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Meera Atkinson  It has been said that everyone has faith. So if different religions and cultures worship different representations of God, what do the non-religious worship in a secular society like Australia?
Unpack the issues...
Rev Professor James Haire, executive director of the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture, says that while a great many people seek fulfilment in terms of material things — money, status, and success and the trappings of it — others, particularly young people, are interested in accumulating experience. Either way, the worldly view of the world, he says, is to try to get something from it. James views the stressed-out pace of many Australians as a form of addiction. “Western society is interested in being very busy and activist but, whether we like it or not, humankind seeks meaning for all this frenetic activity,” he says. “We’re quite successful at anaesthetising it out but there is something in human nature that is not satisfied with being anaesthetised.” According to James, the historical fact that Europeans came to this country after the enlightenment is the reason we often look for meaning in secular rather than religious terms. “People say we make sport into a religion and that’s absolutely true,” he says.
But surely it’s normal and healthy to thrill to romance and seek financial security, to enjoy a glass of wine or a game of footy? James reassures us there is nothing wrong with any of these things, provided they aren’t taken to destructive levels and our involvement in them doesn’t hurt others. But, he suggests, when we look to the things of the world as our primary source of happiness and meaning they are sure to lead to disillusionment, resentment, and dysfunction. Carl Jung was a renowned psychiatrist and one of the most influential people of the 20th century. In a correspondence with Bill W, one of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, he likened the alcoholic craving for alcohol to the spiritual thirst for wholeness, the union with God. He was suggesting that addiction is related to spiritual bankruptcy. “These things — good wine, sex, sport — are secondary things in human life,” says James. “We turn the secondary into the primary. The primary is faith in God or meaning in life. When we turn the secondary into the primary, it leads to disappointment — though it may take 30 years to lead to disappointment.” And, he says, if the secondary is destructive, like alcoholism, the process of dealing with it may lead to the primary.  As James points out, “the question of the primary haunts us all.” To his mind there are two options. We can either face this question head on, or we can revert to relating to the secondary as the primary; in other words, continue worshiping our false idols. James describes this second option as living like “sophisticated wombats with our nose in the trough grabbing as much as we can get as some are happy to do.” It has been said that everyone has faith. The question, it seems, is simply in what.
Unpack the issues... Discussion Points - What gives your life meaning?
- What do you worship?
Further Reading
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