Forget Ideologies, Let’s Get Back to Religion

We hear the word ‘ideology’ bandied about quite a bit these days. It’s almost as if ideologies are a super critical part of life and living.

‘Ideology’ is, however, a fairly modern word.  Merriam-Webster says it’s only been in use in English since the end of the 18th century.  It’s also “one of the few words whose coiner we can identify. The French writer A. L. C. Destutt de Tracy proposed it as a term to designate the “science of ideas,” and in that sense the word was quickly borrowed into English.”

As with many words today whose meanings have changed in good ways or not so good ways (the word “gay” for instance), ideology also evolved.

Today the online encyclopedia Britannica says ideology is “a system of ideas that aspires both to explain the world and to change it.”  So it’s no longer just a set of scientific ideas.  Ideology aspires to create change.

A host of ideologies abound in society.  Republicanism (not the political party, but the form of government), for instance, is no longer just a system of government.  Today republicanism is an ideology, along with 51 other ideologies listed in an article at HelpfulProfessor.com (by no means an exhaustive list).

‘-ists’ and ‘-isms’

So, in today’s world there are many people who are ‘ists’ or who subscribe to one or more ‘isms.’  There are Marxists, humanists, environmentalists, and feminists, among us.  There are also those who are proponents of scientism, animal rights activism, globalism, and even anarchism.

Religion, however, is not an ideology, as the tract on ideology at Britannica notes. “Ideologies, in fact, are sometimes spoken of as if they belonged to the same logical category as religions . . but the differences between ideologies and religions are perhaps more important than the similarities.”

It goes on to say, “A religious theory of reality is constructed in terms of a divine order and is seldom, like that of the ideologist, cent[e]red on this world alone.  A religion may present a vision of a just society, but it cannot easily have a practical political program. The emphasis of religion is on faith and worship; its appeal is to inwardness and its aim the redemption or purification of the human spirit.”

For Catholics this is pretty obvious.  Catholicism centers on God, His truths, Christ’s sacrifice for us, and what God expects of us.  Its goal is  “purification of the human spirit” aimed at making the world a better place.  Ideologies, on the other hand, center on human ideas aimed at making the world a better place.

As such, a pertinent question we should probably all be asking is, do we really think our human ideas are better than God’s?

Ideologies Replacing Religion

Unfortunately, in our post-Christian society ideologies are running amok and religion is getting kicked to the curb.  As an article at Forbes said a few years ago, “Today, ideology seems to be filling a vacuum left by traditional faith.”

Another way of saying this is that in our post-Christian society ideologies (mankind’s own, often half-baked, ideas) are supplanting God’s perfect teaching.  It’s the Tower of Babel story all over again.

Today, according to Dr. Jeff Mirus, ideology might be defined as “A set of principles derived from distorted half-truths and adopted by secularist leaders to justify the use of political power to control the rest of the population.”  There is more than a grain of truth in this definition.

For instance, Marxism, communism, and socialism all propose equality for all people.  But the total equality each ideology proposes actually results in three distinct classes of people – a small group of elites living in luxury, a larger group of people who work for the state and who have some small luxuries, and everyone else, the have-nots.

But even our highly prized Republicanism system of government has faults.  The Founding Fathers eve knew it was not perfect from the get-go.  They knew that if it was going to work, God must be at the center of everything we do.

John Adams, the second President of the U.S., in a June 21, 1776 letter to his cousin Zabdiel Adams, wrote, “Statesmen . . . may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone, which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand.  The only foundation of a free constitution, is pure virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our people, in a greater measure, than they have it now, they may change their rulers, and the forms of government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty. They will only exchange tyrants and tyrannies.”

The simple fact is that a close examination of every ideology will uncover flaws and potential (if not actual) risks.

Government or God?

While no system of government is perfect, countries do need some kind of system of governance.  But all of the man-made systems fall short in one way or another.

