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Wednesday, 21 June 2006 03:47 |
 | | Marc Mullinax |
?®We??re all prostitutes; some of us have higher prices, and some of us walk the streets.?∆
?ÿ
To the Editor:
SEOUL, South Korea ?? When you, the editor of this newspaper, were at my home recently, one of the things we talked ?± joked, actually ?± about was my compensation for writing. I asked you to double my pay. We both smiled. Since I get nothing for writing for you, we agreed to a doubling of my pay.
Editor,
I don??t want to be paid. For then, you would be my employer. I am
grateful that you allow me to write freely about important issues:
exploring with words, digging with a pen, and poking with metaphors,
always testing the boundaries of faith, belief, ethics and commitments.
If you paid me, Mr. Editor, then in effect I would write ?®for?∆ you. You
might then be able to influence the content of these weekly 600-word
efforts. Even though we might agree on everything, we both know that
?®ain??t gonna?? happen.?∆
This column is dedicated to the proposition that thought is free: it??s
the only gas worth breathing. I offer only a spiritual shovel. There??s
a lot of spiritual BS lying out there, masquerading as truth. The
problem is that none of us ?± not a single one of us ?± suspects that any
spiritual BS resides within us.
Spiritual/Religious BS smells the worst, is most toxic and its bearer is the last to smell it.
Perhaps the No. 1 way we avoid our BS is to wrap our ?®business?∆ in the
cloaks, flags, creeds and texts of respectability. The drive for
respectability, according to Asheville??s own Thomas Wolfe, is a ?®deadly
hankering.?∆
When every religion worth its name first emerged, it was a
countercultural movement. It was looked down upon, hated by authorities
and you wouldn??t want your children to marry someone of that religion.
But along the way, these counter-cultural movements learned that to rub
strongly against the cultural grain meant they did not grow
numerically, nor survive the first-generation of believers.
So each faith surviving today has made a Devil??s pact for
Respectability. Each one has sold its soul; in exchange for numerical
success it has had to deal away the heart of what made it distinctive
in its infancy. When no one reflects on why they profess their faith,
then they have lost touch with their faith??s roots.
One can tell when this happens in each faith ?± the martyrdoms stopped, or the faith became the de facto/jure law of the land.
Faiths, to be ?®successful,?∆ have to ignore their origins and
distinctives that separate them from the other spiritual paths. In
Christianity, this respectability most often comes by ignoring the life
of Jesus. Christian history has trended away from focusing upon the
passion that informed Jesus?? life (and got him killed), and instead
focus on the Passion: the actual surface details of his death. What an
exchange!
Thus, Christianity does not trust the Jesus of its history, especially
his words on peace, self-sacrifice and loving enemies. Church history
testifies to more energy devoted to shielding the faith from the world,
through creeds, theologies and hierarchy, and killing all who got in
its holy way. Sure, the church is safer from attack, but has it
domesticated the wild magic of its founder? Have we made an uneasy
truce, exchanging authenticity for respectability?
When a faith gets defended by the mighty and powerful and its
addictive, powdered death called Respectability gets snorted by the
faithful, it becomes no different or distinguishable from any other
club. For every faith, the No. 1 and most popular way for a movement to
lose its voice is to gain a domestic and safe respectability.
So, my Editor, don??t dare pay me. Maybe I should pay you? Would that keep me off the streets?
Your prostitute,
Marc Mullinax
?ÿ
Dr. Marc S.
Mullinax, chairman of the philosophy and religion departments at Mars
Hill College, can be reached at mmullinax-at-mhc.edu.
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