Oct 13 2009
America – in need of a new religion?
I know we’re all about Glorious Awakening this week, but there’s something on my mind from last week that I don’t think we discussed. Apologies if everyone is already bored to death by Angels.
Towards the end of the film Twelve Monkeys, Dr. Railly says to the older psychiatrist, “Psychiatry: it’s the latest religion. We decide what’s right and wrong. We decide who’s crazy or not. I’m in trouble here. I’m losing my faith.”
Elizabeth Rosen writes that in earlier drafts, “the analogy of religion to psychiatry is emphasized even more with Kathryn adding that psychiatrists are the priests of the religion” (Rosen 87).
In Angels in America, Roy tells Belize the same thing, almost word for word. He says, “Lawyers are…the High Priests of America. We alone know the words that made America. Out of thin air. We alone know how to use The Words. The Law: the only club I ever wanted to belong to” (Perestroika, Act 4, Scene 1) .
In Angels, God is literally missing, and there seems to be no room for God in the Twelve Monkeys universe, complete as it is with human time travel and a deadly epidemic. So these two postmodern apocalyptic stories offer up the alternative religions of psychiatry and law in place of Christianity (or Judaism or Mormonism).
We’ve discussed secular replacements for God (Ozymandias in Watchmen), secular replacements the end of the world (nuclear annihilation in Watchmen and On the Beach, viruses in Angels in America and Twelve Monkeys), secular replacements for New Jerusalem (end of the Cold War in Watchmen, epilogue of Angels) – all elements of the apocalyptic paradigm.
This secularization makes the stories more believable, and thus (maybe) more compelling – as entertainment, calls to action, social critique, etc. It’s easy to imagine nuclear attack (see the Duck and Cover video), or dying from a disease (AIDS, swine flu, anthrax, etc.) Much easier than imagining oceans turning into blood, or 200 million demonic horsemen galloping around (Revelation 8:8, 9:16-19). But, as we’ve discussed in class, we live in the most religious industrialized nation. Ultimately, the idea of law or psychiatry taking the place of Christianity is just as hard for me to swallow as the idea of a lake of fire filled with nonbelievers (Revelation 20:15).
For me, specific secular or human gods are not as compelling as traditional religious figures. Perhaps I’m channeling Louis, but there’s something to be said for the “two thousand years old” litmus test.
Law, psychiatry, Wall Street, academia – things people can be said to “worship” – are ultimately as transient as the people who believe in them. If all the psychiatrists took a page out of Dr. Railly’s book and began losing their faith, psychiatry might end up going the way of snake oil elixir.
Could the same thing be said about belief in God? Maybe. But considering all the challenges to religion over the past two millennia, and the fact that it’s still around, makes me think we might be on to something.
Of course, I don’t think the idea of secular gods in general is going anywhere anytime soon. Daniel pointed me to this video clip which, while of course it’s a dramatization for a movie, does offer a reminder of how arrogant we can be in our search for God or a suitable substitute.
I’m curious–do you personally see a compelling alternative to these established forms, ranging from traditional religion to law and psychiatry? Or are there alternative forms within each of these belief systems that you find more acceptable?