Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Letter 9
In letter 9 Screwtape says, "A moderated religion is as good for us as no religion at all- and more amusing." This is very interesting to me in the context of religion and politics. A popular opinion in the US these days is to say that politicians should feel free to retain their religious beliefs, but not even think of bringing one iota of their religious beliefs into their politics. Would this not qualify as moderating one's religion? If religion is to go out the window when it comes to politics, why not throw it out the window a few more times? I mean, political decisions affect millions of people and religion is too dangerous to be allowed into that arena of ideas. What arena is it safe for? If you pray at night, the kid next door might get some night vision binoculars and spy on your bedroom. Good luck to you when his parents find out that now he's also taken a liking to prayer, even though the parents have declared that they never want their child to say a bible right? I do realize this is sounding extreme but I think it is the kind of question that Lewis is bringing up with this message. It is easy to blame disasters involving religion and politics on religion, when it is in fact the people who are crazy. But there are obviously places where religion is not so interesting. I do not need to seek biblical help to find the keys on my keyboard. I certainly did not find my WEP code in the book of Isiah. Somewhere between religious insanity and moderation there is a wonderful place of balance, the key is getting there.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Wow...your last sentence is awsome. What an elegant way to state what many people today are struggling with. I agree very strongly with this comment and find myself sometimes in this place of unbalance in my religious views and to rediscover that balance is not always easy. This part of the letter stuck out in my reading the most also. I think that we have an issue in society of either overdoing religion or as you said it religious insanity and also a lack of religion and this unbalance creates many of the world problems that we see in our world today! A balanced sense of religion would help to solve many of these problems.
I agree with both Kenion and Corianna on this post. Your last sentence is really powerful and really sums up a lot of the problems with our world today. Many things in our society, not just religion are taken to insane extremes. But, back to the letter, I agree with you on the fact that there are some places where religion isn’t really a good thing. That’s not to say being spiritual is a bad thing, but “religion” can cause more harm than good. I think that finding the balance is crucial to uniting our world and beginning the battle towards healing the wrongs in our society. It’s true that we can’t fix all the problems of the world, that’s just insane. However, with a balance, we can spread love and understanding instead of hate and prejudice.
Your point about politics and religion is a thought-provoking one. Originally a strict advocate of separate of the two different realms of life, I see how it is quite contradicting to say that religion should be completely separated from politics. After all, religious beliefs are an integral aspect of a person and their morality, so why shouldn't religion play a part in their political views? However, the thing I still disagree with is that candidates will often run their campaign primarily based on being Christian. One pet peeve of mine is when candidates are attacked for being not Christian enough or not as religious. Certainly, religion should play a role in politics, but a balanced role, as I think you were getting at.
Post a Comment