A confusion of myths - Presenting the Issue - Editorial

In RELIGION AS A CULTURAL SYSTEM Clifford Geertz defines religion as "A system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic." What happens when cultures mix and symbol systems cross over and blend? What becomes of the symbols and their ability to establish long-lasting moods and motivations? That may well be the pressing question for religionists in what we have come to know as the global village, our pluralistic societies. We live in a world characterized by a confusion of myths, with symbol systems merged and dynamically altered. The challenge is in learning how to live with one's own religion so mutated by pluralism, and to accommodate to others' when the boundaries of separation become blurred or virtually non-existent.

The modern world did not invent syncretism. The blending of religious systems has taken place throughout human history as migration, trade, warfare and, not insignificantly, intermarriages, bridged over the chasms that divided religious symbol systems. The Tower of Babel, with its multitude of displaced people, symbolized not only a confusion of languages but, more important, a clash of religions that bound families and social groups together under distinctive auras of factuality. What modernity may have introduced was an awareness of how religions adjusted to changing circumstances and inter-cultural contacts. Rather than seeing religion as a fixed system, moderns have grown comfortable with the reality of mixing and matching to produce diverse religionists that can live comfortably together because they've become more like each other in the process. They may not lose their symbol systems, but they very well reinterpret those symbols for a variety of reasons not the least of which is greater inclusion and peaceful co-existence.

Amid all the conflicts among religionists that punctuate the news today, the call has been made for those religionists who have not modernized to do so. For the true believers--those who insist on believing that their religion is singularly true and unchanging--modernity can only be regarded as pollution, rendering the right order of reality contaminated and thus dangerous. They fix their sights on those abominations from the outside that insinuated themselves into the more perfect system of what is mandated and absolute. One can hardly find a religion today in which such true believers are not holding out against modernity.

The question may be asked whether modernity isn't the destroyer of religion. The answer hinges on whether modernity created changes within religious systems or merely made people more aware of their having taken place throughout history as a normal practice. If the latter, the modern task then becomes how to understand religion as a dynamic rather than fixed system of symbols without losing religion as a somehow workable system. Post-moderns may so engage the notion of dynamic change that little remains to be learned or taught since each person experiences the symbols uniquely. Pre-moderns will insist on there being little or no legitimate change since the truth was revealed and, when authoritatively rendered, is the benchmark of membership in the group. Amid these swirling currents, where is what we today call biblical theology?

Modernity, not unlike pre-modern religions, requires belief, or trust. Pre-modern belief, faith, largely unites members of a group and gives them an esprit de corps that insiders value and outsiders can easily recognize and presumably admire (viz., group honor). Modern belief, science, requires a trust that all is not lost when religion comes under the scrutiny of systematic analysis.

Those lacking such trust may in fact live in the complex world of modernity but intentionally (by their pre-modern faith) withdraw as "fundamentalists" into the utopian world of their symbol system. In a pluralistic world, such fundamentalists attempt to block out the influences of other systems by labeling them as pollutants or abominations. They refuse to believe in a religion that allows for adaptation and change, and correspondingly can only see outsiders as people in need of conversion to their belief system.

Recently named Nobel Peace Laureate Jimmy Carter is an interesting case in point. A life-long Southern Baptist, he teaches and exemplifies his biblical faith with a Baptist's free interpretation. In October 2000, Jimmy Carter severed his ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, a rigorous sub-group of Baptists, on the grounds of his feeling "increasingly uncomfortable and somewhat excluded," noting, "In my opinion, the leaders of the SBC have become increasingly demanding in the specificity of their creed. I think there ought to be the ability of Baptists who have slightly different commitments to Christianity to get along, work together and love each other." The issue was the SBC's denominational statement, adopted in June 2000, that prohibits women from being pastors, says wives should be submissive to their husbands, and eliminates language from an earlier version that "the criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted is Jesus Christ." In effect, the Southern Baptist Convention was ruling out the now widespread adaptation of religions in modern societies that in light of changing societal practice now accepts women as subjects for ordination and liberation from domestic roles. It was the rigid enforcement of an earlier age's norms that alienated this high profile Baptist. Similarly, the Southern Baptist Convention articulated as its continuing mission the conversion of Jews to Christian beliefs, a practice that most other Christian denominations, including Catholics, have left behind in their evangelical traditions.