Why Religion Matters: Making Selves Out of Others

This essay on faith and community is the second in a five-part series about the value of religion

SALT LAKE CITY — 

“Together is harder, but together is better.” — Rabbi David Wolpe[1]

Why do people belong to religions? Some inherit a religion at birth while others may convert to one. But at one point or another people make a conscious decision whether to participate in their religious communities. In fact, the root word for religion is the Latin “religare,” which means to reconnect or bind. In an age that magnifies personal freedom, what could sound less attractive than “binding” oneself to the quirks and idiosyncrasies of a large group of people?

And yet a principle found in many religions is that there is little separation between you and the people around you. Jesus Christ put the charge quite simply: “love thy neighbor as thyself.”[2] In other words, your well-being is much more than aloof personal freedom; it is tied to your neighbor’s well-being also. And so, religious institutions can be helpful junctures where two cooperating impulses meet — the desire for individual purpose and the desire for communal belonging. Like all human goods, these impulses fit within a balance.

Institutional religions are certainly not the only source of all that is good in the world. Individuals can have fulfilling lives while quietly living out their own beliefs in private. But throughout history nothing has rivaled organized religion in its ability to foster commitment to concrete people who live in concrete places.[3] It is in this sustained engagement with neighbors that religion makes its lasting contribution.

Being part of a church is much more than just going to church. It fills people with identity, opportunity, aspiration, learning and many more personal blessings. But these come to individuals insofar as they look beyond themselves to others. Religion instills social responsibility and covenant-making in our lives, based not on self-interest but as a promise to God. This act of “binding” is one of the rare things in history that forges social obligations beyond family or tribe. Fellow believers are often in the best position to care for an ailing person, repair a neighbor’s house or fill in countless other gaps that we ourselves cannot fill. There are few, if any, organizations that can substitute for the community of a church.

Nevertheless, one of the defining features of our time is a waning trust in institutions, including religious institutions. As a result, many people are more isolated from families, communities and society at large. It is so easy to become atomized — breaking into islands of individuals untethered to larger associations. The writer David Brooks lamented the condition wherein “individuals don’t live embedded in tight social orders; they live in buffered worlds of private choices.”[4]

Societies that encourage materialism, individualism and moral relativism may promote what has been called the “sovereignty of self,”[5] but they weaken other values. The social thinker Michael Walzer urges caution: “This freedom, energizing and exciting as it is, is also profoundly disintegrative, making it very difficult for individuals to find any stable communal support, very difficult for any community to count on the responsible participation of its individual members.”[6]

Detached individualism contributes to the trend in society of being “spiritual but not religious.” What this often means is that faith is treated as a personal matter, not the business of other people. But there need not be a contradiction between the two. A person can be both spiritual and religious. In fact, the two are interdependent in vibrant religious lives.

As author Lillian Daniel says, "Anyone can find God alone in the sunset. It takes a certain maturity to find God in the person sitting next to you who has different political views, or when a baby who is crying while you're trying to listen to the sermon."[7] Yet these very inconveniences with other people give substance to our faith, enrich our human empathies and bolster our civic foundation.

In this age of falling trust and social disintegration, a return to the sacred commitments of congregations will make our communities more cohesive. When the fabric of society begins to fray, religion with its layered threads of social capital can help bind it together.


[1] Rabbi David Wolpe, “The Limitations of Being ‘Spiritual but Not Religious,’” Time Magazine, Mar. 21, 2013.

[2] Mark 12:31.

[3] See Jonathan Sacks, “The Moral Animal,” New York Times, Dec. 23, 2012.

[4] David Brooks, “The Secular Society,” New York Times, July 8, 2013.

[5] Jean Bethke Elshtain, Sovereignty: God, State, and Self (New York City, New York: Basic Books, 2008).

[6] Michael Walzer, Citizenship and Civil Society (Rutgers, N.J.: New Jersey Committee for the Humanities Series on the Culture of Community, October 13, 1992), part 1, pp. 11-12.

[7] Lillian Daniel, “Spiritual but not religious? Path may still lead to Church,” Winnipeg Free Press, Oct. 5, 2013.

Longing Within

This essay on individual faith is the first in a five-part series about the value of religion

SALT LAKE CITY — 

“Faith empowers us to see the invisible, embrace the impossible, and hope for the incredible.” — Reverend Samuel Rodriguez[1]

Our modern world offers more choices and possibilities than ever before. Science and technology continually expand our knowledge, and the diversity of religious worldviews keeps growing. Our horizons seem to stretch thinner and faster than we are capable of handling. But in the end we remainthe same spiritual creatures. Throughout our journeys the longing within endures.

Religions share a common insight: there is something incomplete about us. And so we yearn for fullness. If every question had a ready answer, there would be no reaching in prayer. If every pain had an easy cure, there would be no thirst for salvation. If every loss was restored, there would be no desire for heaven. As long as these needs remain, so will religion. It is a natural part of life. To be human means to experience uncertainty, sorrow and death. Religion, however, is a school for making sense of chaos, a hospital for healing unseen wounds, a lifeline that gives us second chances.

