Commodifying Religion: Why #GlobalCopticDay Is a Disaster Long-term

I’ve been to many Greek Orthodox churches across the country, and one of the most salient features of Greek churches in the United States is emptiness.

It’s odd because, still, in most cities, there are Greek festivals–whether in Chicago, Boston, or Nashville. And there are tours of Greek churches by mostly-white people, and there are snacks like chips and drinks like soda and commodities like baklava and gyros and Greek handbags.

This is when you’ll find the church most alive, its emptiness hallowed out for other people.

If you attend a Greek Orthodox liturgy, most of the parishioners are older–third or fourth generation–or families with young children, but their high school and college students are elsewhere. Fascinatingly, like every religious tradition, the Greek Orthodox church in the United States suffered a “youth decline” and has yet to fully recover.

The question is: how did this happen? How does a church–across the country–atrophy like this? Yet still have a booming business every year (i.e. the Greek Festival)? How does a church empty of its religiosity and gain merely commodity?

It’s a slow process: you covert the liturgy into a single language, so that in time, parishioners in the United States don’t know how to communicate or pray with people in the homeland; you create disconnection in hopes of connecting to whiteness. You claim that you converted the words of the liturgy (but you’re actually also converting meaning of the liturgy) because you want to keep youth. You’re still hemorrhaging. Instead of helping the new immigrants of your congregation–because, God forbid, you claim poverty as an feature of being Greek in the United States–you reach out and missionize. Not to the poor. Not to the broken. Who are your own. But rather to the rich, the powerful, the privileged. You do this in hopes of gaining a presence in this country.

A lot of this slow process that the Greek Orthodox church went through and that, now, the Coptic Church–a century later–is going through is instructed by US racism and immigration policy:

Most immigrant communities–because this is a capitalist society that, through the US immigration policies, mimics its own white culture–are highly stratified. That is, there are a few at the top who offer this country skilled labor; they’re professors, doctors, engineers. And then you have the majority of the population who are janitors, secretaries, housekeeping, factory workers–the rejected of society and of the church.

This high-stratification creates numerous issues of difference in a church. Whereas in Egypt and Greece–who are both, before, not truly capitalist countries–have churches based on neighborhoods, and therefore, people not only know each other but work and live and interact with one another outside of church, the United States changes that radically, so that church isn’t based on neighborhood, but rather imagined identitifications: Copts from a thirty mile radius who don’t know each other, have different dialects and histories and livelihoods and values, gather together in one space every Sunday.

Instead of combatting this situation with intra-community help–that is, the rich help the poor–the community breaks from each other. It’s at this moment where the majority of church-goers are in need of desperate help–in school, in unions, in work, in home–that the church servants cannot handle these desperations. You often hear, “The people are lazy,” or “the children are ignorant and the parents are arrogant.” All of this in discussing the poor. Sound familiar?

Once a religion vilifies the poor–the majority of its population–and glorifies the rich as community examples and pillars, the problem has gone beyond itself. What started as mere dialectic/linguistic, historical and cultural differences has emerged as a class issue, which has finalized and crystallized as Another issue.

You hear this often in new immigrant communities in the US–and elsewhere. It’s difficult to pinpoint the Self when you’re a migrant. Land and location are critical to human existence, but what differs in the United States is the vocabulary used to describe the Self. This vocabulary is limited because it is racist. It’s limited to race. It’s limited to color. It’s limited to the connotation of differences that cannot be breached.

To save themselves, the rich and privileged participate in this: they manufacture difference between themselves and the poor whom they label “Egyptian” and name themselves “Americans” as imagined–same as what occurred a century before among the Greeks.

Citizenship and race, as always in the United States, formulated existences and belongings.

