Thought vs. feeling in religion
RELIGION SERVES two functions. It explains the mysteries of life. It helps overcome life's difficulties. Preachers who have influence are like good teachers, in the first case, or like motivational speakers, in the second. The powers of intellect are in tension here with emotional fervor. As happiness itself depends on vital interaction between thought and feeling, good religion achieves a balance between these polarities. The conflict between them was on display when Pope Benedict XVI arrived last week in Brazil.
Such are the stresses of life in the present generation that more and more people are looking to religion for the emotional boost they need to get through the day. The root meaning of "enthusiasm" is to be inspired by God, as the root of "ecstasy" is to be lifted out of oneself. Rapture, bliss, exaltation, the surprise of joy -- these are descriptions of the high excitement that can come with certain kinds of religious experience, and they are much sought after. Enthusiasm is an escape, and there is much to escape from.
The decline of mainstream churches, with their often dry and emotionally sterile approaches to worship, is one measure of this, but so is astounding growth of megachurches, engaging millions of Christians around the globe. Megachurch liturgies, speaking generally, are more like rock concerts than like traditional worship services, and the sermons are more like pep talks than discourses. The intense delight of group experience, whether through singing or moving to a raucous beat or trading the call-and-shout with the preacher, is valued over solitary contemplation. Labeled as evangelical, pentecostal, or charismatic, these transporting movements are mostly associated with fundamentalist Protestant denominations, but other churches, including Anglican and Roman Catholic, have their enthusiastic versions , too. These forms thrive especially in Africa, Latin America, and parts of Asia.
When it comes to emotional religion, the cerebral Benedict is the skeptic-in-chief, with a long history of warnings against the flight from rationality. Brazil is a world center of fervent pentecostal devotion, but in his visit the pope stayed away from it. From his circle came cautions against thinking of religion as entertainment. But the temperamental reserve of Northern Europe, like the predisposition of an academic theologian, is an inadequate basis on which to criticize the charismatic piety that has taken hold throughout the Southern Hemisphere. The issue is not whether praying people sway or lift their hands or close their eyes or give themselves over to group elation. The issue is what they pray for, what values they attach to their fervor, how their religion makes them behave.
In the United States, the megachurch movement is solidly aligned on one side of the culture wars. Suspicion of enlightenment assumptions, like the need for critical reading of texts or the notion of an evolving universe, is a mark of most new-breed evangelical religion. Megachurch preaching targets homosexuality and feminism. The flip side of rapture is an aggressive anti-intellectualism. The reason to oppose this American manifestation of religious enthusiasm is not just because it's bad religion: it's bad culture and politics, too.
In Latin America, impoverished people depend on religion for meaning and hope, but it is important that their beliefs not reinforce what keeps them impoverished. A piety that emphasizes rewards in heaven, downplaying the significance of the here and now, can do this. Fundamentalist religion has such tendencies, and should be criticized for them. But Latin American religion, even while increasingly fervent, can be expressly political. The Gospel is centrally a call to justice, and poor people throughout the continent are hearing it that way. The "base community" movement, spawned by Liberation Theology, is emotionally expressive and intellectually vital. Base communities -- grass-roots worship groups within a top-down church -- are explanatory and motivational centers both. When the critical mind and unleashed emotions come together in enthusiastic religion centered on social change (we saw this in the US civil rights movement), the results can be as politically transforming as they are spiritually transporting.
Therefore, regarding what he saw in Brazil, Pope Benedict's skepticism toward religious enthusiasm is not nearly as significant as his long-established opposition to Liberation Theology. By silencing and banishing its intellectual leaders, the pope has been undermining the crucial connection between thought and feeling that keeps religion humane. He has been shoring up the power and wealth of that tiny oligarchy that cannot stand a growing mass of believers who see God as aligned with the poor, their religion as a mode less of rapture than of justice.
James Carroll's column appears regularly in the Globe. 