To this point, Rabbi David Wolpe taught that religion “can go into a world in which there is a great deal of pain and suffering and loss and bring meaning and purpose and peace.”[2]

Though religion addresses these needs, it is not created by them. Religion is not merely a human response to hardship. It transcends the human; it comes from a higher source. History shows that men and women, in good times and bad, seek truth outside themselves as well as within. And they follow the answers they receive.

What is more, religion is the gathering of unique persons into a fellowship of believers. But if it cannot win the heart of the one, it cannot sustain its community. The spiritual experiences of each individual can be as different as the individuals themselves. Because we “see through a glass darkly,”[3] most things in life come down to faith. Ultimately, in those searching moments with the divine, it is the individual who filters the details, weighs the evidence, and makes decisions on matters of highest significance. This wrangling is the process of faith. Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote: “To believe in God means to see that the facts of the world are not the end of the matter.”[4]

Human life is about meaning. Our nature leads us to spiritual questioning and purpose. Religion provides a space where answers and meaning can be sought, found and passed on. That connection between religion and purpose continues today.

Whether it is healthy lifestyles, social trust or charitable giving, social science attests to a myriad of ways religion benefits individuals. According to one recent study, for example, “those who indicate that they are confident in God's existence report a higher sense of purpose.”[5]

This is particularly relevant now. Our encounter with modern life is often a flash of images that burn bright and fade away — so rich on the surface, so neglected at the roots. But religion and the spirituality it inspires digs beneath that surface and connects us to the moral foundations that undergird the best of our shared humanity.

Throughout his life Will Durant, a historian of ideas and cultures, marveled at the power of religious faith. He himself, however, came to no definitive belief about God. At the end of his life of learning and observation he turned his mind to the meaning of the church. In his reflections he showed that even an agnostic person can see the abiding appeal of religion in the face of the unknown:

"These church steeples, everywhere pointing upward, ignoring despair and lifting hope, these lofty city spires, or simple chapels in the hills — they rise at every step from the earth toward the sky; in every village of every nation they challenge doubt and invite weary hearts to consolation. Is it all a vain delusion? Is there nothing beyond life but death, and nothing beyond death but decay? We cannot know. But as long as man suffers, these steeples will remain."[6]

Institutions and ideas flourish when they fulfill real, lasting needs. Otherwise, they tend to die of natural causes. But religion has not died. Writing at a time, in the 1830s, when his home country of France was departing from religion, Alexis de Tocqueville observed that “the soul has needs that must be satisfied.”[7] He has proven correct. Over the centuries, attempts to squelch these needs have failed. Religion provides the structure for this longing, and churches are the household of faith.

Though built of wood, stone and steel, churches represent something deep in the human soul, something we long to uncover. More than anything man-made, religion gives direction and shape to the individual search for meaning.


[1] Samuel Rodriguez, “Religious Liberty and Complacent Christianity,” The Christian Post, Sep. 10, 2013.

[2] “Why Faith Matters: Rabbi David J. Wolpe,” lecture given at Emory University, Oct. 21, 2008.

[3] 1 Corinthians 13:12.

[4] Ludwig Wittgenstein, personal journal entry (8 July 1916), p. 74e.

[5] Stephen Cranney, “Do People Who Believe in God Report More Meaning in Their Lives? The Existential Effects of Belief," Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Sept. 4, 2013.

[6] Will and Ariel Durant, Dual Autobiography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1977).

[7] Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 510.

A modern pope gets old school on the Devil

By Anthony Faiola, Published: May 10

VATICAN CITY — A darling of liberal Catholics and an advocate of inclusion and forgiveness, Pope Francis is hardly known for fire and brimstone.

Yet, in his words and deeds, the new pope is locked in an epic battle with the oldest enemy of God and creation:

The Devil.

After his little more than a year atop the Throne of St. Peter, Francis’s teachings on Satan are already regarded as the most old school of any pope since at least Paul VI, whose papacy in the 1960s and 1970s fully embraced the notion of hellish forces plotting to deliver mankind unto damnation.

Largely under the radar, theologians and Vatican insiders say, Francis has not only dwelled far more on Satan in sermons and speeches than his recent predecessors have, but also sought to rekindle the Devil’s image as a supernatural entity with the forces­ of evil at his beck and call.

Last year, for instance, Francis laid hands on a man in a wheelchair who claimed to be possessed by demons, in what many saw as an impromptu act of cleansing. A few months later, he praised a group long viewed by some as the crazy uncles of the Roman Catholic Church — the International Association of Exorcists — for “helping people who suffer and are in need of liberation.”

“ ‘But Father, how old-fashioned you are to speak about the Devil in the 21st century,’ ” Francis, quoting those who have noted his frequent mentions of the Devil, said last month while presiding over Mass at the Vatican’s chapel in St. Martha’s House. He warned those gathered on that chilly morning to be vigilant and not be fooled by the hidden face of Satan in the modern world. “Look out because the Devil is present,” he said.

