Dogma
Without being exactly in danger
of starving to death,
people consider that life is not worth living
if they cannot have comforts,
pleasures, luxuries;
the national industry is considered insufficient
if it provides for a bare existence,
if it does not provide affluence;
a country considers itself incomplete
if it has not good ports, colonies, etc.
All this may lead to war…..
— excerpt, Two Sources of Morality and Religion
by Henri Bergson p. 289
A link forwarded by a friend afforded food-for-thought yesterday. The linked article in the Atlantic was entitled Dogma Days Are Over. The thought is that secular, educated white Americans are a different type of citizen than the conservative evangelical right. This seems to be the case. A secular, devoid-of-religion ethos has become ascendant in the public square for some time. Now rises a virulent populist counter attack by citizens whose self understanding and social outlook entails religious dogma. Never mind that the individual who has captured this reactive surge is without concern for social norms, or the rule of law, or the distinct separation of powers within our federal system as agreed to in our Constitution.
As a personal matter, I applaud the demise of dogma. The back story of dogma is not that God has spoken. Dogma is a sacred wrapper protecting the powerful, and their status quo from the dialectic of dialog, from necessary change. Yet, as a society, we are truly lost, in disarray, without a compass heading, — apart from agreed upon authority. Any person who destroys the very concept of authority is a mortal threat to the future of a people. Such idiosyncratic leadership is sure to lead us into war.
Another friend commented upon my expression of satisfaction that in some respects we as Americans have seen the eclipse of religious dogma in the public square. I suggested that we might name a coffee shop, “Dogma Days Are Over.” My friend responded that I must be thinking that democrats are giving up on impeachment….? I cannot speak for democrats. I am not close to any of that party who serve in congress.
I think the impeachment effort is not a matter of liberal dogma. It is motivated by a reasonable fear that a unstable, uninformed, uninterested leader makes likely the onset of war with unimaginable slaughter.
One thought on “Dogma”
It seems that we are entering a phase of religious anarchy, where the rules of the various religious entities are no longer able to hold sway over large segments of the population. The church’s power began to wane as the sciences offered us alternative perspectives, but as the article you mentioned states, science itself is not the root cause of the secularization we see happening in many countries. People are asking questions and the church, stuck in the rhetoric of another era, does not have the means to provide the answers. The problem for many is that without the structure of a society built around the traditions of the church (any church), the chaos of uncertainty leads them to become unbending and vitriolic in their attitudes, even if those attitudes express themselves in ways that are an antithesis to the teachings of their religious institution.
As noted in earlier blogs on this site, the embracing of a religious community does not necessarily carry with it an inherent hypocrisy, though in a number of cases it does. There are congregations that welcome change, that can provide answers to the difficult questions when more entrenched religions cannot and where one can find both community and a welcoming attitude. Openness and acceptance of those who have been marginalized by dogmatic language may be the only salvation religion will be able to find as we move slowly towards new world. The question, as always, is: Can we survive the transition?