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WHEN OUR RELIGION BECOMES EVIL (updated) By Bert M. Drona, April 10, 2006 WHAT WE FILIPINOS SHOULD KNOW: Just received a friend's email of an interview with Rick Warren , author of the recently released bestseller book entitled "Purpose-Driven Life." Anyway, Rick stated the usual "... life is preparation for eternity. We were made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven" etc.. and....".If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness; which is my problem, my issues, my pain....and "But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others." Frankly, if I were a self-proclaimed Christian, it would behoove me to take care of myself, so as not to be a burden to anyone and thus be able, with the best effort and/or power I can have, to focus on others. I would not focus on God nor be expected to because I do not see God as selfishly desperate for my(our) attention; God is not KSP as some of us are. I would be honoring God by acting for the good of others, in my surroundings, my community, my homeland. That is what I expect of so-called Christians in our homeland, whether of the Catholic or the Praise-The-Lord variety. It is with such thoughts that I rewrite and repost about our religion and our peculiar Filipino norm of Christian morality. Our homeland, the Philippines, is recognized as the only Christian country in Asia. However, whether we Filipino Christians can claim to be truly following, imitating Jesus Christ and living as "good Christians" is arguable. (Am not covering Muslims here). Functionally speaking, religion is supposed to give meaning to one's life and to be a source of moral/ethical behavior , in the personal and social (socioeconomic and political) areas. Unfortunately, it seems that we Filipino Christians in the Philippines and abroad can not claim to be really leading such expected Christian lives -most especially with regard to ethical behavior in our homeland's sociopolitical arena (government, business and military) as exemplified in rampant corruption, killings of journalists and activists, etc. Filipino Catholics are a majority, but unfortunately, as such we generally do not seem to think and behave as truly good Christians in Philippine society. Filipino Catholics tend to focus on pure religiosity, to be mainly observants of Catholic religious rites and church-made rules, to overspiritualize despite the Second Vatican Council's (1962-1965) agenda of "aggiornamento", of the church "bringing up-to-date": that is, of encouraging Catholics to attend more to social concerns, of applying righteousness in the treatment of the poor and most vulnerable in our society. To date we so-called Christians in the Philippines still practice, knowingly or unknowingly, "split-level" Christianity . When we or someone err, we dismiss it by easy escape clauses such as "we're only human," or " whoever has not sinned cast the first stone," or "it's hard to be an authentic Christian," I say you bet. So let those among us who are self-proclaimed Christians ask themselves, why proclaim, if we can not live it or even try to emulate the life of Jesus Christ? Maybe Christianity is just a social club we joined without understanding its humanist mission. Sure, the rites and church-made rules underwent changes, for example, how the Mass is performed; or when to observe Friday abstinence. But these are all mainly symbols of Catholicism and are externalities. Greatly missing in our Catholic Christianity are changes that define attitudes and behaviors as they might impact and shape how we, its members -the clergy and laity- engage in the world [i.e.Philippine society] or how to put our Christian faith to work in improving ourselves and society. Our present and urgent need is: Social action rather than purely selfish, self-centered, personal piety for social transformation. I think and believe that social concerns and actions are more relevant and much more important to our homeland's present predicament versus that when one's Christian practices emphasize only the attainment of great personal piety and/or following church-made rules. One Catholic Christian teaching which seems to continually and negatively impact Philippine society is the pronouncement of the Beatitudes that says "How blest are the poor...those who hunger and thirst for justice...Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is great in heaven." By repeatedly stating such, the impoverished Catholic Filipinos are made complacent and content, discouraged to fight for even a "small place under the sun", that is, for decent living beyond their mere existence and survival. Such teaching that emphasizes otherworldliness is to disregard and exhibit callousness towards the present hell of the poor. It is the major reason why Karl Marx more than a century-and-a half ago has stated that ".....religion is the opium of the people". I think and believe that the Catholic Church [the catholic hierarchy, its bishops, priests and active laity] should stop this kind of preaching and thinking. The same can be said of mainline Protestants and evangelicals, especially the fundamentalist variety. The fundamentalists concentrate and devote their attention on the Bible, give themselves to its literal interpretations, and thus wittingly or unwittingly, make it, a book, the object of their idolatry [do they realize this?]. By stressing that personal salvation is only between himself and his God, the fundamentalists practice detached or escapist pietism, and generally tend to withdraw from involvement in sociopolitical activism in society [recently a few of its ministers run for political office, which I think should not be entered into by church people].They withdraw into detached pietism because their Bible says "enough of worrying about tomorrow and let tomorrow take care of itself. (Matthew 6:31-34)" These words of contentment are great to hear and read if one is a member of the ruling class or the fortunate few who have money to afford conspicuous consumption, convenience, luxury et al., and thus be able to go on with one's merry ways. For them to proclaim or imply that the impoverished should not worry about his food for tomorrow, about his child's need for unaffordable medicine, to pursue his child's education, or his grandchild's future, etc. is by default to be in cohorts with the selfish among the ruling elite and their foreign partners (TNCs) who want to perpetuate ignorance and therefore exploitation of the impoverished majority. By indirectly supporting the oppressors, they become evil and "bad"Christians themselves. Thus, the overall effect of Christianity in our homeland is to perpetuate a populace that is characteristically too passive, too submissive, too preoccupied with otherwordly and spiritual matters, which result in their inability to function effectively in worldly politics, to assert, claim and exercise their rights. These Christian "virtues" invite tyranny as Marcos has demonstrated and encourage selfish/hypocritical leaderships among the powers-that-be or power elite in society. Two centuries ago, Jean Jacques Rosseau wrote with obvious contempt: "True Christians are made to be slaves, and they know it, and do not much mind; this short life counts for too little in their eyes." Filipino Christians, Catholic and Protestant, should do more than attend to their churches as institutions; they should do more than proselytize; they should do more than daily pray and praise the Lord ( is the Lord that insecure and thus need constant laudatory attention? ). It is time for Filipino Christians to actively work to change Philippine governance, to make and pressure the government to be truly responsive to its suffering citizens, i.e. help free them from extreme poverty, which in turn robs them of their human dignity. Christians should make their religious faith alive by not wasting time on, but discarding instead, their old-Reformation debate about "scripture or tradition" and instead work together to create a Filipino society that will materially and decently sustain the majority, if not all, of Filipinos and thus accord them with dignity and destiny as persons. Whenever we Filipinos gather and talk among ourselves, we all agree and lament about the sorry state of our homeland and our fellow countrymen. We fail to realize that we ourselves can do something, more than just being observers --if you can use the computer and access the internet, you can do "something". Specifically, we can contribute and/or work to educate or "conscienticize" (ourselves and) the impoverished, i.e. to raise social consciousness, thus understand the social institutions, economic and political systems that oppress them; to enable them to do critical thinking as they interact in society with the sources of their oppression and to make them aware that they are important and of equal worth as persons [served well by the Basic Christian Communities during the martial law years]. All Filipino Christians should seek to understand their religious beliefs/religion, to go beyond the preachings of their priests and ministers, to give but at the same time not be content with charity (which may sometimes only foster dependency on the recipient and breed arrogance on the giver), and to work to improve Philippine society, to reform it and if necessary, to revolt against their oppressors because society, more specifically - its state or government, is ultimately responsible for promoting the common good of its native citizenry. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |