(My book is organized into sections, and within each section there is a more or less smooth flow from entry to entry, which makes special clarification unnecessary. A different situation arises as I have been posting my oftentimes haphazard samplings of entries, thus inevitably disturbing the natural sequences of material. The present entry happens to be the opener for the Religion section, which I never posted before. For the readers interested in my treatment of the general subject of religion, the best I can do is to refer them to my cluster postings Religion And Culture (January 15, 2011); And When She Was…Good She Was Horrid (January 16, 2011); and a number of individual postings over the past year, easily identifiable by their titles.)
This title, In Sickness And In Health, which is also the title of the whole section, is a pretty good metaphor for the general state of world and national religions, not for the sole reason that it thus contains the explicit suggestion that some religions are healthy, while others are sick, but the metaphor itself goes much deeper, touching upon an occasional propitious marriage between the nation and her religion, which, in our modern times, can turn out to be a particularly unbeatable combination.
My rather ambitious design for this section is to thumb through a virtual encyclopedia of religions (or, as I call it, the United Nations of Religions), as if there were proof in numbers. But the core ideas can be boiled down to three globally momentous religious phenomena--- the decadence and corruption of Christianity in America, the powerful emergence of a Church-State duumvirate in the Third Rome Russia, and the rise of a radical Savonarola-type Islamic fundamentalist movement, the last two markedly poised to present a united front against the political power and ethical legitimacy of the United States.
My analysis of American policies and mores has a special place in the Twilight’s Last Gleaming section, as I have limited the present section to matters religious. Still, some overlapping of themes is inevitable, which is no big deal, though. The same goes for Russia, which also has her own special section. Having made this clear, not just for the reader, but even more importantly, as my own reminder, here is my take on the state of world religions. (…Come to think of it, this section does not limit itself to the state of world religions, but covers all matters of faith and religion which I am discussing in this book.)
This title, In Sickness And In Health, which is also the title of the whole section, is a pretty good metaphor for the general state of world and national religions, not for the sole reason that it thus contains the explicit suggestion that some religions are healthy, while others are sick, but the metaphor itself goes much deeper, touching upon an occasional propitious marriage between the nation and her religion, which, in our modern times, can turn out to be a particularly unbeatable combination.
My rather ambitious design for this section is to thumb through a virtual encyclopedia of religions (or, as I call it, the United Nations of Religions), as if there were proof in numbers. But the core ideas can be boiled down to three globally momentous religious phenomena--- the decadence and corruption of Christianity in America, the powerful emergence of a Church-State duumvirate in the Third Rome Russia, and the rise of a radical Savonarola-type Islamic fundamentalist movement, the last two markedly poised to present a united front against the political power and ethical legitimacy of the United States.
My analysis of American policies and mores has a special place in the Twilight’s Last Gleaming section, as I have limited the present section to matters religious. Still, some overlapping of themes is inevitable, which is no big deal, though. The same goes for Russia, which also has her own special section. Having made this clear, not just for the reader, but even more importantly, as my own reminder, here is my take on the state of world religions. (…Come to think of it, this section does not limit itself to the state of world religions, but covers all matters of faith and religion which I am discussing in this book.)
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