This is a response inspired by the Catholic Science Geek's blog post of yesterday, Sunday, May 27, 2012.
Interestingly, I was once contacted by a Christian group while at Montclair's Sprague Library. It was probably by people from the same group that the CSG describes in her post. I was looking up a few books (always for fun, rarely for class) when two Hispanic students, one female and one male, stopped me to ask if I would take a survey. I said, "Sure."
The girl asked me what I knew about Passover. This was a few years after my Jewish period and my Arthurian Legend/Holy Grail period, so I was reasonably knowledgeable. They were both impressed. However, they then asked about the way to salvation. And they asserted that it was through the Passover. In the back of my Catholic-educated mind, I knew that Jesus as "the Lamb of God" was sacrificed during the Jewish Passover feast—in fact as the new Passover feast for the Christians. Catholics commemorate this feast at every Mass, when they reenact the Last Supper of Christ, when he lifted up the bread and said, "Take this all of you and eat it. This is my Body which will be given up for you," and of course, "Do this in memory of me." Furthermore, even though substituting the literal lamb of the Jewish Passover, this sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross is reenacted at Mass when the bread, "the Body of Christ," is broken and eaten by his followers.
However, the Passover of the Catholic Mass was not good enough for these people. They opened up their Scripture and pointed out to me numerous passages referring to the necessity of the Passover. I suggested, "What about attending the Jewish Passover as a Christian?" (Yes, I had once toyed with the idea of converting to Judaism and joining the Jews for Jesus.) Here, the young man stepped in and asked, "Why would you go to a Jewish Passover? Who killed Jesus?" To which I replied, "The Romans. Led on by the priests. Jesus, his mother, and his first followers were all Jewish." (But that's another post I've been working on.) Apparently, the Passover of the Jews (who had it first) was not good enough for these people, either. It was their Passover they wanted me to attend. Well, they may have been better talkers than I am and may have won the Scriptural argument, but they did not win my conviction or my attendance. (My heresy was already beginning by that point.) Like Huck Finn, I may be going to hell, but at least I'll be there with the people I care about.
One of the reasons that I've included this anecdote is because there is a fine line these days between a legitimate church and a cult. Cult is a general word in Latin for religion or devotion, and the English word keeps that connotation in academia when speaking of the Ancient Roman "cults" or "religious followings" of Adonis, Attis, Isis, etc. However, there is a certain point when a religion becomes a little non-rational. Perhaps the religion of Attis is today referred to as a cult because the priests of Attis danced madly around a pole and castrated themselves. On the other hand, perhaps it was not so irrational a cult at that time, when many practices strange to us today were connected with fertility rites.
However, there is a certain point when the ego becomes inflated, and that is irrational and can lead to danger. When humans proclaim themselves as gods, their rationality is always suspect. (Think about the lead in the water of Ancient Rome.) Cults of men who proclaimed themselves gods are nothing new, nor are they dead today. Look at the "cults" of personality that prevailed in Communist countries: Lenin, Stalin, Mao. Stalin means "man of steel" in Russian; this man had a very distinctive god-complex, even though he tore down other people's gods and Gods and persecuted them for practicing their very ancient religions.
Furthermore, in addition to modern cults, there were also ancient cults of personality. In addition to Caligula and Nero, who claimed to be gods on earth and wreaked all kinds of havoc on the Romans and their Empire, there was also Antiochus IV Epiphanes, descended from one of Alexander the Great's generals, who ruled what is now Syria and Palestine. He was made famous in the Books of the Maccabees when he attempted to install a statue of Zeus into the Temple of Jerusalem. Antiochus was one of many Seleucids who interfered with Jewish religious affairs, such as Heliodorus.
This ties into the CSG's blog post because the church that she starts out describing was founded by Ahn Sahng-hong, a man whom this church considers to be the Second Coming of Christ. It is interesting that the church in question, the World Mission Society Church of God, is based in South Korea, not too far from the border of North Korea, a country known for its cults of personality under Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jung-Il. Not to mention James Frazer's Golden Bough reference to the former King of Korea as a taboo person, forbidden to be touched because of the divine power he possessed, a common belief and practice among many peoples around the world. Perhaps there's just something in the water or the kimchi juice out there.
This reminds me of a strange piece of history that I picked up from my interest in Russian opera. Ivan the Terrible had an illegitimate son known as Dimitry of Uglich. While Dimitry was a child, he died mysteriously, either from a seizure that caused him to fall onto the daggers he had been playing with, or from an assassination, rumored to be secretly backed by the regent, Boris Godunov. Well, a few years later, when the Russian Ryurikid dynasty had run out of heirs, and Boris Godunov was ruling as Tsar, Dimitry allegedly returned to claim the throne of Russia. This Pretender Dimitry rose to power with the aid of the Polish nobility, who had their own designs on conquering Russia, so he was killed and cremated, with his ashes being molded into a cannon ball and shot back towards Poland. (In the words of Anna Russell, "I'm not making this up, you know.") However, two more successive pretenders arose, each claiming to be Dimitry. Thus, the tales say that Dimitry was supposedly killed and rose from the dead three times in Russia. Meanwhile, the real Dimitry of Uglich is venerated as a saint in the Russian Orthodox Church.
Is this what is going on now? With people claiming to be Jesus? And Mary?
Not to say that it can't happen. There are certain things beyond human comprehension, and I just have to leave a little piece of my mind open to say, "What if." And the idea that a certain leader is divine can have a powerful influence for good. Look at the power that the Dalai Lama has on those who listen to him. It can even work in a small, primal society. In ancient, or even prehistoric, times, kings were recognized as gods and regularly sacrificed to fertilize the mother goddess of the Earth (much to the kings' chagrin in later times).
