This series could easily go on forever—one idea leading to another until it was miles from where it started. But I think it's time to try to round it off.
"I pray this way because I am a Quaker, or a Benedictine, or a Protestant."
As you may or may not recall, I began the series in response to a claim that religious people have more access to mystery than non-religious people.
That claim does not hold up. Our contact with mystery is a daily, given, thing. We can be aware of it, or not, but calling it Jesus doesn't make me any more (or less) aware of it, or give me any more insight into it, than calling it Reality, or The Universe, or String Theory.
Mystery, by definition, is what we don't have wired—the reality beyond our categories.
Insofar as we mistake our model for the reality, no matter what the model is, we are out of touch with mystery.
Whatever I call it, I either am aware of the inadequacy of my categories, or I am not. The truth is that we all are not, most of the time.
Religious categories are no more exempt from this than scientific categories. In fact, the case could be made in the other direction.
A scientist could claim that science proceeds precisely by looking for, and trying to explain anomalies—places where scientific models and theories are clearly inadequate to the reality.
A scientist could claim that religion is content to hold tight to tradition, that religion uses mystery as an excuse to avoid thinking about mystery, that it clings to ignorance as a kind of proof of humility.
A scientist could claim that science practices real humility by constantly probing the depths of its own ignorance, by actively searching out mystery and seeking ever deeper disclosures.
That scientist would be right about some scientists, and wrong about others.
There are scientists who work and think that way, and there are scientists who are complacent and arrogant. There are scientists who are complacent and arrogant in some areas, and humble, and searching, in others. This is because scientists are human beings.
Likewise, that scientist would be right about some religious people, and wrong about others.
Even among fundamentalists, there are those who are in touch with mystery from a religious point of view. It's my conviction, partly because it was my experience, that they don't stay fundamentalist long. But I can testify that they do exist.
On the other hand there are many moderates who are very in touch with mystery, and many who are not. Some are complacent and arrogant in some areas, while being humble, and searching, in others. They, too, are human beings.
We humans are a mixed bag.
I've addressed the personal level first, for two reasons.
The original claim was on the personal level. It was the claim that religion gave individuals a better contact with mystery.
Also, this is a personal question for me. Many of my friends are religious, and many are not. Some, like me, used to be religious and now are not. At least one used to be, then wasn't, and now is again. Try as I might, I cannot see, among them, any correlation between religion, or lack of it, and access to mystery. My religious friends seem to have as much access as my non-religious friends, and vice versa.
But, of course, there is another level—the level of the enterprises themselves. Do the theories and methods of religion give a greater "technical" insight into mystery than the theories and methods of science? Are they a way of understanding it better, or dealing with it better, in a theoretical sense?
What, if anything, does religion do better than science?
Here is where the different realms of knowledge come in.
In order to minimize confusion, I'm going to narrow the discussion in two ways. I'm going to talk mostly about conservative to middle of the road Christianity, because that's the territory I know. And, I'm going to exclude the elephant in the room from the conversation for a moment.
Outside of God, what is the knowledge and theory of religion about?
The answer seems to lie in three areas: community, spirituality, and morality. Most of the information shared, discussed, taught, or passed on in the average church—be it Baptist, Foursquare, Presbyterian, Catholic, or any other—is related to one of these three topics. And two out of the three are unarguably cultural.
Questions of mores and community are questions about how we agree to live together.
Even Spirituality is largely dealt with as a cultural matter. The disciplines of the inner life are largely designed to keep that life in step with the life of the community. Prayer and meditation are often group activities, and even when they aren't, the forms (the Lord's Prayer, the Jesus Prayer, Lexio Devina, or even just the unnamed patterns of any fundamentalist's prayer life) are those of the community and its traditions.
They differ from church to church, and knowledge of the appropriate ones is knowledge of ones particular religious culture. I pray this way because I am a Quaker, or a Benedictine, or a Protestant.
The further a church is from fundamentalism, the more willingly it will acknowledge this, and acknowledge that there are other ways, other cultures, which are also valid.
This stands in stark contrast to scientific knowledge. The vast majority of the information shared, discussed, taught, or passed on in science is about the nature of the outside world, or about ways of finding out more about the nature of the outside world.
The focus of the two enterprises are markedly different in this respect.
But I can already hear the objection, coming from the religious side of the auditorium:
"Isn't that just because you're ignoring the elephant? You forget what all this cultural information is about. It's all about God, who is not only a part of that outside world, but the single most important thing about it."
So, there needs to be one last segment in this series.
Stay tuned.
