The poetics of faith
We watched 'Religulous' last night, a final eeking out of the bank holiday weekend by settling down with film flex and a pizza. It was an odd choice for us in a way, as it' s a 'documentary' rather than a drama, and the auteur and - I suppose - 'star' is comedian Bill Maher. He's a strong character, quick witted and verbally astute, at least on the level of verbal sparring and send-ups, and in the film makes fairly easy prey of various literal-minded and right wing evangelicals, while lining up one or two oddballs (church of cannabis anyone?) and offshoots from conventional Christianity (he takes the mickey out of Mormonism and Scientology, though he doesn't engage with any members of those faiths, or cults - they obviously thought it prudent to avoid him). He also has a go at some Muslims, without giving them much time or right to reply. I do think that especially given the current climate of general hostility to Islam this is pretty irresponsible of him. It is far too easy to encourage a kind of 'them' and 'us' mentality here, and glib assumptions thrown out without bothering to listen to any kind of thoughtful reply is as unhelpful as those who insist on a literalist interpretation of a faith without being able to consider alternative viewpoints, interpretations, experiences. When it comes to colluding with oppressive or aggressive mindsets this seems just as bad an offense to me as the offense Maher identifies with anyone who 'colludes' with a religious faith.
Having said that there are some literal-minded, fundamentalist believers - most particularly those in positions of political power - who deserve to be taken down a peg or two. Maher obliges, even getting one creationist US senate member to comment that 'You don't have to have a high IQ to be a senator'. Indeed. I saw less value in Maher's challenging some other people who after difficulties and disorder had found peace in embracing an evangelical faith. What's the point of mocking the beliefs of someone if it has helped to ground him or her in a life view, and ethical system, which impacts adversely on no one else? There is always the argument that someone's religious beliefs can engender an unhelpful sort of passivity in the face of political and cultural oppression, but Maher didn't explicitly engage with this. Instead he commented, interestingly enough, that he felt some better off people (himself included) could afford the luxury of religious disbelief. So for many people religious belief helped them make sense of an intrinsically difficult or unfair lot in life.
There's some truth in this I think. But it does beg the question, what happens to a 'luxury disbeliever' when their life gets tough, as it almost certainly will, at least somewhere along the way. Do you give up your little luxury of atheism? Well perhaps - there are no atheists in fox holes, as the saying goes. This reminds me of something my writing friend K once told me about, the spiritual idea of finding yourself suddenly in what one author (I forget who) calls 'the land of the f****d' - your life is going well, then is turned upside down - a financial crash, an illness, a severely dependent loved one, takes away any apparent quality of life, or prospects in life. In this land different perspectives are necessary; a re evaluation of one's purposes and priorities in life being one of them. Maher is extremely guarded about disclosing his own situation at the time of the film. Interestingly he talks of making a bargain with God in his forties regarding giving up smoking. Nothing else apart from some admittedly funny jokes about growing up with one Catholic and one Jewish parent (he used to take his lawyer to confession, etc).
The main omission in the entire documentary was any exploration of the power of symbol, metaphor, image, parable indeed, in religious language, and how it helps to shift one's thinking beyond the factual and literal in many cases; how to think about things that we have no straightforward language for or clear comprehension of. There was no mention, of course, of the traditional Christian practice of Lectio Divina, where the literal level of a text is only one of four considered - symbolism and its implications for self and society must also be considered for a text to start to unfold and yield its full meaning.
A bit like a poem eh? Somehow I doubt whether Maher or the literalist believers he taunted had much time for the complexity and concision of poetry. There was one brief moment of possible poetic insight in the documentary - admittedly rather a bizarre one when Maher wangled an impromptu interview with a kind of Disneyland Jesus. who was generally busy enacting gospel narratives with a group of other actors in the Holy Land. After some initial sparring, Maher asked 'Jesus' how a monotheist religion, ie Christianity, could believe in the Trinity. 'Jesus' replies, 'just as the elements of water can form steam and ice as well as water, so God can be the same God under three aspects'. Maher was, temporarily, stunned into silence. He muttered something later, driving off in his car, about the power of analogy. But he didn't explore this poetic power,and the thoughtfulness it requires, any further.
