I’m making my way through the development of Hinduism  and Buddhism.  Not as much directly related material, but still full of insight.  

Of particular interest is the idea that though both of these religions are distinguished in their beginnings by not really needing/worshipping any gods, they both grew into a deeply felt need for worship and for deities.  Stark suggests that no religious movement can maintain meaning without the worship of a god. 

“ ‘G0dless’ religions offer neither hope nor meaning, and the popular form of such faiths always involves a restoration of conscious, active Gods.” 

Thus, in Hinduism, the abstract Brahman becomes personified and worshiped as the Bhagavad-gita and Buddhists truly worship Buddha.  “There simply is no getting around the fact that many Buddhists worship the Buddha.  In addition, most Buddhists temples are chock-full of lesser Gods, for Buddhism became an extremely theistic religion.”

One note of particular interest.  I never realized how much Hinduism saturates Star Wars.  

    Listen to this description of Brahman – the supreme reality of the universe.  “The Brahman is the active force of the universe, but it is immaterial, cosmic, impersonal, and unaware.” Indeed, the goal of Nirvana is to be melded into the Brahman…to become part of this “force.”  When Nirvana is reached the very physical body is immersed into the larger reality for eternity.  Now I know why Yoda and Obi-Wan’s bodies vanished at death!   

“It is desire that traps humans in endless existence.  The man who does not desire, who is without desire, whose desire is satisfied, whose desire is self escapes and goes to Brahman at his death.” Sound like Jedi training to you?  No wonder their characters are so freaking boring. 

Clientele or Member?

Here’s a concept Stark introduced me to in this book that I’ve alluded to several times on Sundays and find so provocative.

The first religions were temple religions.  Temple religions dominated the scene from Sumer through Israel throughout the entire globe.  Aztecs and Mayans in America as well as Egyptians and Jews all were structured as some sort of Temple Religion. 

As you read Stark’s description of Temple religions below consider how eerily familiar it sounds.  Could it be that even though we are supposed to be in the era of the church that the way we tend to treat the church more resembles ancient temples than local communal congregations?

Listen (Italics are my insertions – sorry, I couldn’t help myself):

“Temple religions are staffed by an exclusive priesthood and serve a clientele rather than a membership.  Clients come to a temple to participate in periodic festivals and ceremonies (substitute Easter and Christmas) and sometimes appear there in pursuit of personal spiritual, material, and social returns (connections rather obvious, huh?).  But their temple activity is a relatively incidental aspect of their social relationships and their self-conceptions: people go to temples; they do not belong to them.”

I am taken with the desire to form and shape a church community, but I think it’s so difficult in the midst of a culture who prefers to go to Temples for good spiritual food in the same way we go to restaurants for good physical food.  How to change a go to culture to a belong culture?