It is then natural for the rich and privileged to manufacture not only their own identities, but also the church’s, since they’re the ones on church boards and are the theoretical servants of the church. They then commodify the church; in other words, they make the church a marketing strategy. They print flyers to bring people to tour the church–but not to pray together; they sell snacks that white people will buy (as opposed to Black or Latinx neighbors); they commodify their culture back home with trinkets and clothes and sell them for exorbitant prices; and, now, they create hashtags to imagine experience and connection through technologies.

Religion is seen as fun. Religion is seen as community when, in actuality, the bonds of community are severing in the background. While the festival sings, others groan, paying off rent and bills, staring at the healthcare bill they can’t pay, hoping Monday comes sooner so that they can ask about the Immigration Office’s new mail.

While the party lives and roars, the people suffer.

While others take pride and say, “See what our culture offered the world” with art and dance, the people are left behind.

While the festival marches forward, the people fester, unable to find acceptance even among their own.

History doesn’t repeat itself, but it has a rhyme to it, and #GlobalCopticDay matches that rhyme’s pitch. The United States forces that pitch upon the weak-hearted who prefer social acceptance with whiteness–as a means of gaining true citizenship since paperwork doesn’t matter greatly in the United States–than social acceptance with their own, with the downtrodden, with the oppressed. #GlobalCopticDay isn’t about being Coptic—it’s about how to be Coptic. It’s about English, and not Arabic; it’s about fun and games, and not religion; it’s about fitting into Western civilization through ancient Egypt, and not finding solidarity with the oppressed; it’s about citizenship in the United States, and not transnationally being proud to be Coptic without states or borders or languages.

#GlobalCopticDay ain’t that deep: it’s a day to uplift the privileged of our communities to whiteness, while letting the unprivileged of our societies wallow in the background, and ironically, while the privileged try to bring people closer to God with fun and games (think: bread and circus), God lies somewhere in the background with the oppressed, never to come to the foreground because the day isn’t about Him/Them at all.

Church and State: The Most-Assured, yet Deadliest, Alliance

As some may know, I am writing my master’s thesis on the papal ban on Coptic pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and the deeper implications that ensued for both those in diaspora who disobey the ban and those in Egypt who enforce the ban. Meddled in this identity politics is the State–of Egypt and of the United States–to whom many Copts supplicate in an attempt to belong somewhere beyond the Church.

My research goes deep into the question of Church and State relations in Egypt where, seemingly, the two are juxtaposed, as the State doesn’t prosecute Church bombers, for insistence, while the Church weakly votes for the better of two evils. In actuality, though, the pope and bishops–that is, the Church administration–and the rich of Egypt benefit from this tense relationship: the State receives the Church’s clergy’s obedience in being silent on human rights issues and also advocates for the State abroad by claiming that dictators keep their promises, despite realities among the people. The Church benefits from this obedience in that it earns itself the chair as the spokesperson of the Coptic people, creating a uniform and hierarchal and patriarchal church (no pun intended). Thus, we see that both benefit from the other; each offers the other legitimacy on an international level.

We saw this come at a head in the 1970s when Pope Shenouda III broke protocol and stood disobedient before Sadat–choosing not to defend his stances internationally and domestically. In the end, the pope was disposed and two bishops were made to take his spot, and chaos ensued.

It’s important, then, to see why Pope Shenouda returned from his banishment quieter and with a focused internal gaze determined to fix the clerical and monastic structures that had refused to stand next to him, bringing on the chaos. It’s also important, then, to see why Pope Tawadros II didn’t follow his predecessor’s earlier footsteps and instead he chose to conform to the State’s desire, preferring structure and power of the clergy over democracy (that is, rule by the people in and out of the Church).

We now approach the latest tragedy that has tested the Church’s hierarchy: the murder (martyrdom?) of Anba Epiphanous, the scholar and abbot of Dar abu Maqar in Wadi a-Natrun.

