The Mirage

The millennial hope of so much of the contemporary world’s faith is beginning to take clearer form as an illusion. The mirage is more clearly a mirage. The spiritual alarm has been sounded: forces have been gathering just beyond the walls, just beyond the gates.

We see that our well-ordered texts, beautiful sermons and peaceful illusions that oiled the mechanism of our social order will ultimately be ineffective to thwart the powers that we see, now silhouetted against the horizon. Insulated so long, having become comfortable in what we thought was a lasting construction, we were blind to destructive power within the creativity and discoveries emerging even within our community. What we built as firm footing seems to be dissolving beneath our feet. We stand on these melting bastions, facing an overwhelming loss of the pleasant innocence of our beliefs, nervously wondering what to do.

The origin stories of the world created by a divine being and a special covenant deeding the rule of man over the beasts, women, and the Earth itself are withering before us like last season’s wildflowers, disintegrating back into the soil and taking our unshaken beliefs along with them. History shows that all monuments, all structures eventually succumb to a process of change. The greatest of cities, the heavy stones of pyramids, and the magnificent arches of Rome are now crumbling piles. Soon to follow will be the cathedrals, temples and mosques, the physical representations of the crumbling spiritualities that built them.

Though the alarm has been heard, what do we do… and with what? Perhaps, one suggests that we reinforce the gates with more of what is at hand. More wood, more stone, more of the materials with which the spirituality was constructed? A more glorious god, more important covenant, easier salvation, an even happier heaven? Yet more is not enough, as the very materials themselves seem to be dissolving. Like a mirage of water to a thirsty soul, it is a problem that cannot be solved with the illusions that created it. Even by shoring up the illusion that they could.

Another voice chimes in: “Force it!” Others applaud and with much scurrying around within the woodwork, explosives are gathered, sights are aimed, and the profession of terror rises as a branch of government or a rebellious underground. Dominicans burned disbelievers alive over roaring fires, Islamic jihadists exploded Shiites like popcorn on hot city streets, Pope Gregory XIII took great pleasure when 2000 French Protestants were dragged to their death by Christian mobs, and Catholics and Jews were lynched by the Ku Klux Klan.

Perhaps it is mere human decency, a shred of guilt, or a glimmer of moral sense that exists apart from religion, which purses its lips and says “No”. Or perhaps it is because time has shown that forcing our ways over others will always produce a stubborn resistance that ultimately finds its way to survive. So we stand there, thinking through these ultimate insufficiencies, incapable of choosing between them.

Another voice speaks. “Adapt” is heard. With a heavy sigh, the difficult decision is made. It has been a choice taken many times. The history of faith divulges a history of adaptation. Christian theologians, for instance, provide an example of faith’s ability to incorporate and amend their religious stories to kept abreast of the knowledge and experience of a growing humanity. From the Christianity that first emerged came one that was even newer, and then another that was newer upon that, and yet even more came. Yet always there was a god, a heaven, a promise of salvation, and a special covenant deeding authority of the Earth to man, beliefs upon which so many of the world’s spiritualities rest.

Yet from where we stand, we can see these beliefs fading before us like fog. The illusion of awareness, order and process that smoothed the relationships, even between ourselves, is dissipating into an emptiness where our faith once rested. The bastion of so many of the world’s spiritualities: god, heaven, salvation and covenant, is disappearing beneath us.

There is a point where adaptation is no longer sufficient. Not that change is inadequate, but such adaptation eventuates in something that is not only dissimilar, but is no longer the same. When the cornerstones of god, heaven, salvation and covenant melt, can it be said that the faiths that are constructed with such illusions remain? A Christianity without god? An Islam without heaven? A Judaism without a covenant? Any of these without salvation?

The mirage is more clearly a mirage. If the vision was of a pool of clear water, the certitude of a thirsty soul is perplexedly slipping into the sand.