Saturday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 334 

Jeroboam did not give up his evil ways after this, but again made priests for the high places

from among the common people. Whoever desired it was consecrated and became a priest of the high places. This was a sin on the part of the house of Jeroboam for which it was to be cut off and destroyed from the earth.

Several years ago I attended a class on religion in the United States. I was rather shocked to learn that one particular Christian denomination was built upon the neurosis of its founder. I remarked on this and the teacher sharply replied, "Many people are fed by this religion." 

Nothing succeeds like success! and this odd religion has enjoyed considerable success. It speaks to the anxieties of millions and they are reassured. 

There are many ways to explain the spiritual crisis of the Covid 19 epidemic in this country. The illness has been called a symptom of the underlying problem. In other words we have suffered more than any other nation not because we are genetically more vulnerable to this coronavirus but for our unwillingness to act as one nation. The underlying problem may be bad religion. 

To an intentionally diverse culture which strives mightily to provide space for any and all beliefs, the phrase bad religion is frankly heretical. In his book of that title, Ross Douthat, a Roman Catholic, and a New York Times columnist, names several dominant strains of bad religion in the United States. (I am working from memory here as I try to recall his list.) He includes the gospel of success, psychotherapy, the cult of fitness and health, and others. In a word, not all religions are harmless and some are simply bad. Although they feel good to some people, they do more harm than good for us as a nation. And that nation happens to be very powerful amid the family of nations. 

Long before Jesus was born, the Jewish people saw and condemned bad religion. Writing more than a century after Israel had been crushed by the Syrian empire, which fell to the Babylonian and then the Persian empire, faithful Jews recalled Israel's idolatry. When they should have come to Jerusalem to worship in God's temple which had neither icons nor statues, Israelites took the shorter trips to Bethel and Dan to dance around golden calves. They were satisfied and pleased with these ceremonies -- and doomed to annihilation. Their cult is dead, and two millennia later their devotion is mocked as foolishly, insanely misguided.

No sooner had Jesus sent his apostles throughout the world than they recognized bad religions that were spawned by misguided Christian enthusiasts. Most famously, Simon Magus saw an opportunity for personal wealth in the movement. Later, Saint Paul railed against the "super apostles" who presented themselves as wiser, more gifted, and more powerful than Jesus's humble missionaries. He ironically boasted of his suffering physically and spiritually, and recalled his less than heroic escape from Damascus when he was lowered in a basket out a window and into the night. 

If there is any sure sign of a true religion it may be the contempt it arouses among the influencers of every age. Those who turn to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior will soon learn it does their social standing no good at all.

Sola fides, Martin Luther said, as he recalled the writings of Saint Paul and the teachings of Saint Augustine. Only faith! We find our justification in faith; that is, in a darkness that consistently fails to reassure those who would be certain of anything. We do not know we're loved by God. As Saint Paul said, "knowledge comes to nothing." Rather, we believe in God, and walk confidently in that brilliant darkness.