The facts are as follows: the bishop was found dead on Sunday morning, hit by a metal object to the back of the head. Notably, this monk had a Western presence, as he was one of the Board members of Agora University in the United States, and he traveled often to Western countries. The State automatically jumped to investigate the murder, interrogating 150 monks and 400 people total within one week of the murder. Also within a week, the Church released 12 decrees to “organize and regain order in monasteries.” Less than two weeks after the murder, two monks were defrocked and told to go back to their old lives, old names, as shown below (I had shown it on my snapchat after getting it from Abouna Isaiah’s, one of the defrocked below, facebook page, after someone had posted it with a comment of outrage of his defrocking. His facebook is now deleted, after news of his attempted suicide came forward.)

Finally, two monks attempted suicide: Abouna Faltaous, after cutting his wrists, tried to kill himself by jumping off a large building in the monastery, and Abouna Isaiah (the one mentioned above) via poison. This has all taken place in less than a month.

 

These are the facts, but now there are facts that extend beyond the noted:

First, the legacy of his monastery, Dar Abu Maqar, is of importance. Monasteries, in general, in Egypt, are sites of resistance as they are far from the center of power (whether the Patriarch, who is centered in Alexandria and Cairo, or the State’s dictator); being far from power, they are sites of scholarship, community, and discussion–three aspects not found near the centers of power. One of the greatest examples of this resistance to power was in 1979 when Pope Shenouda was exiled by the then-president, Sadat, for opposing the Israeli Peace Treaty/Camp David Accords, and Abouna Matta al-Miskin, in the vacuum of power, came to be interviewed.

Note that this monk, Abouna Matta al-Miskin, was the abbot of Dar Abu Maqar and the teacher of Anba Epiphanous.

Abouna Matta, already a strong and vocal opponent to Pope Shenouda politically and theologically, was interviewed saying that Pope Shenouda’s decision to oppose Sadat was wrong and that Sadat’s ordinances were God’s will–a very controversial and divisive statement to say, especially when your patriarch is banished to a monastery and there are many questions of his return, the bishops who are siding with Sadat and took over without argument, and the imprisonment of many bishops and priests during that time as well.

The legacy of this monastery, then, are important to keep in mind because this monastery isn’t just a building in the desert, but rather a thorn to the patriarch’s (and State’s) side since Pope Shenouda’s era. (This explains why Pope Tawadros, shortly after the murder, took the opportunity to reorder monastic life, and first and foremost, order the cutting of ties between monks and the outside world through social media. As monks continually engage their communities, the 12 decrees clearly slice through that legacy of communication and inter-communal relations, and the Pope has yet to tell us what the cutting off of communication has to do with the murder, despite his insistence.)

Second, the nature of this monk, Abouna Isaiah, whom I met in May 2017, is critical and ties into my last point about the 12 decrees being not a response to the murder but rather an opportunity seized after the murder.

I met Abouna Isaiah in May 2017. My aunts, cousin, and I were visiting Wadi a-Natrun, and on our way back to Al-Giza is this monastery. Our driver was anxious, pushing us to leave Anba Pishoy and Dar al-Surian, believing we wouldn’t make it in time for the closing of the guards at Dar Abu Maqar at 4 pm.

We arrived at the gates well-past 5:30 pm, and there was no longer security; the gatekeeper approached us, informed us that the monastery was closed, but after we informed him that we really wanted to visit, he nodded, asked for our information and let us through without any scan, which is typical of monastic security now.

We entered, parked, and walked over to the main Church to receive the blessing; what surprised me was how many people there were in the monastery: it was packed. Children were running around, and adults were trickling in and out. On our way out, actually, a French interviewer (the time being around 7 pm) came in to speak to the monks about terrorism in Egypt. This is how lax life was (or is) at the monastery.

When we entered the main Church, Abouna Isaiah was inside telling the story of Abu Makar to a group of children and adults. We sat in the back, and when we finished, Abouna approached us and said he’d give us a tour of the monastery. Afterwards, knowing that we were from out of the country, he made us tea and sat to discuss politics (Donald’s election, Sisi’ taxes, etc.) and economics, and it was clear he was intimately informed of how difficult life was in and out of the country. He then friended us on facebook, where he posted Bible verses and photos with visitors.

