Religion — The fear of the Lord is (only)the beginning of Wisdom (Proverbs 9:10)

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/10/2010 (5832 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The lunacy being acted out in Washington, D.C., today is so nuanced that many don’t know if the organizers are being funny or serious, and no one likes to be caught laughing at something which is in dead earnest, or earnest about something which is dead funny.

For those who are not up to speed on this, Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show" is leading a "Rally to Restore Sanity" in American politics, on behalf of "people who think shouting is annoying … who feel that the loudest voices shouldn’t be the only ones that get heard. Think of Woodstock, but with the nudity and drugs replaced by respectful disagreement."

Nearby, Stephen Colbert of "The Colbert Report" is holding a "March to Keep Fear Alive." He is suggesting participants bring an overnight bag and five extra sets of underwear.

The double event comes two months after Glenn Beck’s totally humourless "Rally to Restore Honour," which brazenly banged the Republican drum.

At least that was upfront. The other day, Colbert went on "The View," a daytime chat show not noted for cutting-edge thinking, and confused the heck out of the five good ladies there — plus most of the audience.

On being asked about the Sanity and/or Fear rallies, Colbert said with real sincerity. "Fear is useful. Our ancestors, the ones who weren’t afraid of snakes, did not reproduce. I’m trying to keep fear alive. Jon says we have to be rational and sane. There are actually things out there to be afraid of."

"For instance?" one lady asked, a little uncertainly.

"Bedbugs. I’m terrified of them. They’re everywhere. Movie theatres. I hear they’re on the couch here on ‘The View.’"

Nervous laughter.

There’s no doubt that satire can prick bubbles, attack sacred cows — choose your own metaphor — in a way rational argument cannot. It’s tempting to stop and analyze which kind has greater effect, the rottweilers (the late Bill Hicks) or the pussycats (Rick Mercer and Jay Leno), but at least none of them mocks their audiences by being too clever by half, as Colbert did.

But we’ll stick with the great American elephant in the room — the lassoing of Christianity for political causes, particularly Republican ones. Hence today’s rallies, both of them reactions to current electioneering styles.

We read in last Sunday’s Brandon Sun that Mr. David McConkey is most anxious for extreme right-wingery to appear on our TV screens, in the form of Fox News North. He is perfectly entitled to say so. I wouldn’t dream of misusing this column to criticize Republicans’ tireless crusade to protect the strong from the weak, but a few comments on the way they use religion to go about it may be in order.

For the real Stewart-Colbert issue — both for and against — is of using fear as motivation, and that is at the heart of most religions, not least Christianity.

"The fear of the Lord" has been misused by every branch of the church in every era, to justify everything from inflicting corporal punishment on children to ensuring church loyalty and attendance figures. It deserves no defence. It is not, though, the right understanding of that text from Proverbs, as I hope to show. Unfortunately, the church has been so good at it that politics has copied its techniques gladly. The electioneering currently going on to the south of us is yielding particularly rich specimens.

Ads in the Hawaii governor’s race fight over which candidate is more "on God’s side" — the implication being that the other is less Christian and therefore less American, for the US of A is God’s new promised land. The Utah gubernatorial campaign is dominated by the Mormon issue — only a slight variation.

The favourite, and the most insidious smear tactic, is to play the Muslim card. First, demonize Islam and equate "Muslim" with "terrorist." Then attack your opponent for being a Muslim sympathizer, as does Renee Ellmers, Republican candidate for Congress in North Carolina. After using "Muslims" and "terrorists" interchangeably, she suggested that her opponent, Bob Etheridge, is giving aid and comfort to the enemy by not speaking out against the "victory mosque" being built by "terrorists" near Ground Zero and is therefore, by implication, not a good Christian/American. As it happens, he doesn’t think the proposed Islamic centre is a good idea at all, but note her skilful use of language in putting him on the defensive.

For similar reasons, Kentucky Republican Rand Paul now has to print on all his ads that he "keeps Christ in his heart."

These ploys pass unnoticed because religion itself has been so thoroughly fear- and slogan-ridden. When politicians misuse religion to demonize their opponents, they aren’t doing anything the churches haven’t been doing to each other for years.

So Stewart’s rally to restore sanity and reason, of the kind that casts out fear, is admirable. Constant shouting, as he says wittily, is so bad for the throat.

But Colbert has a point, too. He is not advocating terror, or panic, but the same kind of acute wariness we need to avoid conmen and smooth talkers today, and which enabled us to escape more physical predators in prehistoric times.

This is the thoroughly healthy instinct that Jesus invoked to make people aware of God. The idea that we must behave morally in this life in order to escape hell after we die is a terrible misunderstanding of Jesus’ warning parables. We must update our spiritual alarm system, so that we are not vulnerable to harmful desires breaking in today (Lk 12:39). Judgment Day is not in the future — it is by today’s harmless little peccadilloes, like ignoring strangers (Mt 25:31-46), forever seeking ways of getting richer (Lk 12:21) or adding value to our property (Lk 12:16-20), or leading a totally trivial life singing silly songs (Lk 7:31) that we judge ourselves as "unfit even for the dunghill" (Lk 14:34).

St. Paul said much the same: "today is the day of salvation, while it’s still Saturday, Oct. 30," to paraphrase Romans 13:11.

It’s not too far-fetched to say that Jesus’ message could be summed up as: "Wake up! Spiritually speaking, smell the coffee!"

Very few of us are spectacularly wicked, like Col. Russell Williams. By contrast, we just blunder unthinkingly from one week to the next.

As the tenor sings in Benjamin Britten’s cantata "St. Nicholas":

 

O God, we are all weak, sinful, foolish men.

We pray from fear and from necessity — at death, in sickness, or private loss.

Without the prick of fear our conscience sleeps, forgetful of Thy Grace.

 

That stab of fear, the healthy apprehensiveness Colbert is batting for, and which is where true wisdom is to be found, is expressed in children’s language in the exchange between Mole and Ratty in "The Wind in the Willows":

 

Then suddenly the Mole felt a great Awe fall upon him, an awe that turned his muscles to water, bowed his head, and rooted his feet to the ground. It was no panic terror — indeed he felt wonderfully at peace and happy — but it was an awe that smote and held him and, without seeing, he knew it could only mean that some august Presence was very, very near. With difficulty he turned to look for his friend and saw him at his side cowed, stricken, and trembling violently. And still there was utter silence in the populous bird-haunted branches around them; and still the light grew and grew.

‘Rat!’ he found breath to whisper, shaking, ‘are you afraid?’

‘Afraid?’ murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love. ‘Afraid! Of Him? O, never, never! And yet — and yet — O, Mole, I am afraid!’

Then the two animals, crouching to the earth, bowed their heads and did worship.

 

Sentimental maybe, but it is in that sense that I am not ashamed to count myself a god-fearing man.

 

» Rev. Michael Skliros is a retired Anglican priest in Brandon.

 

» Comments or criticisms on all aspects of contemporary religious faith and practice are welcome and should be emailed to: life@brandonsun.com. Previous columns may be accessed at http://tiny.cc/JP5qW