I've got to the stage when I'm really tired of the negativity of liberal religion, defining itself over and against conservative religion. It often feels to me like liberal religion has got nothing to say apart from saying that it is not conservative religion, and that conservative religion is wrong.
For a while this is refreshing. When you move from conservative religion to liberal religion you feel reassured by this. I moved from, well let's say orthodox religion, not necessarily conservative, to liberalism and I needed to be affirmed in that movement.
But after years (or decades) of this, you look around and ask, "Yeah, but is there anything more to say? To learn? To do? To grow into?"
This came to my mind recently when I was listening to a liberal religious podcast. Someone had written in to say, "I didn't really grow up with any religion. My question is - how can I get to know God?" And the answer of the podcasters was, "Well conservative religion says there's only one way to know God, but that's wrong, and it's not necessarily what conservative religion says about this...." But they didn't really have any positive answer to this question.
I decided at the moment to turn off the podcast and unsubscribe to it (and I've probably been listening every week for five years). Because I'm just really tired of that kind of stuff, it doesn't feed me spiritually, it's not edifying or useful in my spiritual journey. I know what I'm not, I really want to work on what I am. I know what I reject, but I really want to work on what I affirm. I know the spiritual paths I reject, but I really want to work on the spiritual path that I do walk.
I do know that I am guilty of this too. It's very easy to slip into it as a preacher, to say, "Well, not this, and not that." But I'm going to try to work on this because it's just not good enough, and the times we live in demand more than that. The times we live in demand spiritually transformed people, so I'm going to work on my transformation and the transformation of my communities, there's no time to waste so much energy on the the things that I reject.
I've also been influenced by this article that says:
People also repeat bad ideas when they complain about them. Before you can criticize an idea, you have to reference that idea. You end up repeating the ideas you’re hoping people will forget—but, of course, people can’t forget them because you keep talking about them. The more you repeat a bad idea, the more likely people are to believe it.
Let's call this phenomenon Clear's Law of Recurrence: The number of people who believe an idea is directly proportional to the number of times it has been repeated during the last year—even if the idea is false.
Each time you attack a bad idea, you are feeding the very monster you are trying to destroy. As one Twitter employee wrote, “Every time you retweet or quote tweet someone you’re angry with, it helps them. It disseminates their BS. Hell for the ideas you deplore is silence. Have the discipline to give it to them.”
Your time is better spent championing good ideas than tearing down bad ones. Don't waste time explaining why bad ideas are bad. You are simply fanning the flame of ignorance and stupidity.
The best thing that can happen to a bad idea is that it is forgotten. The best thing that can happen to a good idea is that it is shared. It makes me think of Tyler Cowen's quote, “Spend as little time as possible talking about how other people are wrong.”
Feed the good ideas and let bad ideas die of starvation.
So (unless a group is actively doing harm or threatening rights) I'm just going to ignore them. I'm going to try to commit, now, to let bad ideas die of starvation, to ignore conservative religion rather than define myself as being against it.
I'm starting to hear a little bell go off in my head each time I hear someone criticise someone else's religion, including myself, and I'm going to say, "Ignore it, stop talking about it, move on."
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