When the news broke that Abouna Isaiah would be defrocked, streams of people posted on his facebook about the tragedy and how they wouldn’t stand with the Church’s decision, believing him to be a good and noble human. (Many even somehow attached his defrocking with the murder, which was not explicitly stated in the Church’s decree, and shows how badly the Pope and his administration handled the crisis.) It should also be noted that Abouna Isaiah had been reprimanded by Pope Tawadros once before, but the monks of his monastery stood with Abouna Isaiah and demanded that he be forgiven; Anba Epiphanous was one of those monks advocating for him. Abouna Isaiah was forgiven by the higher administration, and supposedly returned to his ways, and now Pope Tawadros has returned to the crisis in such a way to end it.

Following the public defrocking, we found that Abouna Isaiah had attempted suicide by drinking poison.

As a Sunday School teacher, with many an unruly class, I can say by experience how strongly I disagree with the patriarch’s steps in disciplining the monks. Even if they have committed the most heinous of crimes, such as murder, although I doubt a monk would kill the abbot who advocated for him with a metal blunt object to the head, we should not treat others as though there is no redemption. Abouna Isaiah’s attempted suicide (and Abouna Faltaous’ and even Anba Epiphanous’ murder) are then our society’s fault for presenting life as those with four walls, made of human backs turned against a trapped victim’s face.

Instead of presenting the crisis as a discussion, with consequences made to redeem,  for the community and for the monks, we could have arrived at a greater truth than, as the Pope put it, “The obedient son receives the blessing.”

Third, we arrive at the issue of the Church’s handling this situation(s) alongside the State’s intervention of the State. Neither side is honest or direct, believing that the public isn’t important, although the public has been deeply affected by the events.

It’s clear that the State, unlike any other tragedy that befalls the Coptic Church, has taken the lead as the high profile of Anba Epiphanous is an important narrative they wish to control. And of course, the deaths of many, such as in the bombings of Tanta, aren’t ones to investigate, only exploit, as Sisi promises rebuilding and stability to an international and domestic audience to boost his image; dictators survive off violence and fear.

It’s also clear that the Church’s administration has found the chance to demand a public’s obedience and submission, after chaotic years following the 2011 and 2013 revolutions, in which Copts began protests despite the Patriarchs’ disapproval.

This isn’t merely a reordering of a monastery, but also a reordering a society. 

In his papal Wednesday address, Pope Tawadros, much like Sisi, demanded obedience from the people and, while quoting Sisi, mentioned that “not everything you hear is true,” and while I agree with this fact, it’s obvious that the Pope merely is advocating for himself as a spokesperson of the Church and its affairs, and social media, such as facebook and twitter, have broken his authority to control information (much in the same way Sisi’s authority has been challenged via social media). ً

Hence, the 12 decrees demand a closure to accepting monks for one year, as the number of monks surpasses 1,000 for the first time in Coptic history (and the history of our resistance); hence, the 12 decrees demand less bishops, despite the need of the Church for leaders especially in diaspora, because the Patriarch needs to vet his leaders; hence, the 12 decrees demand zero-tolerance for social media and communal engagements between monks and the outside world because their resistance cannot spread beyond the monastery’s borders,

This isn’t merely a reordering of a monastery, but also a reordering a society. 

It’s also interesting that in his papal address, the Pope continues to speak on an international, transnational level, even calling the Coptic Church the “Egyptian Church.” Note how particular the change and the significance of emphasizing a national church with an international image instead of a domestic, communal, ancient Church.

Secondly, in keeping with this line, the Pope continues in this address to mention how much Egypt has given the world. Image is an important theme in this address. Egypt doesn’t birth murderers and rumors and scandals (hence, why the State has jumped on this case), but rather Egypt births scholars, religious men, and men worthy of imitation. Image is crucial to the Church’s growth, to the Pope’s retention of power. (But actually fixing the situation that birthed the tragedy isn’t–note.)

