REM didn’t just create an anthem; in the title of the epic song they put their finger on something vital. There are times when ‘my religion’ needs to be lost.
One of the constant messages to the people who took God for granted – read, for example, Isaiah 1-39 – is that sincerity is not enough, serious religiosity can be dangerous, that vision can be confused with fantasy. So, for example, thinking that God is there to make my life complete, to protect me from the contingencies of human living, or to exempt me from suffering, is a form of religious assumption that needs to be ditched. In the same way, reducing God to some sort of tribal deity is to create an illusion that needs to be abandoned.
The trouble is, we usually don’t have the courage to ditch religious fantasy. We don’t often take out our assumptions about…
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