Second House on the Right - Religio-Sensualism

My dear, dear reader,

Benjamin Disraeli was a British Prime Minister in the late 19th century. I share this with you, not to bore you with trivia, but to provide some context for a quote of his that I recently found: "Every religion of the beautiful ends in orgy."

At first glance, this quote seems rather strange - humans are, in general, fond of beautiful things. We are attracted to them out of some sense that beauty is fitting, providing some intangible benefit to our senses and our souls. Thus, it would seem odd to assert that a "religion of the beautiful" would end in orgy. For that matter, what the heck is a "religion of the beautiful" anyway? Is it worship of beauty? Is it some sort of lust for beauty? Or is it simply the idea that the traditions and rituals of any given religion can gild over that which is commemorated until it is forgotten? It seems that any of these could apply, the result is the same.

Clearly, any time a religious group focuses their worship on the consecrated thing rather than on that to which that thing is consecrated, the group loses sight of its purpose. The craze for that which is material that soon follows could, I suppose, be called orgy. Ultimately, this craze turns into a sort of religio-sensualism.

An example of what I mean is in order. Let's take the example of sex among young people in the church. Statistically, young people in the church are equally likely, if not more likely, to engage in some sort of sexual activity as those outside the church. In itself, this is nothing to marveled at - all humans have similar biological instincts. The difference, of course, is that young people in the church are consistently given talks, books, pamplets, lectures, and videos about abstinence, purity, call it what you will. Given this, one would assume that at least some of this teaching would wear off on young people, that there would at least be a marginal difference in the statistics between churched and unchurched. This is not the case.

Perhaps the main reason for this phenomenon is that the church, especially charismatic churches, are giving their youth mixed messages. On the one hand, young people are inculcated with the idea that, to be truly Christian, physical discipline is essential. And scripturally, this injunction is sound. On the other hand, youth are told to throw off inhibitions so that they may more fully experience - and that is a key word, experience - the workings and movings of the Holy Spirit. In youth services, a spiritual sensualism is encouraged: one must feel the presence of God, one must experience some state of religious ecstasy. I am not condemning this, how one worships one's Creator is highly personal. I am, however, arguing that, if the church truly wishes its young people to be sexually pure, it must clearly delineate between physical discipline and spiritual freedom. And it must be sure that the "spiritual experience" does not become an end unto itself, that the beauty of a spiritual encounter does not replace the beauty of that which was encountered, that a beautiful religion does not become a religion of the beautiful.

I must apologize to my (few) readers for this excessively lengthy and depressingly somber post and its rather specialized message. I suppose it was a cloudy day in the Cul-de-Sac.

Yours,
Mr. Windsor

P.S. For cloudy days, I recommend darker teas: Earl Grey, Irish Breakfast, even a little English Breakfast are good choices. I would strongly urge against drinking herbal teas on cloudy days, although chamomile is occasionally acceptable.