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Thursday, September 13, 2001
By Mark Oppenheimer
Religion, the philosopher William James said, is what man does in his solitude. It's the thoughts you think when nobody else is around, when you find yourself resting in the crook of a tree or surveying a glorious vista from a mountaintop. It's the deep thoughts you write in your journal at bedtime.
Mark Oppenheimer is a graduate fellow of the Institute for the Advanced Study of Religion at Yale.
That definition is not very appealing at such a time as this. Our first instinct as we wait for reassurance that our friends are safe is to find other people who are also waiting. And then, when we hear the worst, we will want to mourn with others. And often, we will want to mourn in a place of faith, with people of faith. Attendance at churches, synagogues and mosques will be higher than usual this weekend.
James was trying to get at the essence of religion, to figure out what was left when you disregarded all the social aspects, the church picnics and bingo games and church little league teams. Yet his answer, that religion accounts for our deepest thoughts when we're alone, misunderstands us. For history shows, and will show again in the coming days, that in time of crisis, when people are most attuned to "ultimate concern" (theologian Paul Tillich's description of religion), they seek not solitude but companionship. They want to find answers together.
After the fall of the Jews' Second Temple around 70 C. E., Jews scattered about the Middle East, Persia and Africa. Deprived of a temple, the designated site for worship, Jews ceased worshipping with priests and began studying with rabbis, legal scholars. They developed the Beit Midrash, or House of Inquiry, where students learn and interpret Scripture ---- always with a partner.
Seeking explanations of their tragedy, Jews found that wisdom came only to those who studied together; to this day, Jewish scriptural study is done in pairs. Jewish prayer, meanwhile, is by commandment done in the minyan, a group of at least 10. Learning about loss, and mourning it, simply cannot be done alone.
At the same time, Christians met in secret house churches. This was not the safest way to escape the Roman persecution -- it would have been less suspicious if they had all prayed on their own, or just with their families. Yet they heeded God's words as reported by Matthew: "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."
The Protestant Reformation might have undermined the importance of communal worship; after all, one of its mottoes, "Sola Scriptura," means that the Bible is all the Christian needs. Priests, and the whole corporate apparatus of the Catholic Church, were supposed to be unnecessary. Yet when the radical Protestant sects like the Mennonites were attacked, they established communities that are still close-knit and insular.
And when the Revolution came, scared colonists, unsure if they should turn against their king, consulted their ministers. Just as during the Civil War, President Lincoln called for national fast days to honor God's help in preserving the Union. Just as during World War II, military chaplains ignored denominational allegiances in order to serve all the troops: Jewish chaplains would hear confessions from Catholic soldiers, and Protestant ministers sometimes led Yom Kippur services for Jews.
Which reminds us that as religion gains meaning in times of crisis, it also loses its particularities. When things are calm, we Americans are very particular about where we worship; that's why we have dozens of different kinds of Baptists, some differing from others only in which foot they wash first in baptism. Usually, a black Pentecostal pays no mind to a black Baptist preacher. But in the middle of a bus boycott, nobody cared which church had ordained Martin Luther King.
Hours after the World Trade Center towers collapsed, CNN interviewed a kind-looking, white-haired man who was coordinating grief counseling services at the Los Angeles airport. Three of the hijacked planes had been bound for Los Angeles, and he expected grieving loved ones to gather at the airport. Two questions arise, then: First, why do the grieving always gather at the airport? And second, who was this man who would be in charge of comforting them?
They go to the airport because, first, they believe the most reliable news will arrive there. But they also want to be with other mourners as they hear the worst. And the man who comforted them was a member of the Salvation Army, an evangelical Christian group that preaches charity, abstinence from alcohol, and the saving grace of Jesus Christ. The odds are good that none of those killed Tuesday was a member of the Salvation Army. The odds are just as good that none of the dead ones' relatives, embraced by this volunteer at the airport, cared if he was.
Months from now, as people look for meaning in their loss, they might turn to quiet reflection of the nitty-gritty of religion, the Scripture and theological commentaries.
Those of us in mourning might seek solitude for our religious thoughts, just as William James said we would. But in the meantime, as we help each other through the days, we'll use religion for buildings to gather in, friends to console us and narratives to remind us that there is nothing new under the sun ---- that our grief is shared by a community: not just across the world today, but across time.
