It is striking (to me) how the ideal values of worship and obedient service have declined to feebleness - or else to a legalism of worship and obedient service that disguises a pleasure-seeking/ fear-motivated loyal conformity to societal power.
Worship-of and obedience-to God are the Old Testament ideal that permeate much of the Bible; including much of the New Testament such as the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.
And this was (in most stable and effective Christian societies) transferred to a monarch (whether temporal and/or spiritual - or both) who would himself be motivated by the same ideal.
If I think back about thirty and plus years; this broad framework of W and O was still, sometimes and somewhat but in a valued way, working for me - although on in rather specific times and places and occasions.
What characterized such a situation was a sense of magical enchantment - a positive connection to past, place, instituion, and others present.
But it was already clear that this ideal had not just lost its appeal to most people, most of the time; who were simply bored by such things.
And there was indeed a reaction against it; such that an atmosphere of scornful mockery and embarrassment was becoming dominant whenever worship and obedient service was apparent or advocated - or against those who were more that way inclined.
Also; those who most vehemently advocated that worship and obedience was a good, or essential, basis for the Good Life; were nearly-always being dishonest - they were just using this value-system for their own (and often sordid) self-gratification and benefit.
Of course this decline and inversion is in some (important and valuable) ways a subtraction from life. This is why people like me fought against it.
Yet it is also a fact of life that needs to be acknowledged; as is the requirement that something is needed to replace it as a source of motivation and enchantment -- if not of social cohesion...
Because it seems increasingly clear that appeals to (or enforcement of) social cohesion nowadays is rooted in negative and evil purposes - for instance when prepping nations and institutions for pursuit of an evil war, or an evil strategy
In other words appeals to (de facto) worship and obedience, whether in religion or in secular life - the seeking of increased energy and motivation for societal groupings - is used for the purposes of Lawful Evil.
This seem inevitable when the people involved have themselves and en masse rejected the reality of the Christian God and divine creation.
How can people be corralled into pursuing a truly Good purpose, when they deny the very reality of Good purpose in the universe?
And yet and yet... we must have something.
If not worship and obedience then... something else: because the alternative is despair.
And then either an obedience based on mere coping and survivalism (chosen slavery), or else here-and-now selfishness and indifference to consequences (psychopathy).
Surely this is an unavoidable task for everyone?
And a task where objective external assistance from a societal source cannot be expected - and where whatever "answer" we may find will inevitably be partial, temporary, and perhaps private and personal?
For me, vital clues are the insight that God most desires of us is Not worship and obedience; but Instead a chosen, committed, and loving "friendship" type of relationship; analogous to that which forms the basis of a shared and harmonious, purposive living; and (sometimes, temporarily, and imaginably) characterizes the best of family life and marriage.
However, the reassurance we have as Christians is that whatever we actually achieve is less important than knowing what we most need.
Sincerely-attempting not successfully-accomplishing our ideals, is actually the basis of good-living now, and salvation to come.
3 comments:
There's something funky about the language used to describe worship/obedience and related concepts like "honor" and "respect." Maybe a Wittegenstein fan like yourself will more readily identify the problem, but these terms are all very fuzzy, all infused with personal context and desire whenever used in practice. Personally, I don't find the term "worship" redeemable at all and avoid using it whenever possible, but "respect" comes up a lot in my circles due to the command to wives to "respect" their husbands. But no one- I mean absolutely no one- has the slightest idea what this means. Definitions range from "have him sit at the head of the table at dinner" to blind (dysfunctional) obedience. People try the relativist understanding "respect is whatever makes him feel respected," which has obvious problems but honestly probably works the best in the near-term.
Where can people en masse potentially end up is hard to forecast, but while I have my doubts about "deep thinking" becoming the norm, I do think we could potentially arrive at a broad understanding that in mortal life we are always going to be circling the target and never (or not for long) hitting it precisely. Like William Wildblood's saying that any religion or specific practice or even sacred text is the lantern, not the light. When that particular lantern helps you see the light better, great! When it doesn't, move on. As long as your aim is toward the light, it will be alright.
@Mia - I certainly don't imagine deep thinking will become normal - nor does it need to. What is needed is that people actually think, instead of selecting their fundamental beliefs from the public arena. As a matter of faith, I believe that everybody is fully equipped for their own needs.
In my own experience this is related to the practice of prayer. I've been an inconsistent prayer of the rosary for many years. I "knew" it was an admirable daily routine on the testimony of others, and I've read about how Our Lady strongly recommended it. But it was too similar to drudgery for many years. I sometimes spent weeks without doing it, then came back to attempt to create the habit.
Recently (few months), though, it has become a very fruitful moment of my day. Not always, but frequently enough to make me start to glimpse the point. And an important part of this point is that I wouldn't have reached this penumbra stage without the years of drudgery.
In others words the drudgery of worship and obedience is not the end point, and I think the whole Old Testament is saying (shouting!) that to those who have ears to hear. It has its role, though.
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