Oh, I'm Back in the Pulpit Again

Theology is not religion any more than geology is Exxon/Mobil. This is perhaps the most important thing I have learned since leaving the Church seven years ago. While oil companies benefit from an ongoing, comprehensive understanding of geology, unfortunately the same cannot be said of religion and theology. Indeed, organized religion and its organizers stand to gain from theologically illiterate people who are more easily manipulated, much in the same way that oil companies benefit from people who are ignorant not just in the subject of geology but more so in ecology, climatology, etc. Religion, for the most part, does not encourage intelligent theologizing by the common people, thus, to a greater or lesser degree, justifying Karl Marx’s observation that “Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions.” (-- Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right) Perhaps Marx uses religion and theology synonomously, as so many do, but it is worthy of mention here that he does not address the rational discourse about God, as theology is sometimes defined. I’m going to devote some time to this issue, because I am increasingly convinced that nearly everything we witness going awry these days is due to our theological illiteracy which is unfortunately cultivated by religion.