When Religion Becomes A Mere Facade 

Of course, it is true that a religion on a superficial level, religion that is untrue to itself and to God, easily comes to serve as the “opium of the people.” And this takes place whenever religion or prayer invokes the name of God for reasons and ends that have nothing to do with him. 

When religion becomes a mere artificial facade to justify a social or economic system– when religion hands over its rites  and language completely to the political propagandists, and when prayer becomes a vehicle  for a purely secular ideological program, then religion tends to become an opiate. It deadens the spirit. This brings about an alienation of the believer so that his religious zeal becomes political fanaticism. His faith in God, while preserving its traditional formulas, becomes in fact, faith in his own nation, class, or race. His ethics ceases to be the law of God and of love, and becomes the law of might makes right: established privilege justifies everything. God is the status quo.

Thomas Merton                                                                                                                           Cited in Christian Mystics

Matthew Fox adds these words and questions to Merton’s acute observations:

“Merton’s God of freedom is antithetical to God, as the status quo. The latter, Merton warns, is dangerous, “a mere artificial facade to justify a social or economic system.” What would be examples of that? When does religion deaden the spirit and reduce belief down to political fanaticism? How do we guard our own faith from being reduced to a faith in one’s”own nation, class, or race?”

If Merton were to read the current headlines about political intrigue, assess the vitality of the religious language and its landscape, and delve into the prevailing theologies and their bastard cousins in the political arena, I could easily surmise that it was a “fait de complice” what I have feared has come true!

The larger question is will the Gospel of Jesus survive… Is there sufficient will, discipline, insight, and spiritual maturity within the Christian community to rescue it from being pious pablum, prosperity perils, political infection.

As I wrote in an earlier book, unless we revive the Spirit and put it at the center of our concerns, our worship, and our social outreach, there is little promise that the church as an institution will survive…   

While I am more hopeful for a communitarian approach to intentional groups, the time of the stand-alone church, the bastion of the safe status quo might survive, but the question it will fail to address is how it will thrive when the times and the demands of the future become acute, pressing, and expectant of a strong, clear Gospel based response…