Monday, September 25, 2023

It is the 25th of September 2023. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org, I’m Dan van Voorhis.

Hey there. Happy Monday. This is the day I take one of your questions (you can send me yours at danv@1517.org), and I try to answer it.

So- I got an email from Dennis in Dallas. Now- I could tell you something about the greater Dallas Fort Worth Area- like, how 7-11 was founded in the suburb of Oak Cliff. But… well, this was Dennis Klembara. And I thought… not… Denny Klembara, the Quarterback at Youngstown State, whose 403 total yards against Navy and Heisman Winner Roger Staubach is still a Penguin record. Denny Klembara then won an essay contest to compete against Staubach at halftime during a Cowboys game (Staubach, being a legendary Cowboy QB) and Denny got revenge by beating the star at a skills contest. Yup, it’s that Dennis Klembara. 

He asked: “My guess is that a majority of high school graduates don’t really know much about the basics of most any world religion. I was in that category when I graduated from high school… I knew about my own faith when I was growing up, but little about others (even within the Christian faith)

Wouldn’t it be better if they knew some of the basic tenets (referenced with footnotes from respective books of faith) upon entering the adult world?

There are, after-all, billions of people in the world who are religious. Religions play a mammoth part in what is going on in the world.”

Yes! And this is something I have thought about and taught for a number of years. So, the question is- how do we do it? First, we need to define religion- because there are a lot of them! “Religion” likely comes from a word meaning “to bind together.” But lots of things “bind us together,” so maybe we mean bind us together regarding existential existence. It’s got to answer a human need for understanding our significance and the world.

And while I mentioned this recently, I have found that we can bundle “religions” or “systems that give ultimate meaning” into three categories. Mythology, Theology, and Philosophy. And we all use all three, but the question is: which ones and what has priority?

Mythologies are the stories we tell ourselves and others about how we got here and how we should live. There is national mythology, family mythology, not to mention ancient mythologies or people who take theologies and make them mythologies. What do I mean by that?

Theologies can be isolated by being a system that gives existential answers rooted in revelation- it could be a person, a prophet, or a text. They are inherently historical, or at least claim to be. Think Judaism, Islam, and, of course, Christianity. By calling them “theologies” rooted in history, we aren’t yet to make truth claims about them, but categorizing them by what they claim to be.

And lastly, philosophy. That is, using the human mind to explore questions of existential significance. This can be Greek, Roman, Enlightenment, folk philosophy, or what people might think is “common sense”.

I think we would do well to understand we probably use all three things to give our lives meaning. And that we can map out world “religious” movements using this threefold distinction. All three are useful. And then, as Christians, we can take great comfort in the first chapters of each of the Gospels. That is the eternal Word of God. Very God of Very God would enter into human history, into time and space.

I think, Dennis, that this is a helpful scheme for teaching world religions- respecting the ways in which people have sought ultimate meaning and also to stress for the Christian what the apostle Paul wrote- that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus isn’t a mythology or philosophy and did not happen in a corner- but rather, in time and space.

And one last note: if you get the sense that today’s “religions” seem different from the older ones- I think you might be right. And my friend Dave Zahl has written a book “Seculosity: How Career, Parenting, Technology, Food, Politics, and Romance Became Our New Religion And What To Do About It.”

Thanks for your question, Dennis, aka Human Howitzer, and I hope that scheme might help you (and others) think about questions concerning learning world “religions.”

The last word for today is a prayer I came across- a prayer of Teresa of Avila, the 16th-century Spanish mystic. She wrote:

Let nothing disturb you, Let nothing frighten you, All things are passing away: God never changes. Patience obtains all things. Whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 25th of September 2023 brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org. 

The show is produced by a man whose own Purdue Boilermakers were given that nickname after defeating the Wabash Little Giants- a team Dennis’ son Grant would later play on- He is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by who can’t believe the Wabash team is called the “Little Giants” Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.