This isn’t merely a reordering of a monastery, but also a reordering a society. 

Moreover, as I keep repeating, this is a story of power, and as Judith Butler reminds us, power isn’t based on logic or merit, but rather contradiction and control. 

I know that I perhaps sound crazy, but this will be written about later, when others have come to the same conclusions after discussions of “the monastery has high walls! How could a murderer come from the outside?” among the narrow-minded pause and take attention to the deeper questions of societal reactions and interactions and the history of Coptic resistance in monasteries.

You may continue to believe that it’s within the Church’s best interests to act as such, secretive and with a demand for blind obedience, but let me ask in conclusion:

1. Why demand a lack of communication in a time that needs it the most?
2. Why is forgiveness not on the table for the monks–especially a monk that Anba Epiphanous forgave and brought back to his monastery? What image is Pope Tawadros and the Church administration attempting to paint?
3. What is the connection of “reordering the monasteries” (and why all? even the nuns?) and the murder? What does social media have to do with it? What does accepting monks have to do with it? Why have something general applied everywhere, instead of decrees, specific, for each place to meet their needs? Who benefits from these decrees? Why does the State happen to also benefit from these decrees more than the people?
4. Why does the Pope and his administration continually demand obedience without offering equal footing of knowledge and communication with the public? Why demand that we be sheep?

The irony, perhaps then, is that although this relationship between Church and State in Egypt is the most assured through time, since the welcoming of Islamic leaders to legitimize the Orthodox patriarch over the Catholic one, this relationship is the deadliest for those in the middle–those sheep–who, though told to be docile, have so few who are speaking, shouting, demanding.

An Important Article Concerning Social Justice and the Orthodox Church

For those who want to research or start to know about the Orthodox Church’s presence during the Civil Rights Movement, here are two good articles:

This is an article from a Greek-run site about the Archbishop Iakovos marching with the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

This second one concerns racism as a heresy, in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

The Coptic Church, of a later wave of immigration to the United States, has yet to stand such heights, but I want to point to these two articles because of a conversation I have had recently with a convert to the Eastern Orthodox Church who accused the Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches of being “racialized.”

People of color cannot racialize a space or context, as they are the ones who live in racialized spaces and contexts that white people create and propagate. But rather, we must realize, as the Reverend MLK argued and, I’m sure, Archbishop Ivakovos as well, when people of color dare to form spaces and contexts just for them, it’s not for the purpose to dominate or out of prejudice, but rather out of a need-even a desperate need-to heal, or at least to find healing in one another.

Safe spaces, then, are not equal to white corporate board rooms. Safe spaces have a different functionality, a different purpose, a different legacy.

Likewise, Greek, Russian, or even Coptic Churches are not like white Protestant churches which forced Black peoples to convert to Christianity (in order to legitimize their dominance as master), but rather these Churches–these safe spaces–are spaces of healing from the racism and hatred of white people we face in this country.

Just a reminder.

“The State Protects Us from Tribalism”

Studying the Middle East, or, for that matter, any non-European entity or peoples, one will often hear in lecture, in a crowded room of dark-circles-under-their-eyes youth that the creation of a State provided humanity with diversity, progress and growth.

For instance, in discussing Arabia before the birth of Islam there, we’ll hear something on the lines of: “Arabian society was based on the notion of tribalism. Your family protected you from other families, and most of the time this family was imagined in lineage, etc. Blah blah blah.”

And because the field of Middle Eastern Studies is so occupied by white and male people, it’s a difficult notion to grasp that tribalism isn’t backward, nor is it a death to (genetic) diversity, nor does it kill population/urban growth. It’s difficult to explain to white people because, living in the United States or Europe, means that they are naturally blind to that state–the tribe formation of a state they have made.