Since its foundation, the church has taught the existence of the Devil. But in recent decades, progressive priests and bishops, particularly in the United States and Western Europe, have tended to couch Satan in more allegorical terms. Evil became less the wicked plan of the master of hell than the nasty byproduct of humanity’s free will. Even Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, a lofty German theologian, often painted evil with a broad brush.

Enter the plain-talking first pope from Latin America, where mystical views of Satan still hold sway in broad areas of the region. During his time as cardinal of Buenos Aires before rising to the papacy, Francis was known for stark warnings against “the tempter” and “the father of lies.” Now, his focus on the Devil is raising eyebrows even within the normally unquestioning walls of Vatican City.

“Pope Francis never stops talking about the Devil; it’s constant,” said one senior bishop in Vatican City who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to speak freely. “Had Pope Benedict done this, the media would have clobbered him.”

Yet, as with so many of his actions, Francis may simply be correctly reading the winds of the Catholic Church.

Rising demand for exorcists

Although it is difficult to measure, Vatican officials talk about a resurgence of mystical rites in the church, including exorcism — or the alleged act of evicting demons from a living host. Cardinals in Milan; Turin, Italy; and Madrid, for instance, recently moved to expand the number of exorcists in their dioceses to cope with what they have categorized as surging demand.

But by focusing on old-school interpretations of the Devil, some progressive theologians complain, the pope is undermining his reputation as a leader who in so many other ways appears to be more in step with modern society than his predecessor.

“He is opening the door to superstition,” said Vito Mancuso, a Catholic theologian and writer.

Among the things lurking behind that door is the alleged gateway to hell guarded by the small cluster of officially anointed exorcists of the Roman Catholic Church.

By most accounts, the ranks of official exorcists number between 500 and 600 in a global church of more than 1 billion Catholics, with the vast majority operating in Latin America and Eastern Europe. This week, at the ninth and largest Vatican-sanctioned convention on exorcism, attendees gushed about the fresh recognition being afforded the field.

Almost 200 delegates — most of them priests and nuns — from more than two dozen nations talked about how Satanic cults are spreading like wildfire in the age of the Internet.

The new pope, exorcists say, has become their champion in the face of modern skeptics, many of them within the Catholic faith. Officially, those claiming to be possessed must first undergo psychiatric evaluations. But exorcists say that liberal Catholic bishops have often rejected their services even after such due diligence.

“The sad truth is that there are many bishops and priests in our church who do not really believe in the Devil,” said the Rev. Gabriele Amorth, the 89-year-old priest who is perhaps the closest thing the church has to a Hollywood-style exorcist. “I believe Pope Francis is speaking to them. Because when you don’t believe, the Devil wins.”

During the conference, the Rev. Cesar Truqui, an exorcist based in Switzerland, recounted one experience he had aboard a Swissair flight. “Two lesbians,” he said, had sat behind him on the plane. Soon afterward, he said, he felt Satan’s presence. As he silently sought to repel the evil spirit through prayer, one of the women, he said, began growling demonically and threw chocolates at his head.

Asked how he knew the woman was possessed, he said that “once you hear a Satanic growl, you never forget it. It’s like smelling Margherita pizza for the first time. It’s something you never forget.”

From his small room in a south Rome rectory fitted with a hospital bed, Amorth praised Francis for so fully embracing the biblical notion of the Devil as the personified overlord of hell.

Unlike in the movies, he said, the process of driving demons out typically takes multiple sessions over many years.

An exorcist in action

In a rare glimpse of an official exorcism last week, in a white-tiled room outfitted with images of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary, Amorth wrapped his purple sash around a Neapolitan housewife in her 40s who said she was afflicted by multiple demons. He then began chanting in Latin, commanding the devils inside her to reveal themselves.

“Tell me your name!” he demanded.

“No, no,” hissed the woman, shaking her head and speaking in an altered voice as her eyes rolled to the back of her head. “I will not!”

“Tell me your name!” he kept repeating, until finally she spat out, “Asmodeus,” the name of an ancient demon and hellish spokesman.

“How many are you?” he yelled, repeating the question as she grunted and shook her head violently.

Finally, she defiantly said, “We are five!”

After his bout with the demons, the diminutive Amorth simply shrugged.

“That,” he said, “was a light one.”

Following the session, the woman and her husband, who gave their names only as Antonella and Michele, said they had been going through a living hell for years. They had begged bishops to authorize an exorcism when Antonella began having uncontrollable fits after receiving Holy Communion and became violent around religious prayers. But they were repeatedly denied.

It was only after they were referred to Amorth and began sessions four years ago, Antonella said, that her condition finally began to improve.

“The Devil exists, and thanks to this treatment, I have gotten back my faith,” she said. “I think Pope Francis is telling us it’s okay to believe.”



Stefano Pitrelli contributed to this report.