But the idea that a specific person is a god or God can be very dangerous in modern society. Nazism is perhaps best understood as a sort of religion gone wrong because, to all intents and purposes, Hitler was deified and worshiped by his followers. The idea of a man worshiped as a god can inspire a zeal that can coax them into all sorts of bloody wars and crimes against humanity.
We need to be very careful when we practice or explore a religion. There is such a thing as common sense. I think that most of us have it, which is why it is called common. However, it is important to take ideas with a grain of salt and to keep both feet planted firmly on the ground. This was the example that Jesus Christ himself set forth in one of his temptations: he refused to twist Scripture out of context and cast himself down from a cliff in the hope or expectation that angels would catch him. We all should think so sensibly.
Interestingly, I was once contacted by a Christian group while at Montclair's Sprague Library. It was probably by people from the same group that the CSG describes in her post. I was looking up a few books (always for fun, rarely for class) when two Hispanic students, one female and one male, stopped me to ask if I would take a survey. I said, "Sure."
The girl asked me what I knew about Passover. This was a few years after my Jewish period and my Arthurian Legend/Holy Grail period, so I was reasonably knowledgeable. They were both impressed. However, they then asked about the way to salvation. And they asserted that it was through the Passover. In the back of my Catholic-educated mind, I knew that Jesus as "the Lamb of God" was sacrificed during the Jewish Passover feast—in fact as the new Passover feast for the Christians. Catholics commemorate this feast at every Mass, when they reenact the Last Supper of Christ, when he lifted up the bread and said, "Take this all of you and eat it. This is my Body which will be given up for you," and of course, "Do this in memory of me." Furthermore, even though substituting the literal lamb of the Jewish Passover, this sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross is reenacted at Mass when the bread, "the Body of Christ," is broken and eaten by his followers.
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| The Last Supper by Tintoretto |
One of the reasons that I've included this anecdote is because there is a fine line these days between a legitimate church and a cult. Cult is a general word in Latin for religion or devotion, and the English word keeps that connotation in academia when speaking of the Ancient Roman "cults" or "religious followings" of Adonis, Attis, Isis, etc. However, there is a certain point when a religion becomes a little non-rational. Perhaps the religion of Attis is today referred to as a cult because the priests of Attis danced madly around a pole and castrated themselves. On the other hand, perhaps it was not so irrational a cult at that time, when many practices strange to us today were connected with fertility rites.
However, there is a certain point when the ego becomes inflated, and that is irrational and can lead to danger. When humans proclaim themselves as gods, their rationality is always suspect. (Think about the lead in the water of Ancient Rome.) Cults of men who proclaimed themselves gods are nothing new, nor are they dead today. Look at the "cults" of personality that prevailed in Communist countries: Lenin, Stalin, Mao. Stalin means "man of steel" in Russian; this man had a very distinctive god-complex, even though he tore down other people's gods and Gods and persecuted them for practicing their very ancient religions.
Furthermore, in addition to modern cults, there were also ancient cults of personality. In addition to Caligula and Nero, who claimed to be gods on earth and wreaked all kinds of havoc on the Romans and their Empire, there was also Antiochus IV Epiphanes, descended from one of Alexander the Great's generals, who ruled what is now Syria and Palestine. He was made famous in the Books of the Maccabees when he attempted to install a statue of Zeus into the Temple of Jerusalem. Antiochus was one of many Seleucids who interfered with Jewish religious affairs, such as Heliodorus.
 | |
| The Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple by Gérard de Lairesse |
This reminds me of a strange piece of history that I picked up from my interest in Russian opera. Ivan the Terrible had an illegitimate son known as Dimitry of Uglich. While Dimitry was a child, he died mysteriously, either from a seizure that caused him to fall onto the daggers he had been playing with, or from an assassination, rumored to be secretly backed by the regent, Boris Godunov. Well, a few years later, when the Russian Ryurikid dynasty had run out of heirs, and Boris Godunov was ruling as Tsar, Dimitry allegedly returned to claim the throne of Russia. This Pretender Dimitry rose to power with the aid of the Polish nobility, who had their own designs on conquering Russia, so he was killed and cremated, with his ashes being molded into a cannon ball and shot back towards Poland. (In the words of Anna Russell, "I'm not making this up, you know.") However, two more successive pretenders arose, each claiming to be Dimitry. Thus, the tales say that Dimitry was supposedly killed and rose from the dead three times in Russia. Meanwhile, the real Dimitry of Uglich is venerated as a saint in the Russian Orthodox Church.
 |
| The Pious Tsarevich Saint Dimitry of Uglich. Oooo! |
Is this what is going on now? With people claiming to be Jesus? And Mary?
Not to say that it can't happen. There are certain things beyond human comprehension, and I just have to leave a little piece of my mind open to say, "What if." And the idea that a certain leader is divine can have a powerful influence for good. Look at the power that the Dalai Lama has on those who listen to him. It can even work in a small, primal society. In ancient, or even prehistoric, times, kings were recognized as gods and regularly sacrificed to fertilize the mother goddess of the Earth (much to the kings' chagrin in later times).
 |
| The Golden Bough by J.M.W. Turner. Not to be confused with Ike Turner. |
We need to be very careful when we practice or explore a religion. There is such a thing as common sense. I think that most of us have it, which is why it is called common. However, it is important to take ideas with a grain of salt and to keep both feet planted firmly on the ground. This was the example that Jesus Christ himself set forth in one of his temptations: he refused to twist Scripture out of context and cast himself down from a cliff in the hope or expectation that angels would catch him. We all should think so sensibly.
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