The Role of Religion

           There was a time when churches put signs outside that said “Jesus is Lord”.  I always thought that this was somewhat in response to Paul’s statement in First Corinthians that proclaims: No one can say “Jesus is Lord”, except by the power of the Holy Spirit.  On one level that is an admirable thing.  On another, it is a kind of bragging that “We have the Holy Spirit”.  Mostly the churches that put out that sign seemed to me to be what we called “charismatic” churches.  Churches that were always extraordinarily active in worship, raising their hands in the air and sometimes speaking in tongues in the course of their services.  I think that this is always the way with our worship, we have different styles, depending on our orientation.  Sometimes, we are exuberant, sometimes we are less demonstrative.   There is nothing wrong with either of these, it mostly depends on our comfort.  

            This is another example of how our denominational divisions either accept us, or turn us away.  For example, I’ve never been particularly comfortable in Methodist, Baptist or Presbyterian churches, there isn’t the familiar liturgy that I was brought up to love.  Somehow the prayers, the sitting, the unfamiliar hymns don’t bring me the spiritual comfort that I find in liturgy.  I would rather worship in an Episcopal, Lutheran or another of the liturgical churches.  It is simply a matter of my comfort.

            I suppose that is why we have our religious denominations.  I know that we also have myriad theological divisions, there are as many interpretations of scripture as there are theologians.  I have a library of theological books that are sometimes helpful, sometimes not.  The older that I get, the less I am entranced by theological argument.  Sometimes it sounds like politics, points of view that clash and don’t seem to have any resolution.  

           Much of theology is opinion.  Most of it has no definable answer.  We can argue forever about the Virgin birth, or the divinity of Christ, or even the Resurrection, but we will never have any definite proof of these things.  They are dependent on Faith.  Faith, in the final analysis is what religion is all about.  The people who claim absolutes in religion are also those who seem to me to speak less about Faith than others.  Who seem to rely on “knowing” the truth.  I don’t  know factually about much of anything pertaining to my religion.  For me, it has all become a matter of faith.  I have come to understand my God as the Creator and Redeemer of humankind.  I am not really privy to how this all works.  God created this world and all that is in it.  The mechanics of this are frequently revealed by science, and more will be revealed as time goes on, but we will never have a handle on all of it. 

          Ultimately the “truth” lies with our Creator and the intense love that has prevailed since the beginning of time in the way that humankind has been shepherded through the ages.  This will continue until all of us are present before the throne of the God who loves us with an intensity that is only revealed in the magnificence of works like Handel’s Messiah or Beethoven’s symphonies.  There is an eloquence in these works that passes human speech and all of our understanding.  In the course of listening to these marvelous works, I am always put in contact with my God.  This is the closest to “knowing” that I have ever come.  It happens also in the course of the liturgy when the bread and the wine become the Body and the Blood of the Christ.  How does this happen?  I have no idea, except that I am in absolute awe of the mystery..