I made the mistake of waking up to television news earlier in the week. Ordinarily I dip in and out of the news stories as the television plays in the background. But there seemed to be one story dominating that morning, a push to legalise gay marriage in Australia… or at least broach the subject in a parliamentary setting.
Only… as the day progressed the outcome looked very bleak indeed. It seemed the subject of ‘gay marriage’ was just a window dressing to more widely held misgivings about gay people. Newspapers carried opinion pieces on how gay parents would never be a suitable parallel to heterosexual parents. Politicians ducked and weaved, doing the slippery slide for which I suppose they’re celebrated, avoiding questions, avoiding declarations. Gay people aren’t as important as ‘community consensus’ and none of them seemed too sure what that was exactly. I was particularly disillusioned with a transcript of a doorstep interview with Malcolm Turnbull which seemed to suggest there was no benefit in doing anything until everyone within the community was on board with the idea.
More closely to home a tiny little opinion poll at the bottom of the website for Federal Member for Gilmore Joanna Gash actually suggested this region was surprisingly liberally minded. This frankly took me a little by surprise. But home town pride was short lived as a local church leaped into action. They were apparently horrified that the media would have a field day with the results. They sent out an instruction to their entire congregation to remedy the survey results. Apparently it was part of their ‘righteous mission.’
Despondent, I sent a message to a friend. He expressed something I was reluctant to think – let alone say. “Religion is stupid,” he explained. “I’m sorry but it is.” I smiled a little reading it. The truth was despite not being a religious person myself, despite not having a religious affiliation, I had always been a big proponent of religion. I saw some of my friends taking part in religious practice and could see it as a largely positive influence in their lives. I wanted them to have that. In truth I was secretly fascinated by religion. I clung to the edges of the subject and explored different traditions and theological ideas, if at a distance.
But I was feeling increasingly uneasy by it all. Religion seemed too abstract, too malleable. Like reading a painting it was all too subjective. God can be – and is – anything you want him (her? it?) to be. The word of God is whatever text you want it to be, whatever translation you want it to be. It is as literal or as allegorical as you choose. It is a product of the time in which it was produced or a volume of timeless unwavering universal wisdom. And, of course, and perhaps most sobering, your unique point of view is (if you’ll forgive the pun) ‘gospel’ and all those other wretches are just terribly mistaken…
Of course there are others who have put it more succinctly and eloquently than I ever could. I think particularly of former Archbishop of Edinburgh Richard Holloway, who was himself largely disenchanted with the way homosexuality was treated within his own tradition. In a talk titled ‘Shaking the Kaleidoscope’ he explains:
There isn’t a real divine broadcaster, there isn’t a real God; religion is a work of the human imagination. It is a work of art, like a great opera, like a great fiction system. So all this revelation that we’ve been receiving, all this talk that we’ve been doing, is us talking to ourselves. But that does not reduce its meaning or value, it’s good talk, it’s powerful talk, it’s meaningful talk, it’s us telling ourselves stories, offering ourselves narrative to try and explain the mystery of our own existence.
I think too of authors of fiction who tell me emphatically that the way to get to ‘truth’ is through fiction. At face value this statement seems silly and flawed. I imagine they mean that one can explore themes and issues through the course of their stories. So in this way Harry Potter might be get you to truths about friendship and loyalty and courage even though Mr. Potter himself never existed. But I worry this kind of ‘truth telling’ could work equally well in promoting propaganda. So how do we evaluate the ‘meaningful talk’ of religion, and how and when do we use it?
And yes, frankly, who is using it…?
At the present time (certainly in this country) we seem to have one section of the population telling another section of the population what they can and cannot do. The fact that these orders are coming not from law enforcement agencies but rather religious institutions is of particular concern. Remember: religion is opt-in. The term ‘coercive religion’ is used to describe religions that exert pressure on their congregation, but you might equally use the more informal term ‘cult.’ It is also bothersome that certain religions want to dictate how non-followers live their lives. Can you imagine the outrage if the Catholic Church started ordering Islamic people around? Perhaps it is time to defend the rights of secular non-religionists with the same rigor that religionists protect their own rights.
Happy Sunday!