If I could offer one alternative to this documentary by the way, it would be Peter Owen Jones' TV series 'Around the World in eighty faiths' broadcast earlier this year. Owen Jones is an Anglican Vicar but a sincerely open minded and thoughtful one, and he certainly meets some peculiar faith groups on his travels. But some encounters are enormously powerful, and leave the viewer, and Owen Jones himself, pondering our inadequate yet wonderful attempts to make sense of the world and of the impulse to articulate a sense of the spiritual in language and ritual. If it's ever brought out as a box set, I would definitely invest.
Having said that there are some literal-minded, fundamentalist believers - most particularly those in positions of political power - who deserve to be taken down a peg or two. Maher obliges, even getting one creationist US senate member to comment that 'You don't have to have a high IQ to be a senator'. Indeed. I saw less value in Maher's challenging some other people who after difficulties and disorder had found peace in embracing an evangelical faith. What's the point of mocking the beliefs of someone if it has helped to ground him or her in a life view, and ethical system, which impacts adversely on no one else? There is always the argument that someone's religious beliefs can engender an unhelpful sort of passivity in the face of political and cultural oppression, but Maher didn't explicitly engage with this. Instead he commented, interestingly enough, that he felt some better off people (himself included) could afford the luxury of religious disbelief. So for many people religious belief helped them make sense of an intrinsically difficult or unfair lot in life.
There's some truth in this I think. But it does beg the question, what happens to a 'luxury disbeliever' when their life gets tough, as it almost certainly will, at least somewhere along the way. Do you give up your little luxury of atheism? Well perhaps - there are no atheists in fox holes, as the saying goes. This reminds me of something my writing friend K once told me about, the spiritual idea of finding yourself suddenly in what one author (I forget who) calls 'the land of the f****d' - your life is going well, then is turned upside down - a financial crash, an illness, a severely dependent loved one, takes away any apparent quality of life, or prospects in life. In this land different perspectives are necessary; a re evaluation of one's purposes and priorities in life being one of them. Maher is extremely guarded about disclosing his own situation at the time of the film. Interestingly he talks of making a bargain with God in his forties regarding giving up smoking. Nothing else apart from some admittedly funny jokes about growing up with one Catholic and one Jewish parent (he used to take his lawyer to confession, etc).
The main omission in the entire documentary was any exploration of the power of symbol, metaphor, image, parable indeed, in religious language, and how it helps to shift one's thinking beyond the factual and literal in many cases; how to think about things that we have no straightforward language for or clear comprehension of. There was no mention, of course, of the traditional Christian practice of Lectio Divina, where the literal level of a text is only one of four considered - symbolism and its implications for self and society must also be considered for a text to start to unfold and yield its full meaning.
A bit like a poem eh? Somehow I doubt whether Maher or the literalist believers he taunted had much time for the complexity and concision of poetry. There was one brief moment of possible poetic insight in the documentary - admittedly rather a bizarre one when Maher wangled an impromptu interview with a kind of Disneyland Jesus. who was generally busy enacting gospel narratives with a group of other actors in the Holy Land. After some initial sparring, Maher asked 'Jesus' how a monotheist religion, ie Christianity, could believe in the Trinity. 'Jesus' replies, 'just as the elements of water can form steam and ice as well as water, so God can be the same God under three aspects'. Maher was, temporarily, stunned into silence. He muttered something later, driving off in his car, about the power of analogy. But he didn't explore this poetic power,and the thoughtfulness it requires, any further.
If I could offer one alternative to this documentary by the way, it would be Peter Owen Jones' TV series 'Around the World in eighty faiths' broadcast earlier this year. Owen Jones is an Anglican Vicar but a sincerely open minded and thoughtful one, and he certainly meets some peculiar faith groups on his travels. But some encounters are enormously powerful, and leave the viewer, and Owen Jones himself, pondering our inadequate yet wonderful attempts to make sense of the world and of the impulse to articulate a sense of the spiritual in language and ritual. If it's ever brought out as a box set, I would definitely invest.
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