Oh, would that I could afford to support worthy writers!
"Some years ago I copied into my notebook an aphorism from a Russian writer called V.V. Rozanov: 'All religions will pass, but this will remain: simply sitting in a chair and looking in the distance.' ...It is in the nature of humans to do this; in us, life has started to ask questions about itself.
"...The folly of subjecting the religious passion to the politics of power is that it cannot be controlled in this way and refuses to be subject to external direction. I suspect that this is what the writer and film-maker Dennis Potter had in mind when he said just before his death: 'Religion to me has always been the wound not the bandage.' This is a particularly difficult statement for religious officials to live with, especially if they work for religions of salvation. By definition, religions of salvation are in the bandage business; they have come to heal our wounds. They do not sit alongside us in the chair looking in the distance, comparing points of view; they want to protect us from what we might discover for ourselves, by telling us what the official view is and how dangerous it will be for us if we do not accept it. Or, to mix the metaphor slightly, they want to sell us their special spectacles, which have been theologically tested by experts to give us maximum power for long-distance looking."
That's the opening to former-Bishop Richard Holloway's book Doubts and Loves: What is Left of Christianity. Which I wants. Along with the rest of his swag of publications, with names like Godless Morality: Keeping Religion out of Ethics. I am heartened by the discovery of his existence. It's always nice when you come across a book that gets you excited after reading the contents page and skimming the index.
Oh Katherine, you're so earnest. Meh.
Here's the article that brought him to my attention.
"...The folly of subjecting the religious passion to the politics of power is that it cannot be controlled in this way and refuses to be subject to external direction. I suspect that this is what the writer and film-maker Dennis Potter had in mind when he said just before his death: 'Religion to me has always been the wound not the bandage.' This is a particularly difficult statement for religious officials to live with, especially if they work for religions of salvation. By definition, religions of salvation are in the bandage business; they have come to heal our wounds. They do not sit alongside us in the chair looking in the distance, comparing points of view; they want to protect us from what we might discover for ourselves, by telling us what the official view is and how dangerous it will be for us if we do not accept it. Or, to mix the metaphor slightly, they want to sell us their special spectacles, which have been theologically tested by experts to give us maximum power for long-distance looking."
That's the opening to former-Bishop Richard Holloway's book Doubts and Loves: What is Left of Christianity. Which I wants. Along with the rest of his swag of publications, with names like Godless Morality: Keeping Religion out of Ethics. I am heartened by the discovery of his existence. It's always nice when you come across a book that gets you excited after reading the contents page and skimming the index.
Oh Katherine, you're so earnest. Meh.
Here's the article that brought him to my attention.
posted by Kat | 9/18/2008 01:15:00 pm
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