A Crisis of Religious Authority

We are alive in a time when religious authorities, including God, are suspect. 

The first six letters of the word authority spell author.  Who is the author of our religious traditions and texts?  True believers are convinced.  They tell us the author is God.  They say, everything in our scriptural texts ultimately comes from God.  That sounds seductively comforting.  There are no more questions except how to interpret “God’s word.” 

After the Enlightenment, the historical critical method of reading scripture, after Spinoza, Darwin, Freud, Einstein and the convincing explanations of scientists, it has become impossible for many of us to just assert scripture and religion comes directly from God.  If our scriptures originate with God, they appear terribly contradictory, imperfect and outdated.  It also seems that our notions of how God operates in the world, regarding undeserved suffering and evil, and whether there is a God have increasingly come into question.  The old belief that God’s ways are not our ways and we should just accept that fact, seems to no longer be very convincing.  This deterioration of authority has been going on for over 350 years. 

So, how do we, religious people with open eyes, talk about the authority of our scriptures, our religious traditions, our religious leaders and God, without closing our eyes and pretending there are no questions or doubts? 

First, we must be honest.  While, religious authority has diminished over the last three hundred years in some circles, other people continue to assert their faith in the mystery of God and the scriptures.  The matter of religious authority is not settled but in dispute.

Second, here is a way you can check your own views on the authority of your tradition.

 Look at the way you live your life.   What parts of your religious tradition are binding on you?  What parts are not binding?  What parts do you ignore or not think about?   What parts are the most important and cannot be compromised?  What parts do you think can be questioned and/or changed? Who told you, you had the right to make such determinations on your own?

Whether you or I like it or not, authority is not what it once was.  Being religious or not being religious has become an authorized personal individual choice.  Everybody has a right to decide for him or herself what is true and what is not true.

Some would say we are living within a crisis of religious authority.  Others would applaud the demise of religious authority.  Some respect religious authority while others feel suffocated by that same authority.

While we can be envious of religious innocence and certainty, we ought not be naïve about our situation.  Let’s face it. 

The real problem is this:  Many of us want to be both modern and religious.  But we are not sure how to do it.

Question:  Has our rebellion against religious authority made us behave better, care more, act with courage, honor and civility toward each other?

P.S.  The Blog is on leave until September 1. Talk to you then.  M.H.

How to be a Mensch

I have often written and spoken and harped about the importance of being a “mensch.” 

It is at the center, for me, of what it means to be a Jew and a human being.

The word “mensch” comes from the Yiddish appropriation of a German word, meaning man or person.  When you say someone is a mensch, you’re saying that person has character, courage, kindness and wisdom.  Another way is to ask yourself, if you were in trouble and needed help, on whose door would you knock and be sure they would let you in?  That person would be a mensch because you could trust he or she would be there for you.

Being a mensch is also not about agonizing whether to act or not.  “Those who agonize do not act.  And those who act do not agonize.”

You become a mensch by acting like a mensch.  It happens through being a person of character, action by action.  You act this way not to get God to love you or because you are perfect.  You act like a mensch to be a human being.  It becomes part of your life.  It becomes a matter of habit.  If you want to be a kind person, do kind acts.  If you wish you could care more, care more.

Theology, religious rituals and acts, hymns, meditation, creeds, confessions, and prayers have their place.  But, the heart of real faith is centered not on what you believe, but on what you do. 

By the way, being a mensch is true for Jews and Christians. Think of the story of the Samaritan who risks helping the person on the side of the road.  And, in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is depicted as asking his followers, “Why do you call me Lord, Lord and not do what I tell you to do?” (Luke 6:46)

You become a mensch by being a mensch.  This is at the heart and soul of being a religious person. All the rest is commentary.

All Creatures Great and Small

We humans are creatures great and small.  We are here for a short while, and then, reluctantly, we disappear.  Who are we?  We can be amazingly courageous and caring.  We can sacrifice our own lives for the sake of others.  We can be nice.  We can be mean. We can be selfish and sacrifice someone else’s life so that we may survive.  We have the capacity to act well and not so well.  We love, and we hate.  We care about others but when stressed can become self-centered and self-obsessed

What are we?  We are human creatures or animals.  We are ambiguous and inconsistent by nature.

We are limited, vulnerable, fragile, arrogantly independent and terribly dependent at the same time.  We can be wounded by other creatures.  We are a species that kills its own kind in large numbers through wars and genocides.  We can be courageous and cowardly.  And we remember with plays, books, movies and narratives what we have done, lament the awful terror and madness, and then do it all over again.

We are human animals.  We have been acting like this for a long time.

The Biblical texts compare us to sheep.  We are cute, furry, and independent but not too smart.  We are easily led astray by shiny objects and goals set by unrelenting appetites and desires.  When young or even older, we can be irrational, get lost often and need to be found and to find ourselves.  True for some more than others.  We can be religious and not religious.

We are great and small.  We are here, and we disappear. 

When all is said and done, Joseph Epstein has it right: “All men and women are born, live, suffer and die. We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die, or the times and conditions of our death.  But within all this choicelessness, we do choose how we shall live, courageously or in cowardice, honorably or dishonorably, with purpose or adrift.  We decide what is important and what is trivial.  What makes us significant is what we do or refuse to do.  We decide and we choose and as we decide and choose, we define our lives.”