Welcome to the Good Apocalypse Guide, a Substack by me, Alex Evans, about how we can survive and thrive during the liminal times we’re living through, and unlock a breakthrough rather than breakdown future.
I love the hopefulness you give us explaining that an apocalypse will reveal what we need to know. I see politics as becoming the vehicle for all these wonderful things that religion also can provide. Just last night I watched a special YouTube live event hosted by Oprah and with Kamala Harris. Your 5 item list was clearly used to structure the entire program! @matthewburdette has some really good thoughts on this. https://open.substack.com/pub/matthewburdette/p/we-no-longer-know-what-a-human-is?r=3n812o&utm_medium=ios
Really interesting, and thank you. A question: is it a religion-shaped hole? Or a God-shaped hole? And what are the implications of the difference between the two?
Ah that is a REALLY interesting question. I suppose I would see *God* here as the transcendent or metaphysical heart of religions, and *religions* by contrast as the (very human) institutions, congregations and communities constellated around that Being / reality / idea* (delete as applicable depending on your worldview)
In practice, I think you can be interested in the roles that religions have historically played in society - like the five capabilities listed in the post - without necessarily having to believe in God.
Of course, that does then raise the question - which I am itching to get into in future posts - of whether it's possible to have new institutions that perform the social functions that religions have historically played, without the theology / belief that's at their heart.
Years ago when I was a special adviser at DFID, we had a civil society team that was really up for working on development with "faith communities", and the great Richard Chartres (then Bishop of London) used to take the piss out of us for this, essentially saying 'you guys think that religions are basically service providers who also happen to have some weird metaphysical ideas - what you don't get is that it's only *because* of the weird metaphysical ideas that religions can play all the other roles'. I have thought about this a lot since then :-)
I love the hopefulness you give us explaining that an apocalypse will reveal what we need to know. I see politics as becoming the vehicle for all these wonderful things that religion also can provide. Just last night I watched a special YouTube live event hosted by Oprah and with Kamala Harris. Your 5 item list was clearly used to structure the entire program! @matthewburdette has some really good thoughts on this. https://open.substack.com/pub/matthewburdette/p/we-no-longer-know-what-a-human-is?r=3n812o&utm_medium=ios
Thanks so much Suzanne, will check out Matthew’s piece and hunt down the Oprah / Kamala event!
Really interesting, and thank you. A question: is it a religion-shaped hole? Or a God-shaped hole? And what are the implications of the difference between the two?
Ah that is a REALLY interesting question. I suppose I would see *God* here as the transcendent or metaphysical heart of religions, and *religions* by contrast as the (very human) institutions, congregations and communities constellated around that Being / reality / idea* (delete as applicable depending on your worldview)
In practice, I think you can be interested in the roles that religions have historically played in society - like the five capabilities listed in the post - without necessarily having to believe in God.
Of course, that does then raise the question - which I am itching to get into in future posts - of whether it's possible to have new institutions that perform the social functions that religions have historically played, without the theology / belief that's at their heart.
Years ago when I was a special adviser at DFID, we had a civil society team that was really up for working on development with "faith communities", and the great Richard Chartres (then Bishop of London) used to take the piss out of us for this, essentially saying 'you guys think that religions are basically service providers who also happen to have some weird metaphysical ideas - what you don't get is that it's only *because* of the weird metaphysical ideas that religions can play all the other roles'. I have thought about this a lot since then :-)