At the same time, we are dealing with a high culture/popular culture twofer which tells us this supposed moral truth: We can do anything we like, as long as no one else gets hurt.
This seeming cancellation of the "old" moral values taught by religion has, it is widely said — I think misguidedly — "freed" us. "Liberated" us. "Deprogrammed" us. We no longer need religion. In fact, say Dawkins and his fellow anti-religion authors Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett, religion must be jettisoned entirely from our lives in order that we may avoid the "evils" religion confers on us.
No wonder cognitive dissonance besets many of us as we think about God.
Avoiding Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive dissonance arises whenever we try to hold two contradictory ideas in our head at one time. Our heads then labor to obliterate one of of the two. If one of the ideas is that we are radically free to do whatever we like as long as no one else gets hurt, and the other idea is that our true freedom arises only from living out moral limits graven in human hearts by God, then either the first idea or the second idea must go.
In our world, it is the second idea which many people have given the old heave-ho. If religion conflicts with our supposed radical freedom to do as we like, so much the worse for religion.
True, many of us remain "religious." Some of our faith denominations have even become "liberal" and "progressive" enough to enshrine a great deal of what the culture is teaching us now anyway. Many of the old moral proscriptions and limitations have been abandoned by various churches in the name of keeping as many folks in the Sunday morning pews as possible.
Yet — and this is especially true in Europe — the pews are growing increasingly empty. Conclusion: watering down religion hurts, rather than helps, the cause of faith.
In America, lots of us still go to services at churches and synagogues. Yet there's a divide that is more evident here than in Europe. Here, not all those who attend church or synagogue regularly are singing from the same hymn book. The Great Divide in American religion is tripartite, in that devout Americans who are religious "fundamentalists," those who are religious "liberals," and those who are religious "traditionalists" (I'm in this third group) have little to say to one another.
The Third Group: Religious Traditionalists
Who else, besides me, in this third group? Many regular worshippers here in America are traditional Christians or Jews whose churches and synagogues haven't caved in to the culture. Among those traditional Christians and Jews are so-called "conservative" Catholics, of whom I lately find that I am one.
The word "conservative," however, is at best a term of convenience: traditional, orthodox Catholics are "conservative" in ways that can seem positively radical. Is it "conservative" to seek, for example, to end the death penalty or to remedy the gross disparities in income and wealth in our present society? "Conservative" Catholics can be firebrands for social justice and zealous exponents of respect for human life and dignity.
Why Many Have Left the Catholic Church
Still and all, great numbers of baby boomers who were raised as Catholics — I'm a boomer, but I'm a midlife convert to Catholicism — have left the Church, and perhaps all religion, behind. There are many reasons why. One of them, I think, was what happened in 1968. That was the tumultuous year in which Pope Paul VI promulgated his papal encyclical Humanae Vitae, "On Human Life." It prohibited use by Catholics of birth control pills, condoms, and all other forms of "artificial" contraception.
My Catholic classmates at Georgetown University, or at least many of them, went into revolt.
If I had been Catholic then, I would have done so too.
It therefore saws away at our understanding of the connection between our human sexuality and the inner life of the God in Three Persons — the Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. According to Catholic belief, that inner life of God expresses itself in the fundamental nature of our worldly reality. Sex and procreation-within-marriage mirror the love of the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity for one another, a love that spills over in God's very act of creating the world. It tattoos the created reality with certain truths which we then encounter as "moral" verities — "thou shalt nots," from one (not necessarily fully insightful) point of view.
They're actually not just "thou shalt nots"; they're actually "thou ought betters." Thou ought better to keep marriage and reproduction holy and sacred. Why? Two reasons. Doing so (despite the teachings of today's culture) makes ours a better world. And doing so makes us as individuals better people — people better suited to spend eternity with God.
Thus Endeth the Sermon ...
OK. End of sermon. My point here is really that what I just sermonized about is hugely controversial in today's culture, which means it helps divide us mainly into five camps:
- Committed atheists and agnostics; many of these are "scientific naturalists" who believe in science as the only revealer of truth
- The many today who are apathetic toward religion; these people have been cleverly labeled "apatheists"
- Committed Christians, Jews, and Muslims — I'll call them Peoples of the Book — who are so averse to modern times that they (in the view of the Catholic Church and of yours truly) wrongly reject scientific insights such as Darwinian evolution; these are the "creationists" and "fundamentalists"
- Committed Peoples of the Book who go so far the other way and are so "open to modernity" (and "postmodern" thought) that they toss out all of the "old" ways of looking at things that now cause "modern" folks heartburn; these are the theological "liberals" and "progressives"
- Committed Peoples of the Book who refuse to set aside the orthodox beliefs that form the doctrines and teachings of their religious traditions; among these are today's traditional Roman Catholics, including yours truly
I am, for purposes of this discussion, setting aside people of religious backgrounds other than monotheistic ones: other than, that is, members of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religions.
Given that those in Camp 1 — committed atheists, agnostics, and freethinkers — are "center stage" in today's bastions of arts and letters and at today's better universities, we in Camp 5 who would duel with Camp 1 followers have to do so as if "from the wings." At the same time, we'd like to avoid veering into Camps 2, 3, and 4. We must sidestep any temptations to become apathetic about challenging the current culture, playing into the hands of Camp 2; any temptations to disdain modern science, thus joining Camp 3; or any temptations to jettison the old moral teachings, affirming Camp 4.
If we manage to do all that, we still run aground on the popular culture's assumption of radical moral freedom. If the high moral ground is held today by the "I Did It My Way"/"Different Strokes For Different Folks" crowd, arguing for the existence of God and against the atheists' viewpoint won't work for those folks if it's grounded in old-fashioned religious moral dictates.
Beauty and the Soul
But what else is there? How can Camp 5 even begin to answer back to Camp 1 without alienating the great many in Camps 2, 3, and 4 who do not want to hear about the old "thou shalt nots"?
One way is to talk about beauty and the soul. We can all agree that we know beauty when we see it. What does this fact tell us about who we are, and how can it lead us to belief in God? I ask and try to answer these and related questions in my Google Doc "Beauty and the Soul." Please feel free to read it and then post any thoughts you may have about it as comments to this blog.
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