Religion & Ethics Newsweekly on PBS Friday night had a non-judgmental story on a Voodoo priestess in New Orleans. Voodoo makes me queasy, and when that happens (which isn’t often) I want to know why. Do I deep down believe in Voodoo’s efficacy or something?
When I sat down to note my queasiness with voodoo in writing, I ended up with not only my answer, but an “Aha!” moment that helped me crack another nut I’d been working on.
In fairly short order, I realized my ill-ease comes from Voodoo typically being presented (as it was on PBS by its proponents) as compatible with and an appropriate adjunct to Christianity. Were Voodoo standing alone, as one of many non-Christian faiths, I don’t think it would bother me. It’s the effort to insinuate itself into another religion — in this hemisphere, it’s usually found in a syncretistic mix with Roman Catholicism — that’s creepy.
Roman Catholicism is a very broad and commodious thing — a very big tent. In a somewhat different, and I think narrower, sense, Orthodoxy is as well. If nothing else, in both, one is baptized as an infant, thereby being made a part of the Church, and remains a part of the Church thenceforth with few exceptions.
One may be a bad Roman Catholic, or a bad Orthodox Christian; one may “neglect the sacraments” (that’s how it was put in my former Church, as I recall, though its view was not robustly sacramental at all); one may live a dissolute and scandalous life. But one typically won’t be kicked out of the Church for such things, but rather invited back, invited to resume the Christian walk.
These “ecclesial Christian” bodies (“For the ecclesial Christian, the act of faith in Christ and the act of faith in the Church are not two acts of faith but one” – Richard John Neuhaus), in other words, quite fully realize the saying that “the Church is not a club for saints but a hospital for sinners.” They try to emulate the father in the parable of the Prodigal Son, not the older brother (whose reaction to the Prodigal’s triumphant return too often is passed over in silence).
That’s why, for instance, pro-abortion Catholic and Orthodox politicians are rarely excommunicated, to the dismay of those who would have the Church used as an instrument of political power.
That’s not to say that all that goes on under the commodious big tent(s) is legitimate. Lots of it is not, from Catholics for Choice and other cafeteria Catholicism to Catholicism/Voodoo syncretism.
You can be a good Christian or you can be a Voodoo priestess. You can’t be both, it seems to me. And the attempt to do so makes me very queasy.
* * * * *
I had been working on a blog about “Christianities” for a few days before the PBS Voodoo segmant, trying to clarify my thoughts about the wildly disparate things that go by the name “Christian” and are widely accepted as such.
It’s not that I’m confused about which flavor is right, or consumed with a desire to make all of them equally right. It’s the trying to figure whether there are common threads of what’s wrong.
As soon as I realized that the Voodoo/Christianity syncretism was what bothered me, I had my “Aha!” moment: a lot of “Christianities” bother me because of the adulteration or syncretism they embody.
- Benny Hinn (a complete humbug) and his “prosperity gospel” ilk, adulterate Christianity with coverteousness.
- Harold Camping adulterated Christianity with soothsaying, tearing pages out of the Bible and reading them like tea leaves. (His name is “Legion,” though few are foolish enough to set precise dates.)
- “Messianic Judaism” syncretizes Christianity and Judaism (which is not to disparage Judaism as a distinct thing).
- Much of modern Evangelicalism adulterates Christianity with consumerism, or with the caricature of free market economics more appropriately called “crony capitalism.” (That’s apart from the GOP effort to make Evangelicalism a wholly-owned subsidiary.)
- Megachurch adulterates Christianity with show biz (including, sometimes, erotic performances).
This doesn’t cover, or at least at this early stage of my thinking doesn’t clearly cover, all the competing Christianities. Many of them, for instance, have subtracted from the Apostolic faith, violating the rule “as simple as possible, but no simpler.” I suppose you could call that adulterating Christianity with enlightenment philosophy, but that seems artificial to me.
Christianity as practiced through the ages is a rich and splendid thing. It needs no fortification with anything. It also doesn’t need to be purged of anything.
But what is that Christianity? I’m quite sure I can’t put it in words, because it’s so much more than words. Come and see (in Lafayette, 1418 S. 24th Street, 9:30 am Sunday).
Father Stephen Freeman frequently has said the “Christ didn’t die to make bad men good. He died to make dead men live.” When it comes to Christianity, I don’t want “the essentials” or “fundamentals;” I don’t want the minimum effective dose. I want to live as a fully human person in that fellowship Peter called being a “partaker of the divine nature” — nothing less. Not “live it up,” or “make the cut for the Rapture,” or “get cured by a word of knowledge” (as in Pat Robertson) or “vote for idiots instead of having idiots thrust upon me” (as in Dubya and the other democracy idolaters) or any other of countless things.
I want the full meal deal, but cooked long and slow, without additives.
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 