Sunday Sermon: One Earth, One People, One God

Every, good morning. Thank you for this day. Thank you for your body in which we live and abide. Thank you for one another, for every other human. Bless us in our respective pathways and help us to do thy will. Amen.

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The goal of 'one humanity', closely associated with the dreams of world peace and the end of poverty, is a very old one. These days it is also associated with the goal of ecological sustainability as increasingly global cooperation is seen as necessary for humanity to achieve such.

In a secularised world people have not stopped pursuing these universalist style goals. In one way or another there are millions of very modern, educated and affluent people doing so. Each generation a good portion of the new youth launch themselves into activism to better the world, often on clunky improvised versions of very old wheels and, I would argue, largely ineffectively. In practice these days it means entering politics in one way or another.

But the thing about politics is that it is adversarial. What's more it is properly adversarial. Ironically it is only by believing in pluralistic politics that I can in conscience believe in unitary religion. For society needs pluralism and political conflict in order not to become totalitarian, even whilst it needs spiritual unity in order to be at peace. This is one good reason for the separation of religion and the state - they have apparently contradictory goals.

Religion is not about policy, though its values, its cultivation of empathy for others and the big-picture nature of its questions, like any other personal growth individuals discover within their lifeways, may well inform the political decisions individuals make.

But in the absence of a religious layer in society which is actually taken seriously by the broad population, politics colonises the vacuum, and I don't think it helps politics or religion. Today I have two songs and today I am commenting on them directly. In their essence they are religious songs though they are explicitly and self-consciously being used for political purpose and, although they are beautiful and moving, are somewhat poisoned thereby.

Bruce Woodley's "I Am Australian"

Woody Guthrie's, "This Land is Your Land", sung by Pete Seeger at an Obama rally.

I ask you to ignore that you've heard the songs about a thousand times and that they are patriotic schmultz. And if the songs succeed in their intent in impacting upon you emotionally, as would be expected (it is their design), I ask you to shift the lyrics ever so slightly along the way, just as an experiment. Instead of "we are Australian", try something along the lines of, "We're Homo sapien", and instead of "This land is your land..." try, "This world is your world, this world is my world." Ideally I want you to taste that idea, but at the same time keep a cool critical eye on the nationalistic nature and (especially with the Guthrie song) the charged political context of the song. In both cases an irrational nation is evoked, the most obvious limitation, but also in both songs the case the song is making is limited by the political charge itself. Millions of Republicans would love that Woody Guthrie song for example, but in that context they are alienated from it.

Both songs have a hymnal, liturgical sound, the melodies evoking a pathos of unity. Both songs are making extraordinary claims as they explicitly attempt to unite their respective countries, confronting the very real conflict in the societies with the promise of a unifying if somewhat fictitious narrative. This isn't what most people think of when they think of religion and the state intertwining, but in my mind this is the state making religious claims, and (potentially) dangerously so.

Both songs claim, via a common narrative, that despite all the differences the twelve tribes are in fact one people, a chosen people no less, united in their respective promised lands.

And there are truths even in the most ancient myths. For all the illusions that have been revealed regarding the biblical account of creation, it has also been revealed that all humans really did begin with a single ancestor, and a single coupling. Scientists have even had the grace and good humour to name the theoretical woman Eve. We really are, according to this ancient myth and according to science, one family on one planet. It is a religious claim, but it has more of a scientific basis than the nationalism which we might not consider religion at all.

And the political pursuit of one world is full of frightening ambiguities. Do we really want a homogenised polity with a single government? Aside, I happen to think that politically, in the long term, the world could break up a bit more if anything, allowing more individuation (and hence efficiency as well as cultural diversity) between social and ecological regions. What I'm saying is that unity is not properly a political claim. The world needs unity alright, but it is a religious claim, and needs to be, finally, a universal one, a claim upon the spirituality of humans. Hence it should be carefully regarded separately from politics.

In terms of songs, there are anthems of the world and its unifying story yet to be written. Let's note that state machinery has little motivation to put resources into promoting such world anthems. Will the United Nations or something find reason to do so? Or will we people of the world find our stories and anthems ourselves? "We share a dream and sing with one voice..."

Inevitably I discurse widely in these sermons and I hope it is clear by the spirit which I present that I consider little that I write here to be written in stone. As I noted a while ago, this is the moot stage of this religion. But there are a few fundamental building blocks without which a religion would not have my support for one, and this is one of them. All people are God's people, without exception, with one unifying story of our thousands of stories.

And if you're uncomfortable in the first place with the very idea of religion making such far reaching claims, I am just noting that you may be conceding the reality of far bodgier claims upon your identity being made by the state.

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Everything, thank you for the gift of song and may it fulfil its promise of helping to bring all of your people together in a richly creative yet peaceful journey. Bless my readers, and especially their critical faculties, that they may find the worth in my words and disregard those which are worthless. So be it.

Sunday Sermon: The Baby in the Bathwater of Religion (Embodiment 1)

Everything, I pray that my sermon spring from a love of truth and a desire to bring truth to life. If there be wisdom in my words, known or unknown to me, let the wisdom be heard and be fruitful. If there is foolishness in my words, let readers see through the folly. Amen.

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The baby in the bathwater of virtually all traditional religion is the embodiment of a community for truth seeking, song and mutual aid. Any society can be described as highly embodied or highly alienated or something in between. Embodiment is a large factor in the health of society.