I’ll argue that, in actuality, nation-states are inherently racist and state-formations are tribalistic in the truest sense of the definition, while “tribalism” of Africa and Asia is a more progressive, diverse and strengthening human development.

In sticking with our points, white people will note that the state does three things (which I will elaborate):

1. States/governments provide the means for progress, such as organizing patents so no one steals ideas from each other, providing funds to the art and such, providing welfare to the needy on behalf of everyone.
2. States/governments offer humans the opportunity of diversity through the citizenship process. (Lol.)
3. States/governments allow cities/urban areas to flourish, which in turn, strengthen human growth and family, which means more ideas, more innovation, more togetherness (instead of constant in-fighting).

On the other hand, many white academics claim that tribalism does the opposite: that it stifles progress through lack of funds and gathering of resources, that it crushes diversity as one marries from within the family, and that it impedes the ability for humans to flourish together in an urban environment.

Okay. Now that we have the white academic argument laid out, let’s look at the rebuttal: the state, as created by European philosophers and intellects and politicians and monarchs, and sustained by their people, poor and rich, woman and man, upholds the very negative definition white people have given tribalism.

1. Concerning progress, we know that the European state doesn’t stimulate the minds and doesn’t protect the bodies of all its citizens. Formed on the basis to give white landowners rights against the ruler, European “democracy,” in actuality, is made to upload and sustain the rich of its given society whether in Germany or in the United States. Hence, when they want to stimulate minds of its scientists and artists, those grants are given to white people at a profound rate, since the science and art of its slaves and laborers aren’t worth the taxes these Brown and Black give to the State. It’s not worth returning it to them, to stimulate their minds. Moreover, the European state only sustains the white poor; as analyzed in this Huffington Post article, most of the people who receive welfare in the United States are actually white people (white women to be specific). Thus, the European state, and the one Europeans formulated in America, only promotes its white citizens, rich or poor, woman or man. Progress is only for its white citizens. Hence, we have stories of Black women succeeding in STEM fields and still not being honored; hence, we have laborers who keep European states afloat and yet they are hated for “taking the money of the state,” ironically. Progress is only for its white people. Progress of the body is for white people. Progress of the mind, even if innovated by people of color, is stolen. Progress is only for its white citizens. So that, much like their definition of tribes, white society savagely crushes its slaves and laborers in order to feed itself–and itself alone. Much like a barbaric tribe they describe, no?
2. While European states and the United States offer paths to citizenship for those who are non-white (which, in the United States, is a bit ironic for white people to handle anyhow), this path requires that the person of color shed off herself and become white. They must learn German to be German, and English to be “American” (although the only true Americans are those on reservation camps). And they must know the over-glorified history of white people in order to be accepted, while white citizens are not expected to know this history, merely because they are white and their citizenship is derived from their race (not their knowledge of a language or history). Moreover, I would be remiss not to mention that paths to citizenship in European states are costly, a heavy burden, to ensure those who want to be white take the classes and submerge themselves in it, so that those non-white citizens–those citizens of color of any European nation-state–are not themselves, they throw off their culture that is good and noble, and they put on the new industrious culture and language of whiteness. I’m not going to go into how evil and how backward this is for society–how many languages we’ve lost, or even things such as ways for natural-hair girls to wrap their hair at night (this all had to be rediscovered among the woke). This is a silencing of diversity–it’s an illusion. We have so many Brown and Black bodies, but all of them, through the ideals of citizenship (which is a racist concept anyway), are manufactured to be white as stone. And once people of color become white, they are then told, “See! Now you can become like us–CEOs, managers, and innovators!” while they–white men and women–still hold the reins tight against us, people of color. Those who agree to the contract “to become white” are given recommendations to higher levels of power and authority, because white people won’t fear them, and those who refuse like our grandmothers or our fathers are meant to sweep the streets as punishment. Don’t be deceived: the European definition of the barbarity of the tribe in punishing Others and in protecting exclusively its own is the very definition of the white mega-tribe. Hence, we have cops killing Black lives more than any other, pulling over new immigrants to this country and finding the inhumanity within themselves to ship people against their will. Hence, our prisons are filled with Black people who refuse to obey, not criminals. Hence, British detention centers for refugee families are open and running and shipping human bodies as though God had nothing to be with them. Hence, Germany ships back refugees to Greece, pushing tensions to create a damaged economy, in order to hold its own self up. Hence, those who fail citizenship tests are meant to pay again, travel further and further away to get it. Europe and the United States are the definition of a white mega-tribe.
3. And, lastly, concerning the European definition that tribes in Africa and Asia are unable to build cities and flourish in an urban environment. The first cities were in the Middle East, and today, Cairo has a larger population than New York City, so let’s not joke around. The Middle East in particular is the very definition of city from Cairo to Tripoli to Beirut and Damascus to Aleppo and Jerusalem and Amman and Sana’ and Baghdad and Haifa and Alexandria to Mosul and Tehran. Don’t play: Middle Easterners taught white people how to even begin to build a city. And these cities were built by tribes that came together and shared their resources–and I don’t mean in the European sense that one white family helped another white family to make France; actually, we know that Egypt was one of the more diverse sections of the world, welcoming all: Hebrews, Persians, desis, Assyrians, Nubians, Babylonians, etc. Egyptians were capable of working with other cultures and tongues to construct a society of diversity, pulling Asia and Africa together. These diverse societies, while they conquered each other over and over, rarely brought their supremacy to the forefront; instead, they melded and molded, so that we see Daniel becoming a minister in Babylonia and Joseph second in command in Egypt and Abraham being welcomed into Pharaoh’s court and Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, giving advice to Moses about setting up a judicial system and Moses marrying an Ethiopian woman (as his second wife) and Rahab the woman of Jericho being saved by the Israelites and Ruth the Moabite being welcome by the Israelites as well and Esther being accepted as a Jew in Babylonia and her uncle Mordecai as a minister as well. And in Muhammad’s biography, centuries after, we know he spoke to Christians–Ethiopians and Assyrians and Copts. We know he married a Copt, and that Ethiopian Christians were seen as wise and prophetic and Assyrian Christians were his teachers. Meanwhile, the Jews of Yathrib welcomed Muhammad. This used to be the way of the world: welcoming and mingling and accepting. But by the rise of the nation-state and nationalism, we have lost that. The world has lost that.

