Tag Archives: religion

by

The Devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

Religious writings usually serve a special function amongst their adherents -not the least of which is to convey the beliefs and principles in a way that allows them to be used as a reference. They may be regarded as sacred if believed to be divinely revealed, or merely special guides to expected behaviour. But whichever, they usually embody the fundamental assumptions of their divine source. And, although they may be summarized for the easier assimilation of their acolytes, the message is the same, no matter the simplified wording.

I am not an especially religious person, but I was brought up in the Christian Protestant traditions, with the Bible -amongst fervent believers, at any rate- a sacred book to be searched for clues as to proper comportment. It was a moral and ethical guide, if sometimes a little vague on specifics.

Indeed, so important was the Bible, that Martin Luther felt that it, not the Pope, should be the only source of divinely revealed knowledge from and about God. He also translated the it into German making it more available for any of the laity who could read.

My point is that the Bible has been considered the foundational book for the Judeo-Christian tradition, and its wisdom, I assumed, undisputed until relatively recently. Altering it or questioning its teachings was anathema, and anyway, unthinkable. So it was with considerable surprise that read about the changes made to it by British missionaries in the Caribbean: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/heavily-abridged-slave-bible-removed-passages-might-encourage-uprisings-180970989 Today, just three copies of the so-called “Slave Bible” are known to exist. Two are held in the United Kingdom, and one is currently on view at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C.

‘When 19th-century British missionaries arrived in the Caribbean to convert enslaved Africans, they came armed with a heavily edited version of the Bible. Any passage that might incite rebellion was removed; gone, for instance, were references to the exodus of enslaved Israelites from Egypt… The abridged work was first printed in London in 1807, on behalf of the Society for the Conversion of Negro Slaves. The missionaries associated with this movement sought to teach enslaved Africans to read, with the ultimate goal of introducing them to Christianity. But they had to be careful not to run afoul of farmers who were wary about the revolutionary implications of educating their enslaved workforce.’

‘That meant the missionaries needed a radically pared down version of the Bible. A typical Protestant edition of the Bible contains 66 books, a Roman Catholic version has 73 books and an Eastern Orthodox translation contains 78 books… By comparison, the astoundingly reduced Slave Bible contains only parts of 14 books.’

I must admit that I don’t recognize many of the omitted texts, but I can see that some of them might induce some anxiety in the slave holders and, no doubt, some inspiration in those who were enslaved. For example, ‘Exodus 21:16—“And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death” -they cut that one out, but of course, were happy to leave ‘Ephesians 6:5: Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ.’

I suppose an obvious point about leaving things out of Biblical text needs to be made here: Luther, and what he decided to do with his translations. Because he believed in Sola Scriptura -in other words that the scripture alone was adequate to define Doctrine- he decided that some of the other (opposing) apostolic traditions of the existing church weren’t appropriate. The book of James comes to mind. Luther felt it disagreed with his Sola Scriptura, so in his ‘Protestant’ Bible he put it, and a few others, in a separate section, the Apocrypha.

I’m certainly not a Biblical scholar, so I have to admit I’m obviously floating on the surface here, but my point is that one might well argue that rearranging the text, as did the Society for the Conversion of Negro Slaves, does not set any precedents. What it does do, however, is change the entire thrust of the Biblical message by not merely rearranging it, but by expurgating it. It ends up as different information -a different spirit.

It is a variety of historical revisionism -history is written by the victors, after all: the most powerful. And the winning side not only gets to control the propaganda, it also gets to interpret the outcome, doesn’t it? Views change as history moves on I suppose, but sometimes we can only contextualize things in retrospect. At the time, it’s only too easy to cave in to vested interests too comfortable to omit the inconvenient truths.

With the egregious omissions of the Slave Bible, the intent is fairly obvious, of course, but there seems to have been no effort to adhere even to Luther’s stringent changes, and at least from the article, I’m not convinced that the Christianity promulgated was of much comfort to the enslaved workers either.

Unfortunately, we often rationalize the means to whatever end we have convinced ourselves is right -whether it be for the good of Britain’s overseas empire that enriched the home country establishment, or for the benefit of the government closer to home. After all, in Canada, we decided that the aboriginal owners of the land we appropriated would be more manageable if they came to accept our Old World -largely European- values. So, we stole their children and forced them into Residential Schools with or without parental permission and attempted to interdict their native languages and inculcate standards entirely foreign to them. Although we all pretended it was for their own good, the reasoning was an opaque attempt at domination. And the irony, in Canada at least, was that it was done both with the blessings, and under the aegis of the Church.

Plus ça change, eh? We have learned little over the years, I think. There still seems to be a need to convince anyone who will listen -and perhaps especially those who won’t- of the righteousness of our beliefs. Of our cause. And yet, a hundred or so years in the future, if there’s still anyone left, they will study us and sigh. ‘What were they thinking?’ they will ask, and then shrug and read their own zeitgeist into the story.

by

She wears her faith but as the fashion of her phone.

Everything is a matter of time, isn’t it? Everything changes. Like the apocryphal monkeys typing away infinitely, everything will be written. Everything will be transmogrified somewhere. Some time. Somehow. I suppose that should be a comfort, but I can’t escape the nagging feeling that there is something unrequited in all that: an imbalance between now and then -no bridge to mediate between what is, and what some nebulous future may unfurl for our children’s children.

And yet, an article I found offers some hope that I might have missed the entr’acte, missed a vital link in the ever lengthening chain of progress –or at least underestimated its importance. I’m talking about the smartphone. I grow old… I grow old… I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled, as T.S. Eliot wrote –that, at least, may be a suitable mea culpa for my inattentiveness, perhaps.

I should have seen that with all of the changes occasioned by the phone, other subtle philosophical alterations might well hide within its shadow. ‘He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the next block’, as Beatrice says in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. Who would have thought that religion itself might live the same fate? http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170222-how-smartphones-and-social-media-are-changing-religion The mobile phone Bible seems to be replacing the book Bible –at least with many of the younger religious crowd. And the result may have been a loss of context –no thumbing through the pages looking for something, just an arrival at whatever nugget was requested –like looking it up in Wikipedia. In other words, an information Christianity, a virtual religion. ‘“A new kind of mutated Christianity for a digital age is appearing,” says Phillips [director of the Codec Research Centre for Digital Theology at Durham University in the UK]. “One that follows many of the ethics of the secular world.” Known as moralistic therapeutic deism, this form of belief is focused more on the charitable and moral side of the Bible – the underlying tenets of religion, rather than the notion that the Universe was created by an all-seeing, all-powerful leader.’

Although I hold neither religious affiliation, nor any particular interest in the Bible, I have to say I am intrigued by the philosophical machinations the smartphone seems to be engendering –the moralistic therapeutic deism, as it is increasingly being referred to. The results of interviews with three thousand teenagers were summarized in (sorry) Wikipedia, and seem to establish the tenets of this theism. First of all, ‘A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.’ And ‘God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.’ But what I found particularly interesting was the idea that ‘God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.’

And why do I find this  so-called ‘moralistic therapeutic deism’ so interesting? It seems to me it may be the early phases of an evolution of religious thought engendered by the way we are beginning to assimilate information. Or perhaps I should say they are –the millennials. I suspect that we elders –or should I say just ‘olders’- still adhere to the belief that data does not necessarily spell knowledge.

But, as the article points out, ‘[…]a separate strand of Christian practice is booming, buoyed by the spread of social media and the decentralisation of religious activity. For many, it’s no longer necessary to set foot in a church. In the US, one in five people who identify as Catholics and one in four Protestants seldom or never attend organised services, according to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Centre. Apps and social media accounts tweeting out Bible verses allow a private expression of faith that takes place between a person and their phone screen. And the ability to pick and choose means they can avoid doctrine that does not appeal. A lot of people who consider themselves to be active Christians may not strictly even believe in God or Jesus or the acts described in the Bible.’

I doubt that this phenomenon is exclusive to Christianity, either. Any religious doctrine which has a credo that can be digitized, is susceptible -nuggetable into bite-sized digestible portions. Wikipediable.

I think that is what two girls were talking about at the bus stop a few days ago. Both wearing delightfully colourful hijabs, they were huddled around their smartphones giggling.

“Where did you find that?” the taller of the two said shaking her head. She was dressed just like any other teenager –running shoes, jeans, and a bright orange leather jacket- but a dark blue hijab seemed almost tossed onto her head and barely draped over her shoulders. Perhaps it was the wind, but the almost-studied disarray was charming.

The other girl, stouter and wearing a long black coat, also sported a red, hijab-like scarf that barely covered half her head despite her constant readjustments. “It’s Al-Quran [an app, I later discovered],” she answered as if that should have been obvious.

The taller girl tapped on her screen for a moment and then nodded her head. “But, you know that’s not what Abbad said…”

The other girl just shrugged. “He always thinks he knows everything, Lamiya.”

“Well…” I could see Lamiya sigh, even though I was trying not to watch them. “He usually gets it right, Nadirah… I mean, don’t you think…?”

I couldn’t help but smile when Nadirah rolled her eyes. “He only gets it right when you don’t know! If you don’t check on it…”

Lamiya seemed to pout. “I just, like, took his word for it…”

“You can’t do that blindly, Lami… Not anymore.” She made another attempt to readjust her hijab in the biting wind. “Not when you can look it up!” She shivered deeper into her coat and I could see her breath whenever the wind died down. “Things just aren’t what they used to be for our parents… We can actually, like, check,” she said as their bus pulled up and they got on, leaving me still informationless in the cold.