Bad religion. There’s a lot of it around still, though I am convinced there’s less of it (at least of the Christian variety) than there has been in the past.
Even so, desperately bad religion dominates the daily paper, from Islamic fundamentalists filming grizzly decapitations, to the Catholic powers that be, still trying to cover up the appalling abuse their employees dealt out over centuries. The fact that people can take the ultimate in loving – God – and turn it into an excuse for hatred is the world kind of blasphemy.
There’s another kind of bad religion, however, that is of a less obnoxious and damaging kind but upsets me almost as badly. It’s the religion that condemns beauty.
Geraldine Brooks’ wonderful book Caleb’s Crossing is set in the 17th Century, in a colony of Puritans living in what is now Martha’s Vineyard. Being pioneers, they live in fairly brutal physical conditions, trying, with varying degrees of success, to convert the locals to their understanding of Christianity.
The main character, Bethia, is a feisty, smart, freedom-loving girl whose story we follow to old age. As a pre-pubescent, she manages to escape the daily grind of domestic chores alongside her mother and ride her horse all over that stunningly beautiful island, simply reveling in the flora and fauna, the weather and the everlasting ocean.
Raised a devout Puritan, young Bethia has the deepest feeling of guilt about loving the landscape of her home so much. In her brand of religion, beauty is deeply suspect. Wondering about the endless variety manifest in the natural world one day, she muses, ‘It came to me then that God must desire us to use each of our senses, to take delight in the varied tastes and sights and textures of his world. Yet this seemed to go against so many of our preachments against the sumptuary and the carnal.’
There are still groups of Christians who seem to find beauty deeply suspect. Witness the appalling ugliness of so many chapels – both old and contemporary. Of course things don’t need to be Vatican City level ornate or extravagant, they can be as simple as you like, but they do need to be lovely.
I don’t understand how Christians, who believe God created this world, can think that God doesn’t approve of beauty. The world is full of completely useless loveliness and wild colour – look at a flower garden, the variety of beasts and insects and fish, listen to the infinite permutations of bird song. As Jesus said, ‘Consider the lilies of the field: they neither toil not spin, yet even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these’.
To me there are two litmus tests of good religion. One is that it grows our hearts, making us more generous and compassionate. The other is that it makes us come alive to beauty and to wonder.