I'm aware that to those with no religious background at all this is a pretty abstract notion. Millions live their life without such an institution and they will report they are doing just fine without it. They may also think that our society has many problems, and they may even describe one of the modern issues as 'alienation', but these aren't their problems and it is a long way from nothing to see that repertory community worship might be one of the keys to getting society on a healthier keel.

In my experience however, people who have had religious backgrounds and yet have left their religions (generally for very good reasons) will immediately recognise what I'm saying. It's impossible not to occasionally miss the music and singing, the companionship that was taken for granted, the spontaneous acts of mutual aid and support that occurred, the rich content of conversation and just the security of knowing there was always the community of worshipers to turn to.

We experience embodiment in many ways outside religion of course, and it remains what health there is in society. Our family embodies for Christmas, we have parties, events and festivals, we go to sporting contests, concerts and the theatre. Some (I'm told) still gather around a table for meals. In Australia we consider the barbecue a national institution, even though I can't remember ever going to one.

But a repeated, regular embodiment of whole community (not meaning everyone but young and old, rich and poor etc), with ritual and song, is a feature of virtually every society in history, except our own. The word the English translators translated 'church' is the Greek word, ekklessia, which means 'assembly' and is used in the New Testament (and the Old Testament Septuagint) to describe secular gatherings of people as well as church gatherings. Even before the first century however it had a double meaning, but the specific meaning referred to something political, the assembly of people in the polis. The 'Church of Corinth', for example was not a new invention, but a Christian re-invention of an ancient Corinthian institution. Note that these earlier assemblies existed whether or not they had democratic power as in Athens, just as the Forum in Rome existed even though it never attained such power. It is political theorists rather than religious theorists who have recognised community assembly as a feature of every traditional society. But these assemblies were almost all religious to some extent, including the Athenian ekklessia. In our own social formations which emerged from the Europe of the Middle Ages, the remnant of it was the church.

The proposition here is not religious at all in itself. It is that when people form regular embodied community, stuff happens. None of it happens which doesn't otherwise happen outside religion (thankfully, as much of it comprises uncompromising human needs), but it's with regular embodiment that things happen constantly, developmentally (the happening can get better indefinitely over time) and easily.

One of the churches near me has a community garden, for example. Now people start community gardens (wonderful things), and they don't need a church, but it's not easy. You need to organise disparate people, find land (in practice often church land incidentally), source materials and maintain momentum when key people drop out. With an institutionalised body, it's not just that a community garden is easy to get off the ground, it is that an infinite variety of things might get off the ground. It is the collective part of human agency dealt with and assumed.

People meet each other. Yes, courtship happens. Again, people seem to get on with meeting spouses without church, but apparently our society needs a massive dating industry, and loneliness is epidemic, so again, it's not easy.

And courtship is only one reason for people to meet one another. Friendships occur, artistic projects, business ventures. Elderly people have company and the young have a variety of role models. This isn't abstract theory. Anyone who, like myself, has been involved in churches before, recognises all of this.

The local economy is stimulated in fact. If someone has a box of oranges they can't eat and someone else is poor, the connection is made. A small but healthy degree of communism occurs (though don't tell that to a conservative Christian). If an old pensioner needs weeding to be done in their garden, it is no trouble finding the young person who needs some weekend work. Again, this is not abstract unless you've never seen it. People do things for each other for the joy and love of it as well. Even without any ethical motivation, many people really like doing things for others. It's a matter of opportunity.

Music and song are another function of embodiment. But hey, we're surrounded by sound. Why do we need music? Well, apart from a few professionals, are we singing? Are we developing our God given musicality? Unless we're privileged are we learning instruments from an early age? Going a little deeper, are we developing cultures of music? That is, authentic community musical style? Clearly my view is no, and that embodiment facilitates these things.

Again this is not abstract. In terms of musical culture, the pentecostals have become one of the fastest growing and most influential forces in music. (Incidentally, in my mind the key to the current success of pentecostalism is that they get the importance of music.) A music director friend of mine, certainly no Christian, informs me that the best singers he encounters had a church background. It's no mystery. Doing anything repetitively from an early age makes one good at it.

When Christians travel, for fun or for work, they can go to the similar church at their destination and immediately find welcome and community once again. Loneliness, apparently, is for the secular.

The religious institution, ideally with land in a central place and a building, is a refuge and haven, a mobilisation point in a time of crisis and a point of contact for other communities. It performs these functions regardless of the theological teaching.

It is for all of these reasons that I am driven to promote the idea of modernising religion rather than abolishing it. In the end it is about a society that is healthy and fulfilling human needs. It is not the existence of religious institutions that is the problem any more than the existence of governance was the problem in the feudal 18th Century. It is the content that needs critique and reform.

One of the many questions which arrises is whether religion requires reformation or replacement with new institutions. For my part the question isn't closed, though this blog is clearly an attempt to articulate a new religion. But, without such an alternative, would I really encourage people to leave their church or place of worship? The reason I do not, and why I'd encourage others to think very carefully before doing so, is because at this time that church or place of worship is providing for the person's needs in ways that I probably can't imagine. I may vehemently oppose superstitious beliefs, but I'd prefer superstitious beliefs to alienation.

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Thank you to anyone who reads my sermons. My authority is the same as everyone else's (ie pretty much none) and if there is anything useful in what I'm saying, what I'm needing to say, I hope that people find it by looking very critically at it. And if my thoughts and conclusions are wrong or unhelpful, then I hope I am properly dismissed. So be it.