Fiddling Around While Rome Burns
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One thing about postmodern life that bothers me quite a lot is a phenomenon I call deflection. In my field of theology, it seems as if the big news is always something that detracts from the central theme of a God who is infinite in all his attributes, including love, and does something about it that we call redemption. The news I read about yesterday had to do with a lecture by someone from the Graduate Theological Union in the infamous Bay Area proving that the earliest symbol of Christianity was one breast of the Virgin Mary. Now, mind you, this is not out of some Roman Catholic splinter group. The cross, says the lecturer, came much later. She calls her theory “breast theology.”
I mean, while that term might interest some Playboy readers for a time . . .
We’ve also been deflected from the major crises in politics and economics. Now candidates can’t talk about the respective platforms of their parties because we want to be entertained. We want something sensational or we’ll change channels and watch people charging up on Jerry Springer’s stage and beating the living crap out of those who have insulted them on the cable. Or maybe the dramatic lives of “pawn stars” or lumberjacks. Oh, yes; just a little while ago I saw an ad for a new blockbuster series about the lives of the spouses of people in prison for life.
What is this, a trashy version of the old Schadenfreude, entertaining ourselves by reveling in other people’s misfortunes?
So, in order to get the attention of potential voters, we have to make major issues of one candidate’s wardrobe, whether another candidate actually inhaled marijuana once, or whether another one yet once got a grade of D in high school. Gee, if I know a candidate once spoke at a meeting attended by a known troublemaker, I certainly wouldn’t vote for him or her!
One reviewer of the film Satyricon remarks that at the end there is a wild party going on that gives the impression that it will never end, like that party in orbit in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that has been going on for several generations. The reviewer says the impression is one of complete mindless futility.
Are we headed for that kind of fate? I mean, there’s the old legend that Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Leaving aside the fact that fiddles didn’t exist at that time, the point is made. Now we supposedly rule our own country, and we seem to be fiddling with preoccupations that don’t even qualify as trivia while we sink into what could become a banana republic.
At the end of Voltaire’s Candide, the idea is that in this best of all possible worlds, insane and unjust as it is, one must after all tend one’s garden. Maybe Voltaire had it right.
Comment by proletarian on 7 March 2010:
Eutychus, I just recently had this very debate with someone whom I know very little of. It comes as a shock that not only are Americans preoccupied by the business of life, but times have degenerated and our society has become demoralized. Look at the oscars and what Barbara Walters says about her coverage and interest of the same. There are no heros anymore, no ingenues, glamor or glory. We have been beaten down as a society by the plutocrats and aristocrats; degradation, immorality and unruly disrespect has taken its place. Until real Americans wake up and smell the coffee we shall go by the wayside of Germany, France and Cuba.
By the way, since your bio says you possess a Ph.D. and have accolades from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, can you answer me this. What is the difference between religious philosophy and religiuos belief?
Comment by Hurricane on 8 March 2010:
Proletarian– I’m not so sure about those “accolades” from Gordon-Conwell, but I do have a degree from there. I suppose a religious philosophy would involve what we call “head knowledge,” intellectual belief. Rightly conceived, religious belief is committing one’s whole being to a faith. The New Testament term is literally “believing into Christ,” as opposed to what is reflected in the statement, made in irony, in James 2:19: “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder.” In a Christian context, “belief” involves repentance (in Greek “a transformation of the mind”) and regeneration by the Holy Spirit. I hope that goes some way towards answering your question.
Comment by Hurricane on 8 March 2010:
Proletarian– Here’s an additional, and fuller, response by an old friend of mine, Paul Raetz: “Religious philosophy (The Philosophy of Religion) is an intellectual examination of a series of theological concepts, the most notable of which are the being and existence of God, and objections to theistic belief.
“Religious belief is, as implied, a belief in a religious system, formal or informal that one puts their faith in and uses to guide his/her life. It does not need to have God, or a supernatural figure as its object of worship since it could also apply to humanism, Marxism, even atheism. The choice of ones religious belief may be caused by feelings of fear, resignation, admiration, approval or trust and depending on the individual, reaches various strength in level of adherence and reverential dependence. It carries with it a psychological confidence in the person(s) or thing(s) trusted and has the expectation of certain proscribed behaviors unique to that belief system.”