Pop 89: Religion, Democracy & Other Fun Words

By Madonna Hamel

Most times, when delving into heady topics, I like to get clear on everyone’s terms. Recently, I was on a walk with a new acquaintance in Toronto when he asked me: “Are you religious?” “Well, I really need you to define your terms here, before I can answer that question.” “I just want to know if you believe in God before I launch into my diatribe, I don’t want to offend you,” he explained. First off, I was thankful he didn’t want to offend me; currently our culture’s whole tone of conversation, driven by social media trolls and cancellers seems bent on either offending or desecrating the social art of civility. My new acquaintance wanted to make a point, not with the intention of making me squirm, but out of a need to process his thoughts out loud. And, after he spoke, he was willing to practice the art of listening, born of a rare honest curiosity and a desire to understand my point of view.

As for my response to “are you religious”, I like to break down the word to its original Latin roots. First, you have Cicero’s interpretation:  relegere, which means, “to go through again”, as in to re-read, or re-think. Then came Augustine’s take on it: religare "to bind fast”, which is closer to the contemporary interpretation by mythologist Joe Campbell, who describes it as “re-linking”. “So”, I say,”giving a long answer to to a question expecting a simple yes or no, “to be religious is simply, in my mind, to re-link oneself with the sacred. And this means, to make a conscious effort to employ, and if necessary, revive, the language of Grace, because Grace is what gets us back to God. Only then we’re stuck with THAT word again.”

The blank look on my acquaintance’s face was understandable, because nothing sucks the air out of a room than talk of God. So, for the sake of moving the story along, find the God of your understanding, be it “good orderly direction”, “the ground of being”, or “grace” itself. Lately I like the word Creator, as it seems to me a cross-cultural one. Suffice it say, that Creator made everyone and so, there are no rejects in God’s world, no one is outside the realm of love, acceptance, and understanding.

Which brings us to democracy, which comes from the Greek dēmos, meaning the "common people,” and “kratos "rule, strength”. I interpret this to mean that, as a country or community we draw strength from the input of everybody. Once again, everyone belongs. On my recent trip to the States I listened to Americans claiming to be Christians insisting they are not getting heard by the intellectuals and Eastern elites. And yet, in the same breath they claim, theirs is “not a democracy, but a republic.” As if there’s either one or another. As if you can’t be both.

I recently watched, on tv, a guy in an inflatable American flag top-hat and a belly-baring t-shirt claiming Jesus as his saviour and Trump as his president say that “democracy is over-rated.” It was not so long ago I heard the sardonic social commentator Fran Lebowitz say, “We have way too much democracy in the culture and way too little in society.” To me, that’s democracy, everyone gets to air their opinion, whether you live in congressionally-run democracy or a democratic parliamentary system, despite how unformed, ill-informed or other-person-formed your opinion might be.

It behooves us to make an effort to find the right word for what we are trying to say, and to define our terms when using Big Words like Religion and Democracy. But do we want to? Are we even willing? It doesn’t look like it. On both sides of the border we seem more eager to shut each other down with vindictive vituperative than open up to dialogue and come to some kind of insight about our brothers and sisters, you know, the neighbours we claim to love as ourselves.

Or maybe we don’t claim to love hem. Maybe the “nones”, or “atheists” among us do not feel obliged to practice the Golden Rule because we never signed up for the Christian challenge. But no matter what belief you espouse, the principles of love and tolerance tend to be at the top of every belief’s list, so why don’t we feel the need to practice them? And why do we allow some people to be exempt, the exception to the rule? How is that possibly a good idea and how can we think it will turn out well for anybody?

First of all, I believe many people do practice love and tolerance, it just looks like nothing is happening. They let the bs, degradation or rage pass; they don’t bite the hook. “When in doubt, do nothing” is the better advice, even though we live in a culture of outrage and outrageous language. And, as the author Amanda Ripley reminds us, the business model of the media is to exploit conflict and controversy. So certain public figures - who Ripley would describe as “conflict entrepreneurs” - do their best to stir up the pot.

Nurturing the Golden Rule gives us moral muscle so that when taunted or tempted to behave like bullies or wounded beasts, we decline the offer.  Once, back when I was in my ex’s band, after a show in St. Louis, the club owner promised James he’d send him his full pay when he could. James took him at his word. But the bass player wanted James to take the owner’s vintage amp as collateral. “But he’d be going against his principles,” I said. “This is different,” insisted the bassist, “these are exceptional circumstances!” “Exceptional circumstances,” I replied, “are why we have principles. That’s the definition of principles!” If our principles can’t withstand tough times they’re not principles.