No Religious Rites for Arthur C. Clarke?

The celebrated sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke died last week. He was best known for co-authoring the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey and the subsequent book of the same name.

He was a visionary, perhaps the visionary, of our times.

He also had a low estimation of organized religion. He once spoke of religion as "a necessary evil in the childhood of our particular species." His personal instruction declared upon his death : "Absolutely no religious rites of any kind, relating to any religious faith, should be associated with my funeral."

The reports emphasized that the funeral, held in Mr. Clarke's adopted home in Sri Lanka, was secular

In my estimation Mr. Clarke's funeral was religious. (Just look at the photo of his body before burial.) All death observance's are religious in nature. Death is the Great Arbiter and must be accounted for in a human life.

I agree with my colleague, Forrest Church, "Religion is our human response to the dual reality of being alive and having to die."

Even the most avowedly secular funeral is a patchwork of religious symbols and practices that I suspect are intuitions and archetypes, hardwired in our psyches.

Obama and Race in America

Well, Barack Obama’s remarks regarding Race, delivered yesterday to an expectant audience, were extraordinary. In subject and frankness Mr.Obama spoke with insight and eloquence. His unique talent—genius, even—is to lift the tone of political discourse and to transcend the moment. Of the multitude of words spun in the primary campaigns, these will most likely endure, particularly if Mr. Obama succeeds in becoming President.

He did not repudiate his minister, Jeremiah Wright, Jr., though Mr. Obama called some of Rev. Wright’s words incendiary. Taken out of context, as video clips, the words do appear incendiary.

What’s missing is the theology behind the seeming incendiary words, a black liberation theology. (Rev. Wright has a masters degree from the world class Divinity School of the University of Chicago and a doctorate from the well regarded Chicago Theological Seminary.)

His take on the Christian message involves a fierce conviction that Christianity can free oppressed African Americans and overturn entrenched systems of oppression.

In my estimation, what’s been missing in the furor over the relationship between Rev. Wright and Mr. Obama is a willingness to look at black liberation theology, particularly within the larger Christian context.

I wonder, will there be many sermons this Easter, from Christian pulpits across the land, speaking of Jesus as a champion of oppressed people, whose ministry implicitly threatened to root out systems of injustice whether in the synagogue or the state or the empire? If Jesus’s ministry was about anything, it was about overturning systems of oppression.

Obama and Black Liberation Theology

I'd thought the impact of religion on the 2008 presidential primaries had peaked with Mitt Romney's January speech on "Faith in America" and Mike Huckabee's, an ordained Baptist minister, more recent withdrawal from the Republican race. But tomorrow, when Barack Obama addresses race and incidentally his relationship with his minister of twenty years, the controversial Jeremiah Wright, will be an even higher peak relative to religion and politics.

In my estimation, at issue will be the notion of black liberation theology, a variety of Christianity that preaches self-definition, self-affirmation and self-determination for African Americans, who are posited as historically oppressed by American society. I hope Mr. Obama does not repudiate/denounce/reject this pertinent and challenging take on Jesus's message and mission. That would be a supreme irony during Holy Week.

Mr. Obama's speech tomorrow will be his most crucial speech to date, particularly for the sake of his own integrity.

Oprah's Virtual Church

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What's the biggest spiritual/religious phenomenon of our time? How about Oprah Winfrey's ten week, ninety minute on-line course "A New Earth?" She and best selling author Eckhart Tolle of the book of the same name as the course, are collaborating. The course is free; there's a workbook to download; and 700,000 folks have signed on. That's right 700,000!

In my estimation this may well represent a shift in public religion. Not only does this phenomenon operate outside the realm of institutional religion, it gives permission (by Oprah) for that shift to be okay.

Many say Oprah's become America's leading spiritual guide. It's her authority that legitimazes a freelance "spiritual teacher" such as Eckhart Tolle. In Oprah there's a huge cult of personality operating for a large number of persons willing to be influenced. The World Wide Web takes these infuences and creates a virtual community (church?).

In an age of traditional religion's slow decline as well as shifting affiliations, Oprah's Virtual Church and her imitators will be a phenomenon to be reckoned with.