Wednesday February 10, 2010
Pick a religion
By Jim Taylor
Perhaps it’s just my February blahs. But sometimes it feels as if the forces of evil are triumphing.
Last week, four healthy young men assaulted an older homeless man. In the parking lot of a shopping mall, they knocked him down, kicked him in the ribs and the face.
No one passing by intervened. No one called 9-1-1. The bleeding victim had to drag himself to a bus stop to get help.
Also last week, judging by tire tracks, a pickup truck roared around a secluded viewpoint near my home. Wherever the driver went, on dirt trails or across grassy slopes, he – I think it’s safe to assume the driver was male – spun his tires wildly, slewing around corners, chewing up sod, scattering sand and gravel.
The vehicle entered the area through a locked gate. Someone severed the padlock with bolt cutters or a cordless grinder.
Neither act offered anyone any benefit. Both picked on an innocent victim – in one case, a homeless man; in the other, the natural environment and the property’s owner.
These acts of mindless vandalism are mirrored on a larger scale – though not as mindlessly – in strip mining for coal, open pit mining for minerals, and oil mining near Fort McMurray in northern Alberta.
Add the continuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, where technologically superior aggressors wreak havoc on comparatively defenceless victims.
To say nothing of atrocities in the Sudan, the Congo….
Irresistible forces
If I were to start with a clean slate and look for a religion that reflected the realities of life around me, I doubt if I would choose Christianity.
Certainly not its pie-in-the-sky-bye-and-bye form. Focusing on a better life after death seems to me to endorse existing injustices. This life is just a temporary distraction, it claims; once you graduate to eternal life, all will be well forever and ever, amen.
In the meantime, suffer, little children….
I might choose Zoroastrianism, which sees this world as a continuing battleground between good and evil, symbolized by the gods Ahura Mazda and Ahriman. Good will ultimately triumph. But only if people rally to Ahura Mazda’s cause, and work actively to defeat evil.
Or I might choose the Hindu god Jagganath – a name that the British colonials anglicized into “juggernaut.”
Jagganath’s primary ritual is the annual dragging of huge wooden carts that house the god and his consort through crowded city streets. Once rolling, the carts become an irresistible force, crushing anything that gets in their way.
Juggernauts characterize much of our society.
In the U.S., for example, Barrack Obama’s promises to reform American institutions run into the massive momentum of military, social, corporate, and enforcement organizations.
Banks, carmakers, insurance companies become too big to fail.
Attempts to modernize Europe’s political structures bog down in bureaucracies.
And the propaganda machines keep grinding out shredded semi-truths.
I was born Christian, raised Christian. I am not going to leave Christianity. But there are times when other religions seem to offer better explanations of why evil, like Ole Man River, jus’ keeps rollin’ along.
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Copyright © 2009 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
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Your Turn
I must be losing my edge. Last week, no mail at all. This week, just one letter. (It was good to receive, just the same.)
Jim Henderschedt wrote, “This is a great article. I have been saying for a number of years that instead of the church becoming more institutionalized it ought to look back on its very simple beginnings, maybe even measure its mission against Jesus’ first sermon where he lays out his focus, which should also be the church’s focus. How far we have come and how off center we have moved. But who am I? Just a voice of one who still tilts at windmills.”
Okay, Jim H. – we can’t both be Don Quixote. Which of us is willing to play Sancho Panza?
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About My Books
Over the years, I think I have written (or ghostwritten) about 17 books. Several of them (mercifully) are no longer available from any source. But here’s a listing of those that are still available. The ones marked “WLB”, you can order from Wood Lake Books, either on-line at http://www.woodlakebooks.com, or call Wood Lake Books directly at 1-800-663-2775 in Canada, 1-800-654-5129 (Pilgrim Press) in the U.S. The ones marked “JT only” are now available only directly from me — as collector’s items, I price them all at $25 Cdn.
- Everyday God: Insights from the Ordinary
- Worlds in One
- Chance
- Seeing the Mystery: Exploring Christian Faith through the Eyes of Artists,
- Surviving Death
- Everyday Psalms
- Everyday Parables
- Letters to Stephen
- A New Understanding of Virtue and Vice
- Precious Days and Practical Love: Caring for an Aging Parent
- for Beginners
- Spirituality of Pets
- Charlene Fairchild’s United Online site,
- David Keating’s “SeemslikeGod” page
- The Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity home page
- Dan Strizek’s Gathering Place for Creation Spirituality
- Alva Wood’s satiric stories about small town attitudes and bumbling bureaucrats are not particularly religious, but good fun anyway; write alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.
(1981 and 2005, WLB, $19.95)
(1985, JT only)
(1989, JT only)
(1990, with William S. Taylor, JT only)
(1993, JT only)
(1994 and 2005, WLB, $19.95)
(1995 and 2005, WLB, $19.95)
(1996, WLB, $17.95)
(1997, WLB, $19.95)
(1999, WLB, $19.95)
(2001, WLB, $11.95)
(2006, WLB, $39)
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TECHNICAL STUFF
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I write a second column each Sunday, called Sharp Edges, which tends to be somewhat more cutting about social and justic issues. To sign up for Sharp Edges, write to me directly, at the address above, or send a note to sharpedges-subscribe@quixotic.ca
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PROMOTION STUFF…
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For a lighter look at life, faith, and the lectionary, I recommend my friend Ralph Milton’s weekly e-newsletter Rumors. You can subscribe to it by sending a note to ralphmilton@woodlake.com.
For other web links worth pursuing, try
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