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The above is a copy of an article from the Radio Times. It is an article about Jewish Historian Simon Schama who says he's "not an atheist". It was the title text of this article that first piqued my interest:
Simon Schama feels Jewish to his bones but also passionately British - so why does he hate tribal identities?
In the article Schama goes on to make some comments about tribalism that cut the mustard with me. Tribalism is, in fact, a subject which has of late been the focus of my attention. In particular, tribalism has an association with religious fundamentalism and cultism in as much as they are ways of reacting to the big anonymous societies that have resulted of industrialization. (See here). These societies are no longer partitioned into cognitively manageable sub-communities and there has been a departure of many old epistemic certainties, along with clear moral values, a sense of belonging, of purpose, of sacredness, of destiny and above all a tribal need to know who are the real "aliens". Religious fundamentalist groups reassert all these things with a vengeance!
I started my Christian life as a moderate evangelical; in particular I was very struck by the message of unmerited salvation from sin and its concomitants of repentance, forgiveness, new life and the unconditional love of God. Above all I found and marveled at the sacrificial God of Philippians chapter 2. These things still give the only meaning to my life that is worth reporting. However, after many years of experiencing the fundamentalist, sectarian and cultish wings of evangelicalism it is clear that as far as partisan Christianity is concerned these true fundamentals of the faith are just so much enticing window dressing fronting the bondage of an observance based faith. Claims to knowing Christ in the sense I have given at the beginning of this paragraph are likely to be disqualified by sectarian and partisan Christians unless one follows their accompanying set of proprietary tribal observances in terms of belief and practice. Attempts to argue the toss are likely to be seen in a very dim light indeed; they much prefer interlocutors who eat out of their hand. For example, see my blog post on the appropriately named Nigel Wright below (Viz: I'm Wright and You're Wrong!); he is but one sufferer of the epistemic trauma that plagues Western societies.
Like Schama I hate those tribal identities!
Some Relevant links:
In one sense, my full position statement can be found here:
