Institutional Religion
Religion November 25th, 2007William Blake was featured on BBC Poetry Please a few weeks back and this renewed by interest in him (beyond “The Tyger“). Blake thought of himself as a Christian but was rather against institutional religion. I know you might be thinking “institutions are not evil, only people are”, but I would say some ideas are destructive regardless of the holder of the idea. I quote an extract from Blake and italicized an example of how institutional religion can be destructive.
I stood among my valleys of the south
And saw a flame of fire, even as a Wheel
Of fire surrounding all the heavens: it went
From west to east against the current of
Creation and devourd all things in its loud
Fury & thundering course round heaven & earth
By it the Sun was rolld into an orb:
By it the Moon faded into a globe,
Travelling thro the night: for from its dire
And restless fury, Man himself shrunk up
Into a little root a fathom long.
And I asked a Watcher & a Holy-One
Its Name? he answerd. It is the Wheel of Religion
I wept & said. Is this the law of Jesus
This terrible devouring sword turning every way
He answerd; Jesus died because he strove
Against the current of this Wheel…William Blake
Another point is we can consider institutional religion and personal religion separately. Criticism of the institution of the church is not meant to offend since this does not automatically exclude personal religious belief. However, I think Blake would consider non-institutional belief a minority. In Christianity, what Jesus said in the gospels (or strictly what we was reported to say) and what the church as become are quite separate.
Anti Citizen One
PS Although written by an atheist, the first movie version of “His Dark Materials” is out soon, which chimes with Blake’s view.
November 26th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
Anti-Institutional sentiment is nothing new in secular circles. And certain Protestant Sects at the time of the reformation developed a localised anti-institutional view.
It really depends uopn what degree of institutionalisation you are talking about.
The Catholic Church is an institution on an international level with a clearly defined heirarchy and centralized control of official doctrine.
The Eastern Orthodox Churches (although in communion with each other) are independent (what is called autocephalous) and are nationally or culturally divided. Thus the Russian Orthodox Church has no authority over say the Ukrainian, Armenian, Georgian churches (more relevant an issue when those countries were part of the Russian and Soviet Empires. Consequently these churches are a mix between being heirarchical and synodal (governed by a parliament). Synodal churches tend to be run by a mixture of clergy and laity.
The unity between the Orthodox churches is defined by their adherence to the tenets of the 7 Ecumenical Councils. But beyond that each Church has a general independence from the other, thus some cultural differences are obvious (In Russia for example divorce and remarriage in Church is permitted up to two times).
The Protestant Churches are even less institutionalised. Some called ‘Episcopalians’ consider themselves ‘reformed Catholics’ thus maintaining an heirarchy of sorts (i.e. the Archbishop of Canterbury). Others such as the Presbyterians are indepedent community run Churches who generally cluster with other ‘like-minded’ communities.
Others like the Society of Friends (the Quakers) are totally independent, existing as isolated communities, with little or no centralised or institutionalised control. Furthermore quaker services (non-ritualised) are entirely controlled and formulated by the community itself.
Quakers could be considered a non-institutional, non-heirarchical, consensus based broad church.
In other words each individual may formulate their own belief, and the collective beliefs are based solely on minimal consensual adherence. (In quakerism it is either a belief in the divine imminence within, or in a general ethical code) – (Thus atheist Quakers exist alongside explicitly Christian quakers).
This is only the Christian example but parallels cna be found in Buddhism, the institutional Tibetan branch as compared to the non-institutional and quite postmodern Zen variety.
Blakes poem reminds me of Dostoevskys the Grand Inquisitor story found in The Brothers Karamazov. Yet Dostoevsky would have adhered to my tenet that ‘institutions cannot be sinful, individuals can’.
It is positive to read an atheist saying that his objection is against the institution rather than personally held belief. And I think conflict often arises out of a confusion between the two.
It is easy to see why institutional religion can be criticised. After all an individual who holds individual beliefs can be criticised individually. But an institution that represents many can be seen as a collusion of the many, a conspiracy of silence or inaction when the institution is wrong.
However my opinion is that every institution is a facade for individuals. These people uphold it, maintain it, define it and so on. Thus when the institution (lets say the Inquisition) acts in a morally reprehensible manner, rather than condemn Catholicism in its entirety lets apply a bit of postmodern deconstruction and try to understand the roots of this moral evil.
