The Return of Faith

What is occurring in US ( and global ) politics today is a retest of the validity of faith as the guiding principle for society. This is a "retest" because, as is sometimes forgotten, we humans have been down this road before. Our current, arguably quite turbulent situation today has arisen out of a time of greater devotion to religion than now exists. To be clear, our current more secular world has arisen out of a time of faith. Have you considered this?

Why did this social evolution occur? Why did we swing toward a secular world, our secular world today, and away from a faith-centered society? A complete answer would have to include the fact that the previous world of faith that our predecessors constructed upon a foundation of even more primitive understandings caused much suffering for many. Hence, we left that world eagerly, to found the largely secular world we now live in.

Few people today know of ("remember"?) the privations of that time a few centuries ago. These days we are not well educated about history. Those that do know of those times often mistakenly believe that era's suffering occurred simply because that society was more primitive. "We won't have those problems now," some might exclaim confidently. Not many people correlate the deficiencies of those societies with their beliefs and systems of faith. Rather, the common lament today is that our world lacks faith of those bygone times and suffers consequently. Nothing could be further from truth.

Central to this cultural disconnect is a failure to regard belief as supersitition. Few people celebrate superstition; after all, the word itself implies ignorance and a fear-based understanding. Instead most believers view their personal system of belief as the one truth that rises above the numerous superstitions and misunderstandings otherwise filling the world. It seems having a belief requires the suspension of any intelligent inquiry that might ask: am I just as entranced as those others whom I see are living in ignorance, misunderstanding, and even sin? Might I be as oblivious or in denial as they seem to be?

Of course, if the problems of our world don't come from our secular society, out of what do they arise? A short answer includes a smorgasboard of trans-generational neglect, abuse, ignorance and persisting socially-approved exploitation. Faith and belief seem at best conscripts to the conflicts this banquet nourishes. Yet, so seductive are faith and belief that we now have a growing outcry to restore a social arrangement based upon these factors.

Today we hear and see faith again waxing amid considerable resistance and clamor from secular influences. And there is some momentum to this trend, enough perhaps for the tide of faith and religion to again dominate human culture as it once did. It seems the lessons from faith's last reign have been forgotten and need to be relearned.

One comfort in this process is that any reversion to faith will likely persist over a much shorter period than it did previously. It seems possible, if not likely, a new framing for society will manifest, built from the strongest and most universal elements of all the religions in combination with an enlightened secularism. With this accomplishment will come new and unanticipated glories for mankind, and of course new challenges.