Hear The Prophet: Chris Hedges
Chris Hedges has been there. A war correspondent for many years, he carries a burden of closely-observed horror for which the term PTSD pales. You can see it in the hollows around his eyes.
Chris Hedges has also been through hell with religion. Raised the son of a clergyman, he graduated from seminary. He’s not “religious” now in any conventional sense. Yet he’s not “anti-religious” either. He can’t leave the subject alone. In books and columns, he delivers impassioned oracles. One of his recent books is, “I Don’t Believe In Atheists.”
Anybody who is comfortable with their religion can benefit from hearing and reading Hedges. He now has a column on Truthdig entitled “After Religion Fizzles, We’re Stuck With Nietzche”
Here’s just a piece of it. I’ve re-arranged the text, turning it into something between poetry, psalm and prophecy.
Here it is:
These religious institutions are in irreversible decline.
They are ruled by moral and intellectual trolls.
They have become arrogant and self-absorbed.
Their sins are many.
They protected criminals.
They pandered to the lowest common denominator and illusions of personal fulfillment and surrendered their moral authority.
They did not fight the corporate tyrants who have impoverished us.
They refused to denounce a caste of Christian heretics embodied by the Christian right and have,
for their cowardice,
been usurped by bizarre proto-fascists clutching the Christian cross.
They have nothing left to say.
And their aging congregants, who are fleeing the church in droves, know it.But don’t think the world will be a better place for their demise . . . .
I recommend you not argue with this. Meditate on it. If Hedges despises the religious right, he’s no friend of us liberals either. He points to Friedrich Nietzche as the model for what comes after religion’s decline. He predicts it, but he’s not recommending it, anymore than the prophet Jeremiah wanted his home town of Jerusalem to be destroyed. Read the rest for yourself, here; and pay attention.
This is what a prophet looks and sounds like.