If the Church mandates morality, and if the state fixes our appropriate behavior with laws, ethics, rules and values, what then, is the role of The Arts in the lives of the everyday citizen and must we require the state and the Church to not only support The Arts but to practice them as well?
The Greeks made a bold move and removed the question of morality from the secular world and replaced that mandate with the universal ideal of ethical behavior governed by laws. We became a people of rules and laws and ethics in the state — making us completely unique in the world — because no other competing species for our time and space is able to cognitively think, make value judgments and create a standard, equitable, criteria for living as citizens that requires we help each other instead of trying to kill each other. We are ruled by our minds and not our emotional instincts. We have patterns of written expectation we agree to adhere to in order to get along with each other — and the role of the historic Church in antiquity was to mediate the meticulous, and sometimes tenuous, dyad between a people and their state — and to help regulate an effervescent values system and to negotiate a context for living a moral life in a shapeshifting world.
It was incredibly refreshing yesterday — during the national prayer breakfast — when President Obama made room for the Godless in the manic realm of a national, religious, fervor and reinforced the necessary separation of church and state.
The Episcopal Church in the United States is being ripped apart by treachery and the hatred of humankind as sexuality and gender identification are leaving the church in tatters:
Continue reading → The American Episcopal Church Rips and Tatters
You must be logged in to post a comment.