ManicDDaily

At the Lincoln Memorial yesterday, Glenn Beck said it was the day America will turn back to God.

Turning back, Glenn says.  Yet, there seems much more talk of God in America (at least in the media and politics) than I can ever remember.  When I grew up, neither ordinary people nor politicians wore religion on their sleeves (unless dressed in a habit.)

Prayer seemed different too, in those days.  In my memory, people prayed for fortitude, strength, patience, wisdom, God’s Will being done.   The idea of praying for various specific victories (as in a football game) would have seemed sacrilegious (at best, wasting the Almighty’s time.)  The notion that collecting a number of prayers–i.e. getting a whole bunch of people to pray for you or your cause–would be more effective than a single heartfelt prayer – was not common.  Prayer was your personal plea, not a lobby, and too, not a petition you got others to sign on to.

Putting all the religious sleevery aside, I, like Beck (I guess), certainly wish that our culture were more spiritual.   But it is worrisome (i) when people look to God to save or punish a nation; and (ii) when spirituality is irretrievably hooked onto the iconography and doctrines of a specific religion–when, for example, a prayer of “may all beings be free from suffering,” might not be deemed valid without adding “in Jesus’s name.   ( I have nothing against Jesus, but my notion of spirituality is more Shakespearean –  that a God by many other names might smell as sweet.)

And then, there’s the incipient link Beck makes (even as he denies it) between God and his political viewpoints.  But for Beck to blame a “turning our backs to God” on government when we live in a culture of mass consumption (in all senses of the word but the Catholic one), and too, a culture that seems to view any idea of sharing wealth as a mine shaft to Hell (should I say a “It’s mine!” shaft to Hell?) is more than naive.