten years or less--that Buddhism even has a hell.

 It does. I immediately become more interested in Buddhism. 

 It isn't that I like the idea of hell. It is that a religion without one seems to be lacking a basic connection to what Stephen King would call "the alligators" in our minds. No id. No ego. Just a lot of rules and proper attitudes. 

My Terry tackles the problem in chapter 13 of His in Herland. He has just violated a sanctuary, an act that in another setting would get him in far more trouble.

“But Troas is too rational for that.” I turned to the mentors. “Your religion is about kindliness and good conduct. God—the Goddess—is a force, a feeling, a pervasive aura of love, yes?”

Silence while Jeff sighed and wagged his head.

“They worship Motherhood,” Van said. “An Earth Mother.”

“You know as well as I do how other cultures have worshiped Earth Mothers. They killed Winter Kings. They sprinkled blood in the soil for their crops. They sacrificed—”

“It’s not the same!” Van said sharply before I mentioned what some cultures did with “babies.” I wasn’t going to. I was going to mention what some cultures did with the aftermath of childbirth. Then I was going to move on to female and male temple prostitution.

I’m not religious. Agnostic probably describes me best—but I’ll opt for a dangerous, in-your-face, tangible religion any day over a “nice” one.

Somel said, “Our religion was like that, long ago. During our early years, after we came here, our religion was harsher, crueler, more—”

“Physical,” I said.

“Yes.”

“And now your religion focuses on good thoughts and rational discourse, proper terminology and endless discussions—”

As if human beings have no dark sides, no stirrings from the deep, no infernos, no demon royalty, no savage cries to the moon.

“They have rituals,” Van, the sociologist, pointed out.

“Pageants in service of the state,” I told him.

A religion needs to do better than pageantry, though pageantry helps, if it is going to be more than a country club, offer something unlike philanthropy clubs and education clubs and social clubs and political clubs. And if it doesn't connect to the human physical experience, it isn't doing its job (see Napoleon and the Catholic Church for an example of "the people" being offered an intellectual abstract religion and finding it less than appealing).

In other words, utopias that replace a religion's dark-side with either a mass of rules or a mass of acceptable ponderings will fail to connect to fundamentals within human nature. Even if a religion's purpose is to remind people of the need to rise above the "id," such improvement can only happen if the religion also remembers (1) the dark-side doesn't magically disappear; (2) the sins of the spirit are worse. 

Chapter 13

His in Herland or Astyanax in Hiding