Fear of Obsolescence
Daniel
Boorstin, in describing the reaction of Christian Europe to the work of
Ptolemy, writes:
The leaders
of orthodox Christendom built a grand barrier against the progress of knowledge
about the earth. Christian geographers
in the Middle Ages spent their energies embroidering a neat, theologically
appealing picture of what was already known, or was supposed to be known.
[…] These
were Ecumenical maps, for they aimed to show the “Ecumene,” the whole inhabited
world. Designed to express what orthodox
Christians were expected to believe,
they were not so much maps of knowledge as maps of Scriptural dogma. The very simplicity that offends the
geographer testifies to the simple clarity of Christian belief. […] At
the center of the map was Jerusalem.
“Thus saith the Lord God; This is Jerusalem: I have set it in the midst
of the nations and countries that are round about her” (Ezekiel 5:5). These words of the prophet Ezekiel overruled
any trivial earthly needs for latitude or longitude. “Navel of the worlds” (umbilicus terrae) were the words of the Vulgate, the Latin version
of the Bible. Medieval Christian
geographers obstinately kept the Holy City right there. New conflicts between faith and knowledge
would come when explorers expanded the map eastward, then westward. Dared Christians move their Jerusalem? Or could they ignore the discoveries?[1]
Obsolescence
is a terrible term to throw around, especially when it might finally rest upon
your own shoulders. Therefore it is that
clergy (as representatives of larger religious traditions) are doing their best
to either combat the term or foist it onto someone else. That comes also from a place of fear. No one wishes to be a part of an obsolete
group because to be so identified means that you, as an individual, are likely
irrelevant.
Boorstin’s
description is analogous to this sense of obsolescence because the world, it
would seem, is moving on – and rapidly – without
the guidance or hindrance of traditional religious definition, in particular
Christianity. Over the last 20 years
there has been a push from the conservative Christian movement to call America
a Christian nation. It isn’t. Never was.
There was a time when Christianity was the predominant faith of
Americans, and as such truly and fundamentally influenced the framing of our
political and social conversations.
However, the time of the Christian privilege seems to be waning.
What do
Christians do? What can they offer?
To begin
with, I would suggest we stop with the special pleading (special pleading is a
fallacy in which a person or group applies standards or rules to other people while holding oneself – or
persons or ideas held special to the individual or group - exempt without
providing justification for the exemption.
All
religions should consider this for engagement with the world outside of the realm of the community of
faith. We have to learn to live our
faith in such a way as to demonstrate it without demanding acquiescence.
I will say
at this point that militant religions, fundamentalist extremists, and the like
have no trouble doing this because for them the outside world is only engaged
through violence. Those fanatics have
little to bring to this conversation, I am afraid, because all they have to
bring is special pleading.
For
Christians, we have to learn how to be faithful without being the barrier to
faith for others. If we believe Christ
is the light of the world and that we are, by decree, to be lights to the world, then we have to be lights, not clubs, not
voices of anger.
Yet we can
be voices of justice. We can speak out
against human trafficking, corruption, injustice, the inequality of wealth,
racism, and the like. We can speak out
against these because it is just, but also because it is an example of
Christ. We can also strive to be houses
of worship and, dare I say it, education.
But not indoctrination. Education.
Education
is what moves us beyond the barriers Boorstin writes about in the above
passage. The more we learn, the less we
have to divide ourselves from the world, and the more we know how to move in it
justly and faithfully.
Of course
when conservative Christianity demonizes education, it hardly helps our image
and, sad to say, it pushes our faith towards the more close minded side of
fanaticism.
So as we
fear our obsolescence and irrelevance, we can find opportunities to bear
witness to faith that may actually be new. Without insistence or a demand for
acquiescence, we can hold up that to which we believe in our own life. We can be models of Christ should we so
choose, without being models of ignorance.
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