Religion and the Status Quo

In an earlier post, I stated: "Maintaining the status quo is not a religious undertaking. On the contrary, transformation is the only option for religious institutions if they wish to thrive."

In one way, this might seem like an obvious point. If one of the primary aims of religion is transformation, then things staying just as they are would represent a failure of religion.

On the other hand, religion has frequently been used to prop up the status quo. And not just once, but time and time again. In fact, it's hard to think of any religious tradition or movement that has not been co-opted at one time or another by the powers that be to maintain power and control. In these cases, religion becomes essentially domesticated and stripped of its power to transform.

But those of us who are at all influenced by the dominant culture (and in the case of contemporary America, it is a consumerist corporatocracy) tend to be blind to anything but how we can thrive or survive in the current circumstances.

Transformative religion calls us to look at our culture not just from our own individual perpective, but from a more divine perspective. As St. Teresa of Avila said: 

The Divine has no body on earth but yours,
no hands but yours, 
no feet but yours, 
Yours are the eyes through which the 
Divine compassion is to look out to the world.

In other words, we are called not just to see how our narrow interests are served by the status quo but to see through the eyes of divine compassion, to allow our hearts to break for those who are ill served by current circumstances, and to work to change those systems and situations which are oppressive rather than liberating.

Religious transformation is--and must be--counter-cultural. Always.Otherwise, religion becomes merely a prop or decoration.