Religion: Its Use and Abuse

When I was a sophomore in high school, my English teacher shared a theory she had about historical cycles. She believed that centuries alternated between a century of innovation and technology and a century of religion and mysticism. The centuries might have broad overlap, but she believed that the moon landing was the end of a century of technology and the Summer of Love was the beginning of the age of mysticism. It’s possible that my teacher (whose name I forget but I do remember her Mary Lou Retton haircut and thick glasses) got her theory from someone else, but I think about it every so often. 

Obviously, since 1969, there have been many technological innovations but many of them have their roots in the post-year wars that saw massive investment in technology. But it’s also the case that religion plays a dominant role in the politics of our major parties and many citizens. Cults and pyramid schemes have proliferated. While church attendance is down, belief in QAnon, Star Wars, and football form the organizing principles for most people in the US. “Religious” factions have played a dominant role in our foreign policy and international wars since 1969. (I include Communism and capitalism among the religious belief systems that have factionalized our world.)

Last week, Liam expressed interest in “that show about evangelicals” so we watched the pilot for The Righteous Gemstones. Afterward, he said he thought it wasn’t realistic, which is when I realized that he wanted to watch a documentary about evangelical Christians and not the HBO Max version. I couldn’t think of one (or be bothered to google the category) so we watched The Eyes of Tammy Faye, and I was transported to the days I spent at Heritage USA, the theme park of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakkers’ PTL Club. PTL stood for Praise the Lord, or Pass the Loot. 

When I say “transported” to PTL, I mean that watching The Eyes of Tammy Faye made me itchy with recognition. Although my parents had been affiliated with an evangelical community before I was born, we weren’t evangelical Christians in 1985, but my mom’s friends were, and they worked at PTL. I remember an Easter visit to Fort Mill, South Carolina, that year. It was already warm outside, and we were dressed in light summer dresses with white tights and “good shoes” for Easter service. Service was not held in a church; it was held in a freezing cold TV studio that functioned as the worship space. As a Catholic child, I expected a certain set of rituals on Easter morning: the Easter bunny, a huge mass focused on the risen Christ, hymns that celebrated His eternal life, Holy Communion, and then we could leave for a hearty brunch back at home. At PTL, the focus was on fundraising, and the service never ended. 

The pilot of Righteous Gemstones opens with the preaching Gemstones baptizing thousands of Chinese believers in a giant wave pool that accidentally turns on, machine-made waves rolling relentlessly toward the new converts. Back at their Sunday service, the Gemstones thank their congregants for donating money to save all those Chinese souls. Meanwhile, they are planning a new church that will destroy the congregations of four nearby ministries. At the end of the first episode, the Gemstones kill two people (or at least, they think they do).

At the Easter service at PTL, Jim and Tammy Bakker were hawking dolls that were an unholy mash-up of Suzy Moppet, a Cabbage Patch kid, and the Asian stereotype of a girl working in a rice paddy. My mother was, at that time, dating a man who had been born in China and brought to the US by his parents as a child so that their family would have the freedom to worship as Christians. He and his 5 siblings were named after the apostles and Jesus’s female followers. 

I have no idea what the donation level was to get this prize, but my mother’s boyfriend made the requisite donation to ensure my sister and I could each get one of the “Chinese mission” dolls. When you squeezed her, she sang, “Jesus takes a frown and turns it upside down. Up comes a smile!” 

The Righteous Gemstones may be fiction, but it isn’t wrong, is what I’m saying. 

…

It’s very hard for me to articulate a viewpoint on the Israel/Palestine situation at the moment. More knowledgeable people than me have been grappling with the issue so I’ll wade in gently here. 

Last week, we hosted a fundraiser for Lateefah Simon, a candidate for the District CA-12. One of our guests asked for her views on the conflict in Israel and Palestine, and after acknowledging the horrors that Hamas inflicted on the Jewish people and hoping for a humanitarian and measured response by the Israeli government, she noted that when she’s having a hard time articulating a view on a topic, she focuses her mind on “the mamas and the babies,” and asks herself what are the policies and actions that can be taken to ensure their safety and livelihood. 

You may scoff at such a reductive value statement, but it’s a decent articulation of the ethics of care. According to Wikipedia, ethics of care is “a normative ethical theory that holds that moral action centers on interpersonal relationships and care or benevolence as a virtue.” When I was getting my master's degree, I was dismissive of the ethics of care, because I didn’t think a moral code should be focused solely on the value of “care.” But the ethics of care is just a different kind of utilitarianism, which asks how we maximize happiness and well-being for everyone. I’ve always thought of myself as a utilitarian at heart but now I wonder if there’s some blend of the two philosophies that would be more appropriate.

To diagnose our current global crises as being solely a failure of popular ethics is to sound like David Brooks, one of the most annoying men on the planet, or some other conservative-ish old white dude who wonders where our morals have gone and posits that our moral decay is the central crisis of our time. Often, their definition of moral decay is gay marriage or “reefer madness” or “quiet quitting.” At the same time, we really don’t debate difficult moral topics very well. When was the last time you had a civilized discussion about moral values as a lens for addressing seemingly intractable problems? 

For example, in the political realm, President Biden is trying to contrast himself with Trump by being “pro-democracy.” Democracy is a value that we assume people believe in until you start asking them what that value means. The problem is, there’s no debate about whether democracy is the right form of government or whether our Constitution in fact guarantees the kind of democracy that we need in this country. Instead of healthy debate, we have factions:

• the faction that believes our democracy is in need of reform, but in the direction of greater, more egalitarian participation (idealists).
• The faction that believes our democracy is as perfect as the day it sprung forth from our founders’ pens (originalists).
• A faction refusing to acknowledge that they’d like greater limits on democracy but act offended that you accused them of not supporting democracy even when they clearly don’t (wannabe fascists).
• A faction that acts like a debate on the value of particular systems of government is a dumb discussion to have (everyone who didn’t take a civics or history class).

These last three factions are the same people who are wielding religion to ban books, traumatize children (queer, immigrant, et al), and control women. It is religion and not ethics that influence how they would like to govern. People are unwilling to engage in honest dialogue about the principles they live by if they have them at all. 

I hope our century of religion ends sooner than the year 2069. As for Israel and Palestine, I am keeping the babies and the mamas in my heart, and more than happy to debate whether benevolence or happiness is a better ethical lode star.