In the case of the Inquisition there are a large number of individuals who can be named, who furthered the aims and causes of the Inquisition for their personal gain, or for the consolidation of their personal power. Amongst the guilty are a number of Popes, but particular Pope Innocent VIII, The King of Spain, King Philip the Fair of France (who destroyed the Knights Templars and used the Inquisition to defame them, and as history has shown solely for the purpose of claiming their lands, castles and wealth as forfeit), and the nefarious Kramer and Sprenger authors of Malleus Maleficarum (The Witches Hammer) that started the 200 odd year witch scare.
The influence that these individuals had over the institution and thus over society as a whole was enormous.
The advantages of institutional religion (that they would claim for themselves) are many. The important ones though are:
1) The building of a community, an action that mirrors human behaviour and human institutions including families, circles of friendship, residences, nations, politicla parties, trade unions etc.
2) The centralisation or normalisation of belief. Defining what is orthodox (correct) and heterodox (different). – Some see this as a disadvantage, but the initial motivation in this sphere of action is coherence and clarity of belief.
To conclude with there are two points that I would like considered.
Firstly Christian tradition (which revolves to a greater or lesser extent around the scriptures, be it literal or allegorical interpretation) holds that there is something valuable in ‘collective’ belief over ‘individual’ belief. Thus although it states in the Gospels about God listening to the individual praying privately in his room, there is another text that says ‘Wherever two or more are gathered in my name, there I am’. Then there is the exhortation to the disciples to ‘do this in remembrance of me’.
Both of these texts whether taken as literal events or allegorically seem to infer that a ritual and a collective identity are best.
The second point is: are all institutions bad? For this I want three short sup-points considered.
a) The ‘early church’ that is described in the Acts of the Apostles, has always been the model that every Christian institution has sought to mimic. Every Church with its different degrees of institution desperately try to recreate the early Church, which had such practises as quoted here: “The entire group of believers held everything in common, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions.” So the idea is that there is a ‘model institution’ that every one strains to mimic. That a good form of institutional religion can exist. And ultimately this point should lead us to consider is an institution immovable, or is it capable of change and reform (for better and worse)?
b) A religious institution is much like any other institution. It is human made, and human led. Amnesty International for example (if we forget its religious roots and heritage) is a secular charitable institution. It is not an individualistic entity, but a community. A community who hold and share certain principles. A community that has some form of governance, and varying degrees of activity. So again this begs the question why is institutional religion bad, but charitable institutions are not? (in other words is an opposition to institutional religion really just an expression of your personal dislike for it?)
c)Finally an institution provides in times of oppression a better bastion of defence than would otherwise exist. It is if you like a ‘trade union’ that unites religious believers in those situations where (as in Soviet Russia) an aggresively secular/atheist government seeks to abolish religion, by closing its buildings, killing its heirarchy, and dispersing and demoralizing its adherents (not to mention barring them from employment and other social benefits). That fact believers could all see each other suffering, gave them strength to resist the state’s persecution of them. If religion was solely a private thing how would anyone know that you needed help and support in the face of persecution, doubts, crisis of faith etc?
November 26th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
Just to add to point (c). The advantage of institutionalised religion, the idea of community is a defence not only against possible persecution from atheist/secular states and governments but also from imperialist/colonial invasion of other cultures. Thus in Africa the spread of Islam is resisted in particular by Christianity, and in some Moslem countries, where Christians are rated as second class citizens, the institutional basis of the Christian church gives its adherents a sense of strength in numbers.
The same can be applied in reverse and in a secular context as well.
An institution serves its members and can be a vital focus of resistance to oppression (in whatever form it emerges).
November 26th, 2007 at 6:49 pm
Just a few clarifications (while resisting the temptation for dialog):
I was using “institutional religion” in the broadest Blakeian sense – a group of people who agree on a religious idea. Perhaps my application of this term was misleading. My point was not “institutional religion is bad” but institutional religion is separate from personal religion. Also that one may criticize all institutional religion and still be religious.
People also might notice how little time Jesus was in any temples and how little he agreed with the religious authorities. If he is a role model for Christians, it seems strange to me that they do the opposite. At least that is the way I interpret Blake.
AC1
November 26th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
Thanks for the clarification. On the first part I agree, religious belief, and institutional religion are not mutually exclusive. You can have one without the other.
The best example is the Pharisee in the temple, who stands at the front where everyone can see him and prays outloud saying ‘thankyou God for making me a righteous man unlike these other sinners.’ Whereas hidden at the back of the Temple is the tax collector (who works for the Romans and is therefore ritually unclean, the moral equivalent of a leper) who prays silently.
The second point is a little more contentious. In the gospels it is reported that he is an observant Jew who attends synagogue frequently.
Although you are correct he was in conflict with the Pharasaical party, who at that time were the dominant school of thought in the Jewish leadership (but by no means the only one).