Apocalypse. Ah-POCK-ah-lips. From "to uncover". To take the lid off. To reveal what is there.
Apocalyptic thinking is a significant part of Judeo-Christian-Islamic thought. Jesus was apocalyptic: he thought of himself as a prophet of the end times, when the lid would be blown off and a great struggle of the end times would happen. No such luck.
The book of Revelation is apocalyptic. It is a hymn to the great battle between good and evil, soon to come. No such luck.
Islam is apocalyptic; not entirely, as Judaism and Christianity, also, are not entirely apocalyptic, but a significant strain of apocalytic thinking infests all three of the Semitic religions. The Islamic State is apocalyptic. The Messianic strain of Judaism was apocalyptic. Christian Bible study groups love to ponder the Book of Revelation: Armageddon, the Great Satan; all that.
They are cousins, those religions! They share genes. Depending on where one finds oneself, in which of those traditions, all claiming Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph, whichever name in whichever language one chooses to say how great God is, all three find comfort and meaning in thinking that a great showdown is coming between good and evil, and that they are going to be on the side of the good.
It does not work to say that religion and politics are pure and unstained from each other. We have come out of a tradition in which all of history is a battleground between good and evil, and that however awful evil has become, in the end--in the imminent end--good and God will prevail, and everything will become right.
That is quite contrary to most of what we know about the world. Time is incredibly long, things evolve slowly and in spurts, nothing is ever perfect, nothing is ever best understood in absolutist terms. Things endure. Truth is a shining goal, not a present possession, and never will be.
I remember sitting in Sunday School, in a little wooden church built by a now-defunct Mennonite congregation, and moved up the hill and rechristened Lutheran, reading Sunday School materials written by fundamentalist Somebodys far away, of Moses crossing the Red Sea on foot, and of the Noah's ark and the Great Flood higher than the highest mountain by forty feet, and of the coming, great, glorious blood bath when Jesus came again with a very sharp sword to do battle with Satan and all his demonic forces, and thinking that, "The world doesn't work that way." It was a young boy thinking. "The world doesn't work that way."
Today it is not just ancient Semites who rehearse stories like Armageddon and hellfire for unbelievers. It is whole religions, half-religions, whole nations, incipient nations, and angelic choirs of believers who want to send armies to do battle with Great Satans, or the pathetic, psychotic suicide bombers, and kids who were taught to see the world the way Sunday School tried to teach me and my friends. It is a suicide mission, nonetheless.
That is no way to deal with reality. The world doesn't work that way, even if leftover Semitic zealots think it does. Seen from far enough away, time enough away, enough human sacrifice away, it is borderline madness.
So the problem is: how do we deal with this madness? We have to deal with it, but not on its own terms, because that will only mean we have gone mad, too. This is the twenty-first century, not the first, nor the last.
Apocalyptic thinking is a significant part of Judeo-Christian-Islamic thought. Jesus was apocalyptic: he thought of himself as a prophet of the end times, when the lid would be blown off and a great struggle of the end times would happen. No such luck.
The book of Revelation is apocalyptic. It is a hymn to the great battle between good and evil, soon to come. No such luck.
Islam is apocalyptic; not entirely, as Judaism and Christianity, also, are not entirely apocalyptic, but a significant strain of apocalytic thinking infests all three of the Semitic religions. The Islamic State is apocalyptic. The Messianic strain of Judaism was apocalyptic. Christian Bible study groups love to ponder the Book of Revelation: Armageddon, the Great Satan; all that.
They are cousins, those religions! They share genes. Depending on where one finds oneself, in which of those traditions, all claiming Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph, whichever name in whichever language one chooses to say how great God is, all three find comfort and meaning in thinking that a great showdown is coming between good and evil, and that they are going to be on the side of the good.
It does not work to say that religion and politics are pure and unstained from each other. We have come out of a tradition in which all of history is a battleground between good and evil, and that however awful evil has become, in the end--in the imminent end--good and God will prevail, and everything will become right.
That is quite contrary to most of what we know about the world. Time is incredibly long, things evolve slowly and in spurts, nothing is ever perfect, nothing is ever best understood in absolutist terms. Things endure. Truth is a shining goal, not a present possession, and never will be.
I remember sitting in Sunday School, in a little wooden church built by a now-defunct Mennonite congregation, and moved up the hill and rechristened Lutheran, reading Sunday School materials written by fundamentalist Somebodys far away, of Moses crossing the Red Sea on foot, and of the Noah's ark and the Great Flood higher than the highest mountain by forty feet, and of the coming, great, glorious blood bath when Jesus came again with a very sharp sword to do battle with Satan and all his demonic forces, and thinking that, "The world doesn't work that way." It was a young boy thinking. "The world doesn't work that way."
Today it is not just ancient Semites who rehearse stories like Armageddon and hellfire for unbelievers. It is whole religions, half-religions, whole nations, incipient nations, and angelic choirs of believers who want to send armies to do battle with Great Satans, or the pathetic, psychotic suicide bombers, and kids who were taught to see the world the way Sunday School tried to teach me and my friends. It is a suicide mission, nonetheless.
That is no way to deal with reality. The world doesn't work that way, even if leftover Semitic zealots think it does. Seen from far enough away, time enough away, enough human sacrifice away, it is borderline madness.
So the problem is: how do we deal with this madness? We have to deal with it, but not on its own terms, because that will only mean we have gone mad, too. This is the twenty-first century, not the first, nor the last.
Comments
Post a Comment