Two
summers ago, I read a rather
rough review of a book called: Never Pure: Historical Studies of Science
as if It Was Produced by People With Bodies, Situated in Time, Space, Culture,
and Society, and Struggling for Credibility and Authority. It was written by Prof. Steven Shapin, and
apparently does precisely what its title says it will do. (The reviewer was
disappointed, though, about the lack of info on Hooke’s sex life.) This review
and book prodded a portion of my brain and made a connection I hadn’t
considered before.
When
people find out that I'm "religious" and that I enjoy talking about
religion, they say lots of interesting things. Many of these are phrased as
questions, accusations, or accusations-posing-as-questions. One of my favorites
is, "So how does it feel to be part of a church that started just because
Henry VIII wanted to screw a different woman than his wife?" Now, of
course this is a gross simplification of the origins of the Church of England (and
the Anglican Communion, of which Episcopalians are a part). My quick answer to
this question is: "Henry VIII's
divorce was simply the political event which allowed for a structural change to
occur; Thomas Cranmer and others had already been working towards and effecting
theological, liturgical, and ecclesiological reform; they simply took advantage
of this opportunity." So the quick (oversimplified!) answer is that the
break with the Roman Catholics had more nuance and depth to it than a lustful
monarch.
And what’s my longer answer?
Well,
for those who are religious and not interested in history, or for those who are
history-lovers but not interested in religion (or even
"spirituality"), the discovery that such gritty contexts are the
cradle for universe-encompassing beliefs can be upsetting. It can even color
the world of "Religion" as a corrupt and fully earth-bound (and
therefore worthless) endeavor. I think this is often the feeling of the folks
who challenge me about the origins of the Church of England.
Of
course, this question—How can you be a part of something that pretends at
transcendent truth when it is rooted in the dirty earth?—can be asked of any of
the world's major religions, as well as most of its minor ones. And you can ask
it of not only specific institutions, but even that amorphous
"spirituality" which many claim (e.g. "I'm not really into
organized religion, but I'm spiritual"), since the way this spirituality
walks and talks is inevitably influenced by the way all the
"organized" kinds walk and talk.
The
reason I don't find this troubling—in Anglicanism, Protestantism, Roman
Catholicism, all the sorts of Islam, all the sorts of Judaism, and all the sorts
of Hinduism and of Buddhism—is maybe similar to the reason that scientists
don't find Prof. Shapin's book troubling. I don't find this
"creatureliness" upsetting because I believe it to be inevitable—a
given when it comes to human life and humanity's encounters with transcendent
truth.
Truth
does not (praise God!) require a perfect human in order to be seen. And simply
encountering truth does not (alas!) perfect us to the level of truth's
perfection. That is, meeting God does not necessarily make me God-like through
and through. Even if truth exists independently of us, when it manifests itself
it must do so in our world: our physical surroundings, our embodied beings, our
insufficient minds. But the brilliance of these truths (often, occasionally,
sometimes) shines past the creatureliness of their embodiment.
As
a proverb (taped to the wall in St. John’s
Abbey, Minnesota)
says: "After enlightenment, the laundry".
Now,
the nature of what Science calls “truth” is a bit different from what St. John of the Cross might
call “truth.” But the similarity is that there can be value in the things which
flawed, skewed, strange, normal, weak or powerful people discover—and that
these contexts do not necessarily negate what was discovered.
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| Figures on the roof of the cathedral in Milan. |
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