There’s this religious joke I heard once that struck me as mildly interesting: Why did God create Mormons? So Christians could understand how Jews feel.
Perhaps I’m simply lacking in a faith-based sense of humour, so I had to have the joke explained to me. Apparently, it’s funny because, as Christians might feel frustration due to Mormons choosing to revolutionize and stem off from the original tradition, so too do Jews feel similar frustration about the Christians.
Forgive me for making a disgustingly generalized statement, but it seems there are two ways of thinking in this world: 1) develop based on the strengths of one’s tradition, while still adhering to that tradition, or 2) revolutionize.
In the realm of organized religion, there are those individuals who strive for growth within the context of the faith with which they are most familiar.
Why reinvent the wheel? After all, even a deeply flawed tradition obviously still has many powerful and beneficial elements, otherwise it wouldn’t still be around.
This sort of reminds me of people who try to rethink what it means to be Catholic, Muslim, Hindu, etc ... and evolve themselves within those understandings and, in turn, attempt to improve those organized religions.
Then there are those who reinvent the wheel — revolutionize from what they see as broken or irrelevant. I imagine this is how many denominations come into existence and, although sometimes a bad thing, also provides much-needed refreshment and broadens the general human experience in new and adventurous ways.
Who knows, maybe some traditions are better off completely disregarded.
This is an interesting time of year. Late June/early July is fairly important in the realm of North American nationalism. Much like religion, it seems my grossly over-generalized statement could relate in this regard as well.
On Thursday, Canadians celebrated the British North America Act of 1867, which made this nation independent, but still maintaining strong ties with Britain. To this day, Canada is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations and our sovereign monarch, the Queen of Canada, is currently within our borders on another tour. Canada certainly has changed a lot over the years, becoming unique and respected, interesting and integral.
I like it here and I imagine most Canadians do as well (during summer). Yet, all our uniqueness came without abandoning our European connection, providing us a tradition of government and society dating back to the Magna Carta Libertatum.
On Sunday, our American brothers and sisters to the south will celebrate the anniversary of their great nation’s founding in 1776.
However, unlike us, theirs was a country built on revolution and abandoning the previous regime entirely in favour of something completely different.
It’s interesting and I don’t think it’s a stretch to suggest the different approaches Canada and the United States took to defining themselves in history seems, to a large degree, to have worked for either example.
Yet, as a product of a society founded in non-revolution tradition, I do sometimes wonder if the Americans envy our still-formalized link to the “Old World” when Queen Elizabeth pops in to give a royal shout out to her loyal Canadian subjects.
I suppose my American counterpart might ponder whether Canadians ever envy that U.S.-style brazen-”in your face” patriotism that could only arise from a nation that fought for independence and built a society and story completely its own.
Perhaps it’s too simplistic that I would generalize the entire human experience into two categories (but you’ll forgive me as I did so for purely rhetorical purposes). I guess any revolutionary thought still depends on elements of its predecessors, if even for mere context purposes.
For those evolved-traditional thoughts, I guess even modest changes within a pre-existing mindset depends on some sort of revolution.
I’m no theologian and I’m no political scientist. I’m certainly not about to suggest at what point (if there is such a point) it’s justified to war in defense of a tradition or to overthrow some sort of established institution. Personally, I’d just prefer these apparent conflicts could be resolved nonviolently.
Perhaps thinking in terms of nationalism and religion are what should be overthrown, as the idea of defining oneself through such margins as “Canadian,” “American,” “Christian,” “Jewish,” “Mormon” or whatever other categories exist out there, simply doesn’t make sense to a highly rational species.
Maybe the next big revolution will involve the dismantling of all systems of thought that even allow for these divisive categories.
Or, maybe we’ll build on the strengths of such concepts as “nation” and “religion” as we evolve to a new means of relating to each other and the world.
Maybe it will take a little bit of both evolution and revolution.
@Tagline:<t-8>Carter Haydu can be reached at 691-1265.
