Religious Rituals: Good or Bad?
Is there a difference between religion that services your faith and between faith that is held hostage to rituals. What are your favorite rituals and why?
13 Responses to “Religious Rituals: Good or Bad?”
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October 10th, 2006 at 1:54 pm
What does “held hostage by rituals” mean in this question?
October 11th, 2006 at 8:17 am
This is an unfair question. “Held hostage by rituals” indicates your point of view, rather than posing a neutral question. And I disagree with the premise. Rituals in religion exist for a reason - they give physicality to the spiritual. But you have to know why the rituals exist and you have to be committed enough to search for the meaning of the ritual and to embrace it. In my experience, the people who reject their religion’s rituals generally were not raised to respect them and embrace them to begin with. And then, when they try to practice some removed, spiritual form of the religion without ritual, they find the religion overall is lacking and go searching for something else. The rituals bring the religion alive and allow it to permeate all aspects of a person’s life. When that happens they take on more and more meaning over time, and guide the person throughout the day - just what religion is supposed to do. IMHO.
October 11th, 2006 at 2:47 pm
I guess I interpreted “held hostage by rituals” as meaning that they take on a life of their own and become the practice of the religion. Whomever posed the question, is that what you meant?
Rubes, what is your favorite ritual and why, if you don’t mind sharing, or maybe you don’t have one. That’s ok too.
By the way, who does pose these questions?
October 22nd, 2006 at 11:20 am
In my old evangelical fundamentalist days, our church rejected all rituals as devoid of true spirituality. Over the years, however, I noticed rituals (though they weren’t called such) developed. Rituals are human nature. Now that I’ve left my old evangelical fundamentalist church, I find the historical rituals of established churches comforting and rich with meaning.
October 28th, 2006 at 4:43 pm
rube, assuming that all religious rituals are good, i somewhat agree with you. however, many are meaningless, unless used to controll the masses, such as most in the bible. thus leading one to become hostage to said rituals. i think any ritual can become harmful and hold one hostage. we are thinking beings and when we give up our own control over to ritual, we lose ourself.
October 29th, 2006 at 2:13 pm
I agree that the question is somewhat confusing. In my church (in my mind, anyway) there is a difference between what you might think of as “rituals”‘ versus “Covenants”. Let’s see if I can explain this. To me, things like baptism and partaking of the holy sacrament, are covenants. My idea of a spiritual covenant is a two-way promise between myself and God. In the instance of baptism, I covenant or promise that I believe that Jesus Christ is my Savior and Redeemer and that I will take upon myself His name and will try daily to follow His example and live my life by following His example. In return, I am promised to have the gift of the Holy Ghost with me to teach and enlighten me and to comfort me in my daily life. I am accepted as a member of my church. When I renew that covenant with God each month, I partake of the holy sacrament, thereby comitting myself to the same promises I made at the time of baptism, and also ask forgiveness for the sins I have comitted and repented of. By taking part in that covenant or ritual, I am blessed to feel of God’s love and know that I will continue to have the gift of the Holy Ghost in my life. It is a time of reflection and spiritual contemplation.
There are plenty of “traditions” in my church which I see people get hung up on and I don’t view that to be positive. Traditions can give us a sense of security and “sameness” in our daily lives, but we should not be “held hostage” to them. I also believe we can get so hung up on following all the rules of a church; attending our meetings, paying our tithing, not using alcohol or smoking, etc., and start feeling righteous about ourselves– living the letter of the law so to speak–and lose sight of other important things like reaching out to those in need of our support and love and nonjudgemental help–living the spirit of the law. We should evaluate and pray about the “rituals or traditions” we follow, but value the covenants we routinely make between ourselves and God. I think He gives us covenants to help us remain comitted to Him and His ways.
November 24th, 2006 at 1:02 pm
There is a great story - I think I first saw it in an Anthony DeMello collection. There was a priest who was wise and who told the stories and performed the rituals in such a way as to make people very aware of God’s presence. However, he had a cat - an old and ugly cat and every time he performed the rituals, he would put a golden leash around the cat’s neck and tie her to the altar. He taught many young priests in his time and finally he passed away. The priests who took his place were careful to always bring the cat and the golden leash to the ceremonies. Finally, the cat died. So, they bought another cat. Now, that is hostage to ritual.
November 28th, 2006 at 1:41 pm
I think too much ritual leads to mind control. I am not speaking of communion and the Lord’s prayer. Too much ritual makes religion very boring, as well.
My father was a Swedish Covenant minister when I was a child, and was “ex-communicated” from the church and his ordination taken away due to some personal mistakes he made. My memory of the time before his mistakes is of ritual and parishoners who abhorred anything unique or unusual when it came to sermons and services. My father was never one for fitting in (nor am I…).
Today, he is happily a minister with the United Church of Christ and is actually building a 2-million dollar addition to his church building, that will include a massive inter-faith prayer center. Almost all of his parishoners have been in support of this center. It’s a beautiful thing!
Would they have been open to it with a different minister at the head of their church? I don’t know. But with a pastor who gives sermons on the teachings of Buddha, and who has been delivering sermons on the meanings behind contemporary rock songs since the mid-80’s, they are sure to be open. To me, this represents breaking of rituals and an opening of the humanist spirit.
I love what you ladies represent, and think you should meet my father. Your goals are so similar!
December 1st, 2006 at 11:22 pm
As a committed Christian I am held hostage by nothing.
