Asking Questions, Tillich and the Existentialists

"I start with man asking questions about the ultimate meaning of life. People who listen to me are those who declare they don’t understand the Christian symbols that are given by the church and need them translated into modern language." --Paul Tillich

Paul Tillich emerged out of the Nazi regime and the era of Fascism to a world in wonder. The explosive force of the Atom bomb and the Hydrogen bomb left the known universe ajar. The pre-war answers to life's questions no longer filled a world searching for meaning at the world wars' end. While the First World War had been known as The Great War, its combatants, referred to as the Lost Generation. The Second World War gave way to the Beat generation, the Existentialists,  and authors such as Vicktor Frankl, a concentration camp survivor, who wrote titles such as Man's Search For Meaning.
Theologian Paul Tillich wrote about living in a Christian way within the revised world order of the mid 20th century.
Authors such as Jean Paul Sartre wrote books like Camus and La Peste also exploring the topic of Being and Nothingness, what has now become called Existentialism.

Existentialism is a view that was popularized, carried over into the arts-culture and into general society. While existentialism is sometimes called "the philosophy of the absurd," most existentialist thinkers would likely define themselves by a sense of free choice and lack of sense for past or future, only a present.
The one first identified as an existentialist was Soren Kierkegaard who wrote that this sense of self and time leads into humanism, a state where man in his own experiences, maintains the center the universe.
Paul Tillich wrote, "being religious means asking passionately the question of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt."
Such an idea of religion makes religion universally human, but it certainly differs from what is usually called religion. It is here that Tillich makes his contribution to the understanding of the modern, technological world.

Democracy, Communism and Fascism

"The social aspirations of man cannot attain full originality and full value, except in a society which respects man's personal integrity." --Building the Earth by Teilhard de Chardin

Returning to the topic of religion and politics, we turn to the modernist ideas of democracy, communism and fascism. For those who doubt that religion, or even less spirituality, has a place with politics, permit here a simple enumeration: from the earliest religious history, politics demonstrates its part in the religious and spiritual milieu of mankind. As was common in the ancient world, the king or ruler of a tribe or nation had the "divine right" to determine, institute and force religious beliefs upon a population. They did this often, enforcing a state religion.

The Greeks and Romans, along with other Orientals, formed religions and spiritualities which predictably led to establishment of moralities for any of these given cultural groups. This practice continues with the moderns (1200-1800 in the common era), who as Kings and emperors forced their judeo-christian beliefs upon the population; indeed their kingship made them the heads of those faiths. In other words, the king was the state-church, so the church was represented in the body of the king.

It was this against which Machiavelli protested.

The Khalifs of the mid-east, Africa and other places arose to form what is now called Islam. They ruled in places by persuasion and by force; the United States of America was formed in part to protest against the state religion which during the colonial period was constituted by the King of England (King George III and others); today in the 20 and 21st centuries, there have been and will likely continue, governments which attempt to control, even police the population through forced religion.

Indeed we learn of places around the globe where Islam is practiced by regimes in an oppressive manner; the 14th Dalai Lama has been forced from his native Tibet into exile through religious actions taken against the Buddhists whom he leads. It seems the Chinese government wishes to direct and control his faith and others as well. Then there are the Sikhs in India, in opposition to the Hindus. They have, like many others, sought their own lands to live and practice their faith freely. The Jewish faith cannot be overlooked. It is in the arbitrary political formation of the modern state of Israel which has cast conflict upon previously settled territories.

And just now, today, in the United States the cry goes out for the practice of religion, freely or even not at all. The civil religion of the State wishes to suppose that it can most easily supplant the free will of the people and their freely chosen faiths for a legislated, legalistic spirituality and belief system. Today we are mired in conflict regarding forced participation in health care initiatives. The legislation which possibly thwarts the US Constitution, has made its way to the US Supreme court, the highest and final authority, asking to determine if Americans can and do have the liberty to practice their faith freely and the resulting morality they derive from it.

Many in this nation believe that government is dictating their moral stance in regard to health care. Many Americans who do not follow the state instituted Civil Religion represented in the law wish to practice a faith of their own free will and to determine what, if anything this should be; that the civil religion of the American state not be forced upon them.

It is these ideas and others, as such contained within democracy, communism and fascism against which many struggle from the bounds of religion and government.