We thought it would be hard not to become immobilized by fear as the acts of terror associated with religious extremism spurred on by anti-imperialist sentiment began to scroll through our Twitter and Facebook feeds and captivate our shuddering attention with alarming regularity. And yet, for many of us, as the news of beheadings slips closer and closer to becoming routine, we, too, slip right along with it toward a state of benign indifference.
It is a simple, humiliating truth. Too many homeless people and we simply avert our eyes. Too many excuses for the bruises on a colleague’s arms and we no longer ask questions. Too many cars at the drive-through window and we are no longer disgusted. Too much garbage on the street and we stop stooping to pick it up. Too many beheadings and we change the channel, scroll to the next item in our news feed. We become inured to reality no matter how disturbing it is; it is how we protect ourselves.
But this morning, as I read of these latest beheadings in Syria, the first to involve women, the words “witchcraft and sorcery” brought reality crashing home to me, again, in all its bloody fury. Home to the tragic violence within my own faith tradition and the tens of thousands of (mostly) women who were burned, hanged, drowned, and flogged to death. Home to the horrific truths that lie buried in the too easy stories of a loving god called God. Home to the reality that this work of freeing ourselves from the fears grounded in superstition is not over. Not until we release ourselves from the bloody future for which belief in religious stories are the foundation. Not until we declare clearly and regularly that religion is a product of human evolution and that books that have told its stories are human constructions, too. Not until we free humanity from religion’s strident hatreds. Not until religion’s stories are proclaimed as myths and only ever shared as such. Only the eradication of supernatural beliefs, especially those associated with religion will free humanity from its most lasting threat.
We all feel helpless. We would feel much better if we could just look away. Look away. Look away. But we must not. Especially if we are liberal clergy who have struggled with the disintegration of literal truths and grappled with the implications of their riven remains in our hands. We must eschew the magical thinking with which we, intentionally or otherwise, sew the remains of our religious ideologies together, hoping for something that will keep us safe. It will not hold. Indeed, it may only serve to cover up our complicity in the other iterations of religion from whose aggressions we like to think ourselves distant – the “Islamists,” or “fundamentalists,” or “militants” – whomever but ourselves we choose to blame. If we dress ourselves up in such a garment, we perpetuate belief in what we know is not real. We perpetuate fear even if we do not speak it ourselves. We perpetuate the violence even if it is not our knives that draw the blood.
3 Responses
We should not forget that in recent times secular regimes resorted to mass killings that were based on trumped-up charges and confirmed by politically controlled courts. While not justified by supernatural beliefs, there is no doubt that a secular ideology played an important and equivalent role. Secularism, per se does not appear to prevent the rise of destructive ideologies and political regimes driven by them.
Secular ideologies played an equivalent role?
This sounds like false equivalence.
Insecurity driven fear and power hunger aren’t secular ideologies and they are not unique either religious or non-religious groups.
This particular brand of magical thinking does come from belief in the supernatural. I see no equivalent in any non-supernatural world view.
(Also, I’m confident Gretta espouses secular humanism which is antithetical to the atrocities you reference.)
I entirely agree that secular humanism is antithetical to the atrocities committed by certain secular regimes. The key word here is humanism as both secularism and super-naturalism have historically been associated with destructive human conditions.
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