You can build a prison for yourself with the your own beliefs. Then you are a hostage.
The Gospel makes me free to live my life according to spiritual principals that I have learned from being a committed Christian and studying the Word of God as given to me in the Bible and earnest prayer.
Jesus Christ died on the cross for me to set me free from the burden of sin and death. That is FREEDOM! Doesn’t sound much like a hostage situation to me.
Do I have to go to church every Sunday…NO! Do I have to love my neighbor…YES! Am I going to answer to the Lord if I really blow it…YES! Will He guide and direct me back into His light..YES?
A hostage…not likely. An avid devouted Christian…absolutely!
December 14th, 2006 at 2:59 pm
I think that JudeL said it best. I agree completely! Through prayer, reading the Bible and attending church services regularly, I have found freedom. But, more importantly is my personal relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I pray for wisdom and remember that Christ died for my sins. The Lord is so good to me and gives me comfort and I have so much to be thankful for. I wish everyone in the world could know the peace and understanding that we can all find in the Lord. Mart
December 22nd, 2006 at 2:27 am
One religious ritual I remember as a child is my mother getting together with a group of women and praying the rosary for Russia.
During the Cold War, the conflict between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. was thought (at least by me, in my infinite wisdom as a child) to be the greatest threat to peace in the World. Many people built bomb shelters under their houses and were convinced that the superpowers would get into a nuclear conflict that would destroy the planet.
I’m sure many other factors played a part, but who’s to say that the ritual of my mother and her cohorts did not contribute in some small way to the eventual thawing of relations between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R?
I don’t doubt the power of the Almighty, and I don’t doubt the power of earnest prayer. The thought occurs to me that a similar ritual by women of faith might help the current situation in the Middle East. Especially if it included the diverse prayers of women from a rich diversity of religious traditions. It certainly couldn’t hurt, and would do a lot more good than anything else I can think of!
December 25th, 2006 at 7:16 pm
I’m not sure if Judaism has rituals but it does have commandments such as the commandment to light the Shabbat (Sabbath) candles.
In Reform Judaism, the individual has autonomy over the commandments; we declare for ourselves which commandments have meaning for us and which commandments we shall own. Admittedly, this gets dicey, invites all of Othodoxy’s complaints against us, and lends credence to their dismissal of Reform Judaism as “Judaism Lite.”
Reform’s answer to rote commandment-following would parallel what some of you others have posted. If the commandment has no meaning to the person who performs it, then it has no meaning. Performing a commandment out of sheer obedience and without any thought is just mechanical and habit, maybe even obsessive compulsive.
I do light my Shabbat candles because (a) I just love to do so, and (b) it’s one of the defining acts of Judaism. Lighting Shabbat candles is something one can do to remind one’s self of their commitment to Judaism. Judaism is about doing rather than believing; then doing Jewish things is a constant reminder of one’s Judaism. As Christians would say, the commandments are an “outward and visible sign.”
There is a commandment that, interpreted in modern times, prohibits us from driving on Shabbat. But if I don’t drive, I can’t get to worship service; the synagogue is too far. To me, this is unacceptable. I usually go to Shabbat services on Friday night or Saturday morning (or both) because I want to pray with and be with my faith community; another reason why I am a Reform Jew.
Orthodoxy would say that God gave us laws (commandments) for a reason. If you love someone, you do as that person wishes out of the love and respect you have for that person. Therefore, you follow God’s commandments out of the love and respect you have for God. If liberals say that love leads to commandments, the Orthodox would say it’s just the opposite: doing the commandment leads to the love.
These are things I will probably struggle with forever.
December 29th, 2006 at 9:49 am
Cytocop:
Again, I must commend you on your gentle and insightful answer. What I think adds to some of the strife between Orthodox and Reform factions is very simple, I don’t think most Orthodox Jews understand the fundamental differences between the two factions. And I am not sure Reform Jews do either.
IN the torah, in the section where God gives the Commandments to Moshe (Moses) is where we see this very definitive differnce. Orthodox Jews belive that what Moses was given was completely Divine, that is that God directly gave these commandments. If these commandments are from God himself than they are compulsory, orthodox jews must follow these mitzvot, commandments. But reform Jews do not belive the laws are Divine, they belive they are manmade, made by men, while very holy and very wise, were not Divine, they were just men. Therefore, these laws are not compusory but guidelines for an ancient tribe, that can be used as building blocks for the modern era, but need not be followed as strictly as if they were timeless decrees directly from God.
TRADITIONAL JEWISH RITUALS
Orthodox Jews believe that to attain spirituality there is no need to defy your physicality. There are some religions that urge fasting, celibacy, asceticism to achieve the Sacred. This is not so in Judaism, instead of straining to separate oneself from their physical body while still on Earth, they imbue each moment of their physical lives, each mundane act with a blessing to God. With this blessing, a humbling act in itself, the physical, the mundane, the sometimes profane is then elevated to a spirtual level. There is an exhaustive series of Brachot or Brachas, blessings, that Jews must remember. To some this may seem excessive, it may seem that people are doing things by rote. But teh purpose of thse blessings is to constantly remind oneself of God, to constantly elevate the physical.
Blessing upon awakening, rituals in which water is used, blessings before types of food, blessings for a rainbow, for thunder, for storms, blessings for bowel movements, blessings for new clothing, blessings for traveling…in this way everything is spiritual, everything is elevated to a sacred level, a lever close to God.