I Communicate: My Religious Truth
In John Caputo’s book, On Religion, he takes an unorthodox approach to challenging those who believe in God to understand the ultimate reality of love. Not in the context of what we believe love is/should be, but of how God intended us to love Him, along with loving one another. I read this book as a Catholic turned non-denominational Christian turned anti-religion in the last few years. Very briefly wavering from loving God and believing in Jesus Christ in my younger years, I often look for other people who share the same struggle with religion and the individual, literal, and figurative interpretations of the Bible.
In the first chapter, Caputo introduces us to St. Augustine, who up until this point, I only knew as the man from Florida who has a beautiful city with a tortured historical past. Caputo writes, “Augustine, I should say at the start, will be my hero throughout these pages, although with a certain post-modern and sometimes unorthodox twist that might at times have provoked his episcopal wrath (he was a bishop, with a bishop's distaste for unorthodoxy)” (1). This makes me want to search this man out, learn about his life, his sainthood, and what caused him to question his own depth of love for God and of God.
Throughout this book, the theme is Caputo’s interpretation of what Augustine meant by his phrase “What do I love when I love my God?” What do I love, that comes from my love of God? I don’t believe in God because it’s convenient. I don’t love God because it is easy. I believe in God because I don’t know life without God, nor would I want to. But I challenge the traditional thought of how to get to God. I challenge many religions’ definition of love. Caputo explains, “But having a religious sense of life is a very basic structure of our lives – it is not like worrying about being abducted by an alien – that should be placed alongside other very basic things, like having an artistic sense or political sense, experiences that belong to anyone who is worth their salt (more salt)” (7). This sense is not common sense. God commands us to love one another as He loves us. But we fall short because we don’t understand. And certainly not in today’s muddled world of conflict and dereliction.
Caputo argues that the world needs to focus on Religious Truth versus one True Religion. He states, “The several religions, in the plural, are unique and irreducible repositories of their distinctive ethical practices and religious narratives, representing so many different ways to love God, but without laying claim to an exclusive possession of “The Truth” (109). Imagine a world where each religion offers a namaste; for I recognize you are on your own path, as I am on mine. Religious Truth world peace. I would quote this whole book if I could. Preach, Caputo, preach. “Unlike a scientific theory, there is not a reason on earth (or in heaven) why many different religious narratives cannot all be true. “The one true religion” in that sense makes no more sense than “the one true language” or the “one true poetry,” “the one true story” or “the one true culture” (109). If I may paraphrase, he then goes on to argue that there is no way everyone in the world can hear the story of Jesus, which we know is the Christians’ only way into heaven, or Allah, and they cannot be expected to share in what Caputo calls “confessional faith.” This is my religious truth. I find it disheartening to have once believed that my cousins who were brought up my Jewish aunt would not share in our ultimate (heaven) because we did not take the same path.
Religion without religion is a beautiful, freeing idea. Although I do admit that when Caputo claimed, “Those who refuse the religious want to retain their own self-possession, their own power, their own will. The ancient Stoics said that if we seek what is possible, accept what is necessary, and stay within our limits, we shall have autonomy and autarchy; then we shall be happy because we shall not lack anything that we let ourselves desire,” I am guilty. Lingering Catholic guilt, possibly? I take pride (deadly sin, I know) in taking charge of my own life. As it is stated in the Bible, God knows our whole life, planned out step by step, minute by second. So why pray for change, when the outcome is already written down? Instead I pray for comfort, understanding, and love for those suffering. You do not need a religion to love as God loves, or to love God. There is no path chiseled out that pushes others off the cliff to their hell.
Caputo mused, “I think that Augustine's story shows us that religion kicks in, not necessarily when we sign on the dotted line of some confessional faith or other, but when we confess our love for something besides ourselves, when (on one etymology) we “bind ourselves over” (re-ligare) to something other, which means something other than ourselves, or (on another etymology) when we gather ourselves together (re-legere) and center ourselves on a transforming focus of our love. Something grander and larger than us comes along and bowls us over and dispossesses us. Something overpowers our powers, potencies, and possibilities, and exposes us to something impossible. Something makes a demand upon us and shakes us loose from the circle of self-love, drawing us out of ourselves and into the service of others and of something to come” (30). A religious movement; one within the soul. While Caputo does acknowledge the great need for religious institutions and what they represent, this point of view offers a safe haven for those that do not know where they belong. They are not lost to the depths of the godforsaken sea because they cannot find it in their hearts to love a man’s interpretation of God more than God Himself, even thought contextually, this book is about love (of all things). Even Jesus wasn’t a Christian.
Caputo ends his book by wrapping around to the beginning. What do I love when I love my God? God becomes a verb. Love is a verb. A cliche, painted on pallets and hung in hipsters hallways, but truth nonetheless. When you love God, you become a vessel of God. Your God becomes their God becomes our God. “Religion in the sense of the love of God cannot contain what it contains. We have defined religion in terms of the love of God, but the love of God cannot be defined – or contained – by religion. The love of God is too important to leave to the religions or the theologians” (136).
Caputo, and I am inclined to agree, believes that the love of God is meant to be experienced by everyone. And that we, as the stewards of that love, carefully craft it into something that is inclusive and productive. We cannot BE if we cannot DO. We cannot do what we are not passionate about. Regardless of religious decree, God is always subject to interpretation. How we receive that, understand that, and return the favor (religious namaste again), is up to us. God is love, if we let Him (us, you, them) be.