Religion and Relevance
by Rick Sparks
INTRODUCTION
Oliver Wendell Holmes was fond of pointing
out that science makes major contributions to
minor needs. Religion, whether it comes up
with anything or not, is at least at work on the
things that matter most.
REASONS FOR RELIGION
Baffling, unpredictable, uninterruptable
chaos impinges on us in a thousand ways.
Suffering, persistent violations of justice, and
a sense of meaninglessness create a universal
experience of disorder. The task of religion is
to bring some order into that chaos.
Knowledge fails us just when we need it
most-in trying to make some sense out of
existence. Human knowledge is a cul-de-sac. The wisest philosopher unaided by
divine revelation knows little more about the
ultimates than the simplest child.
Efforts to produce a just society always fall
short. We reduce some forms of suffering only
to discover that our capacity to create new forms
is apparently limitless. We need help to keep the
chaos within limits we can manage. We need
help to formulate some ultimate solution.
The questions are always inside us. Where
did we come from? What is life? What are we
doing here? What is our purpose? How shall
we spend our time? What is the difference
between right and wrong? What is love?
What happens to us when we die? Where are
we going? What really matters? Religion helps
us decide what’s important.
No reconciliation is possible between
religion and philosophy except through
the philosophers’ recognition that they
have found no substitute for the moral
function of religion. Their attempts to find
a non-supernatural system of morality
will always fail. We cannot have a natural
morality, only a natural immorality.
Human conduct, deprived of its religious
supports, deteriorates into epicurean chaos.
Human life itself, shorn of consoling faith,
becomes a burden too grievous to be borne.
In the end, a society and its religion tend to
fall together in a harmonious death.
RELIGION & GOVERNMENT
Puritanism and paganism alternate in
mutual reaction in history. Puritanism
generally prevails in periods when laws are
feeble. Paganism progresses as the rising
power of law and government permit the
decline of religion, the family, and morality.
In our time, the strength of the state has
united with other forces to relax faith and
morals, and allow paganism to resume its
natural sway. As the teaching of a supernatural creed and moral code declines, the
propaganda of patriotism, capitalism, or
socialism picks up steam. Religion becomes
a perfunctory social observance, a protective
coloration, fading slowly away.
A RESURRECTION OF RELIGION
But religion has many lives, and a habit of
resurrection. How often in the past has it
seemingly died, and then been reborn. Buddha
founded a religion without a god. After his
death, Buddhism developed a complex theology including gods, saints, and hell. In 1793,
the French established in Paris the atheistic
worship of the Goddess of Reason. A year later,
Robespierre set up the worship of the Supreme
Being. In the United States, the rationalism of
the founders gave place to a religious revival in
the nineteenth century.
Probably our excesses as a society will bring
another reaction. Moral disorder may generate another religious revival. There is no
significant example in history of a society
successfully maintaining a moral life without
the aid of religion. In the Soviet Union, Marxism itself became the opium of the people,
purporting to replace God with the State.
Heaven with God and heaven on earth are
buckets in the same well of hope. When belief
in one goes down, hope for the other comes
up. When religion declines, utopianism
grows, and becomes in effect a religion.
A TIME OF DECISION
Whenever religion comes to life, it takes over.
All else, while not silenced, becomes subdued,
and is thrown into a supporting role. Religion
alive confronts the individual with the most
momentous options this world can present. It
calls the soul to the highest adventure it can undertake, a journey across the jungles, peaks,
and deserts of the human spirit, to confront
Absolute Reality, and master the self.
A time of decision comes to each thinking
mind. The only God who exists has issued
His call in the Bible. And any may answer it.
Those who dare to hear and follow that call
soon learn that there is no other way. They
concur with what Jesus said: "I am the way...No
one comes to the Father except through Me."1
"I am...the truth," He also said. And therein lies
the root reason to embrace Jesus Christ-He
and He alone is True.2
ENDNOTES
- John 14:6
- Revelation 19:11
