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| quote: | Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
That's like saying where else does political indoctrination begin other than within societies.
Religious communities are everywhere - they aren't all the Vatican or al-Qaeda sleeper cells.
The novel "City of God" by E.L. Doctorow highlights what I think is the healthiest variety of religious community possible - where a group of people gather to discuss the theological issues most troubling to them. Where they acknowledge that universal answers are too difficult, and aid each other in approaching these questions from a personal perspective. The role of a Priest/Pastor is in my mind not a teacher; but a facilitator of religious thought. |
All very nice in theory, but can you name an instance in history where the preistly caste have actually performed the role of "facilitators of religious thought" rather than leaders who claim to have a unique and privilaged insight into the mind of the divine?
I recently read "The Gnostic Gospels" by Elaine Pagels (highly recommended, btw) and she makes the point that one of the main reasons that "orthodox" Chrsitianity won out over gnostic Christianity in the early years of the faith, was the fact that orthodox theology lent itself to the creation of a central organisation (in the form of the church) and gnostic theology did not (due to its emphasis on personal rather than apostolic revolation - presumably something quite close to what you're talking about). This central organisation was obviously useful in the formation of a common, universal doctrine, which in turn helped facilitate the spread of the faith. Entrance into the early Catholic chruch required only a Baptism and the recitation of some pledge (the name of which escapes me now), whereas entrance into the gnostic faith often required the onerous investment of years of study and spiritual guidance, obviously not a system likely to lend itself to rapid, widespread conversions. On the other hand, though, it was a system that lent itself to spiritual autonomy and the creation of an attentive, nurturing priestly caste: I think we can both probably lament the fact that the proto-Catholics won.
In truth, Catholicism is hardly unique in this regard: the most successful faiths on the planet that presently come to mind all lend themselves to an organisation that involves a distinction between the priestly caste and the laity, a system which inevitably ends up with the suppression and disenfranchisement of the latter. This is even true for many faiths that do not formally recognise the necessity of a priestly caste for religious expression (e.g. Sunni Islam, Protestantism, Buddhism etc.). So, as much as I may agree with your ideal of "the healthiest variety of religious community" being that in which "a group of people gather to discuss the theological issues most troubling to them", in practice that can never happen: historically, the most successful religious doctrines have always been those best equipped to attain (and retain) power over the laity.
You brought up the counter-example of political indoctrination, and I think you're right: as with religion, the most successful political movements have (historically) been those that are most efficiently able to impose themselves into positions of political power. However, the advent of democracy (and its attendent system of checks and balances) means that the dangers of political indoctrination are not quite so immediate as in the case of religion, where the equivalent processes do not exist. In no religious doctrine that I am familiar with do the laity have the capacity to challenge the wisdom or the power of the priestly caste without running the very real risk of expulsion from their religious community, something unthinkable in a democratic political system. Given that religion - by its nature - doesn't lend itself to the sort of revolutions which gave politics its democracy, I think that your ideal of a major religion ever organising its theology along Socratic (rather than dogmatic) lines is never likely to happen.
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