Societies have tried monarchism, authoritarianism, dictatorships, fascism, federalism, imperialism, parliamentarianism, constitutionalism, pluralism, communism, socialism, republicanism, totalitarianism, tribalism, and various combinations of these.

And in every instance, the leaders always get richer.

Instead of allowing ideologies to exert such influence, we might be much better off if we just kick all the various ideologies to the curb.  They are, after all, hatched by us imperfect human beings.

God, on the other hand, is perfect so we can bank on His teachings being perfect as well.  Rather than putting our trust in princes and other elites spouting ideologies, the world should turn back to God.

A Really Short History of Ancient Israel

In the ancient world, and through much of history, kings ruled. In the movie “History of the World, Part 1,” Mel Brooks succinctly summed up kingship: ”It’s good to be the king!”

But the ancient Israelites found that kings and princes don’t always make good leaders.  If we were smart we would learn from their mistake.

Before the Israelites had a human king they were a theocracy.  God was their king.  They were after, God’s chosen people.  After the Israelites settled in the Promised Land (the Conquest of Canaan, as told in Joshua), the 12 tribes were ruled by God through “Judges,” as recounted in the Old Testament Book of Judges.

Judges does not provide a lot of detail, but for the most part the judges kept the nation together and free from foreign conquers.

Samuel was the last judge to govern Israel before Saul became the first human king of the Israelites.  And things went south for the nation of Israel after his demise.

The Israelites were always hot and cold in their devotion to God.  In  Samuel’s day, many Israelites were worshipping Baal and Astarte, two Canaanite gods (Samuel 7).  Samuel managed to bring them back to God, but this did not last long.

In his old age, Samuel appointed his sons as judges.  This was a mistake because, per Samuel 8:3, they “looked to their own gain, accepting bribes and perverting justice.”  Needless to say, the Israelites were not happy about this, so they asked Samuel to “Give us a king to rule us” (Samuel 8:6).

Now Samuel was not happy, so he turned to God in prayer.  God told Samuel not to feel bad about the request because the Israelites were not just rejecting him (Samuel), they were also (once again) rejecting God as their king.

A Big Ooops!

God told Samuel to warn the Israelites how their request would pan out.  In a nutshell, their kings would take and take from them, and they would become slaves of the king (Samuel 8:11-18).  But, of course, the Israelites didn’t listen and Saul was anointed king.

Samuel’s warning from God came true. (How could it be otherwise?)  Aside from King David’s reign and the “Golden Age” of Solomon, Israel didn’t fair very well under its many  kings.  Eventually the once unified kingdom of Israel split into the kingdoms of Israel and Judah (Judea), and in 598 B.C. King Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem and the Babylonian Exile began.

By the time Our Savior was born, some 530 years after the Exile ended, the kingdom of Israel was pretty much just a memory.  After some 1,945 years, Israel became a nation once more, albeit way smaller and much less powerful than when God was its King.

Some Interesting Questions

Israel’s history raises some interesting questions: What might have God’s Chosen People become if the they had not chosen to have a human as their king?  Would the Roman Empire have so easily absorbed Israel into its empire?  And what would the world look like today?

The Israelites wanted a human king because all of their neighbors had human kings.  One might say this was the first time secular thinking impacted religion. The human ideology of monarchism replaced God’s plan for His Chosen People.  But God allowed it to happen knowing full well the consequences for Israel – and perhaps/maybe/probably for the rest of the world.

Today, intellectuals and other elites of secular thinking are trying real hard to impose half-baked ideologies on Christianity in general, and Catholicism in particular.  They are trying to replace God’s teaching on what is right, moral, and correct, with teaching inspired by Satan.  And too many people are falling for Satan’s sinful teachings.

The next time someone professes to be some kind of ‘ist’ or proclaims to support some ‘ism,’ you might want offer up a better belief system.  You might say, “I’m a believer in Catholicism. It’s God’s way of living and it’s way better than any silly man-made ideology.”

We need to stop taking all the half-baked ideologies seriously.  We need to get back to putting God and his teachings at the center of everything we do.