 

It’s clear that when Europeans define a tribe so negatively, they seem to be unaware that they are truly describing their own police-state, racist/nationalistic, white mega-tribal countries. I’ve never understood why Europeans are so jealous of what Brown and Black have created, even when bound with slavery or colonialism. But it’s clear that they are, and that these white insecurities have become the death of many innocent. And not just the physical kind of death. But also the the death of cultures and tongues and livelihoods–all lost in the scramble for Europe to find an identity, any identity, while we used to flourish.

Religion as the Stuff of Imagination

I am often told that I have a wild imagination. I even once had a friend who said she’d pay to be put in my mind for a day.

And as much as I am imaginative, I am religious. So it’s easy for some to see a correlation (even though there are plenty of religious people who don’t have imagination. Like at all).

Being religious doesn’t mean that I imagine a big Man in the sky who speak to me from time to time. Nor does it mean that I imagine angels about me and saints in the periphery, praying.

Secular, atheistic people often think and even infect others with the notion that religion is built on imagination, and for those who envy that imagination, but not wanting to take on any religion, they suggest creative games for their children. For instance, on Sunday mornings, taking your kid on a hike is the same as going to Church because it provides that same spiritual–imaginative–experience, where kids can imagine the acorns are their friends instead of the incense as clouds of heaven.

Now there are a few problems with this narrative.

One, it’s offensive to tell religious people that their religion is imaginative. I understand what you’re saying, but you’re using the wrong word.

Imagine means to form a mental image, to suppose, to assume.

