Not really wrestling at all, unless you want it to be

Dear Thistleburr,

I have too much for Twitter, so I'll do this here. And first, the definitions I'm referring to:

Tolstoy: True religion is the establishment by man of a relation to the infinite life around him; as long as in connecting his life with this infinitude and directing his conduct, there is also agreement with his reason and human knowledge.

Geertz: Religion is
(1) a system of symbols
(2) which acts to establish powerful, pervasive and long-lasting moods and motivations in folks
(3) by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and
(4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that
(5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.

I think Tolstoy is being overly optimistic if he imagines one can only do the religion of his definition. We all come up in religion just as we do in language, it's built in to the language and culture. What I love about the Geertz definition is that it's a beautiful tool for us to interrogate those ideas that we dislike, that we like, that we take for granted.

Rabbi Rami who spoke last night is suggesting that we become more awake and more humane if we learn more religious languages--not that we become Hindu or Muslim or such, but that we learn those languages thoroughly, and thus broaden our views of everything, just as when we learn French or Japanese.

Given that we live in an age of really remarkable religious illiteracy, I would like to see Christian people even do that with the religions they think they came up in, because I guarantee you that they really don't know them well at all. My own husband was technically raised Quaker, but spent a massive amount of time with his preacher grandfather, who was an oldtime Evangelical. Chris rejected that version of Christianity early, and has never achieved an adult's understanding or knowledge of *any* Christianity as a result--nor any other religion. He has no knowledge of the mystics, the history, the theology and *why* people have fought over baptism or the Eucharist, the evolution of thought and the rejection and rebellion of evolutions...I could spend the next ten years just getting him caught up on that one bit of the tapestry, and he's in about the same place as many Christian Americans.

So, I think Tolstoy's is a good definition for open religion, but my scholar mind won't allow me to say that the closed religions are somehow not religion--they definitely are, and meet a whole set of human needs.

Having now done all this work to figure what I do actually think, I would say that it's useful but limited and honestly, just a little unkind to people with different needs than his own--my training inculcated in me a good amount of compassion for people who are scared and in great need of security. Not to say that I think they should rest in that fear, and not strive to overcome it, but life is *hard* and I'm not sure everyone can do that work. I'm really not. Also, I don't believe anyone is done until they're dead. There's always the possibility that they'll grow and change, and life is so chaotic and wild, who am I to judge that they won't, or it won't be enough, or the 'right' kind?