putting it out there

I had responded to a forum posting on the sensitive issue of religion. Someone read my response and asked me to explain my position further. In responding, i found myself struggling to articulate my investments without being tentative and hopelessly avoiding the strings of alliterations I so easily get into. So here goes...


My apologies for leaving your query buried for so long. I use this email add to fill up the mandatory "email" online sign ups and it understandably gets choked with spam, alongside legit ones that come through--such as yours. My more active email is the gmail one with the same name, just in case.

My response to Anish was that religion is a problematic category/subject/phenomenon. I made this judgement not as a practitioner of a religious faith but as a student of religion. As a practitioner, I have set lenses through which to see what I term as religion--creed, theology, sacraments--all very integral elements to what I practice. But as a student of religion, i see it more a broader human phenomena and activity...we humans make religion happen! When we cloak that which we do with a sense of "heavenly" (or transcendent) certitude, i think i see religion happening. Im sure you've come across someone totally convinced that his/her action was because "The lord told me!" A fellow student in seminary suddenly dropped out in his third semester and did so by giving the dean the same reason. The dean replied rather tongue-in-cheek that if the lord had told him to do so, then that he was in no position to stop him. In a slanted manner, i found this incident also bringing some measure of levity to what we were brought up as a very serious matter.

Multiply that from an individual case to a macro scale and you have very well-minded people doing very good and praiseworthy deeds--and also some kooky stuff. As a student of religion, I look at these through lenses that are informed by history, politics, cultural dynamics and other critical tools. So when I took on Anish's instance of Jews and the land, I hinted at the political rhetoric concerning land/territory, origins, and how Zionism (a covenant with YHWH no doubt) has a troubled history with the inhabitants of the land. Indeed, the good Lord had told Abraham, we read in our sacred text; but there were the Hittites, Amorites, and so on already there. It wasn't an empty land. Which is why I find Zionism problematic. A key clincher for such claims is "scripture"--I have a broader view on this than it as merely text, but may be for another email.

I am a practitioner but also a student of religion; two dimensions that are at many points incompatible but have inevitably informed each other over the years. I do not junk religion but i don't find it personally compelling as it used to earlier. I find religion problematic in the sense that it is not self-evident, natural or fell-from-above but creative. When I hold what I have believed at this tension, I find it pushes me to think in new ways, to see the world differently and hope we don't annihilate ourselves with our religious fervour.

Having said that, I hope i was able to address some of your concerns in a more accessible manner. If not...let me try a second time to do so. Hope you have a wonderful time of Christmas and much peace in the new year.