But for religious people–be them Christian, Hindu, Muslim–God is not simply a mental image. God isn’t a conjuring of my mind, nor is She a conjuring of a group of people’s minds. God exists without me (and within me in Christian terms). God exists before and after me. God’s existence, as much as it has everything to do with mine, has nothing to do with me. God does not need humans; it is humans that need God, yet He has created us, given us His powers and authority.

Again, this is not a matter of a group of people’s or an individual’s mental image; this is about a physical and emotional presence. It’s not all in my mind. It’s when I see my mother smile after washing the dishes that I’m reminded of God and His giving her and keeping her to me; it’s when my brother watches tv with me that I’m reminded of God’s gifts towards me, giving me shelter, a family, and love out of no merit of my own.

Religious people, thus, live in a world where we don’t suppose or assume. We live in a world of thanksgiving and sacrifice and love. We live in a world not in our minds, but actually outside, where I am called to act on my thanksgiving with sacrifices of love.

Hence, it’s highly offensive to assume that my religion boils down to imagination. Especially when we know it’s much easier not to imagine God does not exist and that there is no judgment day and that this world is paradise. (You’d have to be really white to imagine this btw.)

 

The second issue this brings to me is what happens when we believe religion is imagination, and then we try to substitute it with something else. What I mean is, the second implication of religion being imagination is that religion is a lie. It’s made up. Well made up. Therefore, if I want to my child to be creative and imaginative, but not religious, I can and will make up lies for my child.

I’m always impressed by the number of white people who didn’t know Santa Claus was not real, that parents lied to their kids about something so fantastical yet so real.

What’s real about Santa Claus is that he offers presents to all.

What’s not real about Santa Claus is that he has elves, is white, lives in a white snowland and only operates once a year.

(Santa Claus himself is based off Saint Nicholas of Greece btw.)

What’s amazing is that white people couldn’t imagine a man–a religious man at that–would be so kind and generous and good as to offer presents, secretly and in silence, to children that they made a full lie about him. And what’s more is that there are kids in the US who have distinct memories of when they were told Santa wasn’t real. Amazing.

Anyway, my parents made imaginative kids, all three of us being writers in our own ways, but they never lied to us and called it imagination. They never made up stories surrounding reality; they said it how it was: there was a man in Greece who would put presents at the door of poor kids without them knowing his name.

What happens when we presume that religion is a lie and, therefore, justify lying to our own children? You actually create a society with less imagination and creativity because their world is so full of lies made to make them happy, instead of Truth to make them think of how to emulate saints and stimulate their world.

In other words, what happens when we lie outrageously about Tooth Fairies and Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, is when we cover up great human errors that need creativity and imagination to solve them, such as growing up and having a changing body, people who actually don’t get presents on Christmas (because Santa isn’t real, kids), and that the true meaning of Easter isn’t yellow and white dresses with flowers but actually victory over death, a symbol of freedom in a freedom-less world. What happens when we lie is we cover up the Truth, and when we cover up the Truth, we’re covering up human-made disasters.

This is why Religion is so important. Because it’s–yup–not a lie. It’s the Truth. And the Truth is bold and piercing and open and in the Light.

Instead of lying to children about Santa Claus, tell them about a man long ago in Greece who did what is actually humanly possible: caring for the poor. Thus, instead of on Christmas white children will run to open their gifts, they’ll be taught instead to run to offer presents to their neighbors or to the orphans first.

Instead of taking pictures in bright-colored clothing on Easter, visit those in jail, write to them, or visit the sick–those who are bound in some way.

Instead of giving children money for their teeth, take a picture of the moment to remember it, as they won’t be the same again.

Instead of lying, therefore, tell the Truth, and open that door for our children to think creatively of alternatives to combatting the world’s woes. Let them hear stories of pain and distress from others, so that they can grow to empathize. Let them know the tragedies we have that we cannot fix without God. Teach them to pray, fast, serve, and tell the Truth. Teach them Religion instead.