The decline in meaningful life rituals in our society

Despite the decline in the churches influence, no other institution has evolved to perform this function, so naturally people return to what they, their family and their community know.

What follows is not a statement on orgnised religion or an attempt to define ‘the modern’. It is borne of a love of human culture in general and the rituals that evolve to express it.

I believe the influence of the church and its teachings will continue to decline outside of the day to day christenings, weddings, confirmations and funerals. But really I think that is unhealthy. Here you have an institution that people don’t feel they really belong to in their daily lives, and yet it still provides for all the ritual needs of that society.

There is a dislocation there that in itself takes away from the meaning of the ritual entire. Rituals evolve as a way of showing our belief in and our belonging to an idea. Institutions evolve as a way of leading and championing those rituals. Without meaning, the ritual itself just becomes window dressing, as anyone who has sat through the traditional script of a confirmation or a wedding will testify.

This is not just nick-picking. This is a hugely significant point for society at large. In a way, I agree with many Church leaders. People need to involve themselves in rituals (alone and in a communal setting) that express their values and beliefs. This is indicative of a society with deep values and strong moral convictions - the physical expression of their spiritual self.

Witness the rituals of the Maori, the Native Americans, the Aborigines, Baptists or the Celts, any culture where the rituals still speak of and to the real culture of the people. To act out something in a communal ritualistic manner that expresses the beliefs and values of that culture is one of the defining cornerstones of humanity at large. They instil something great in the individual, and give the community at large a sense of belonging, purpose and togetherness.

This is why rituals such as this evolved in the human community in the first place. Without them, and this is not some conservative apocalyptic prediction but a genuine real world point, culture and society can become pretty shallow and lacking in honest human meaning.

Unfortunately for us, (and this is in no way an attempt to castigate Christianity, its traditions, its leaders or its institutions) by allowing the Church to remain in place as the ‘grand master’ of the rituals that define our lives, we may be threatening to remove any real spiritual meaning from them at all.

What we have here (and forgive me if I am labelling the point) is a situation where a grand institution evolved over time to ‘service’ (for want of a better word) the rituals of our community. And that was a good thing. But now that the belief system has moved on, we are left with an institution that not a lot of people feel any real spiritual belonging to.

Imagine a society where those rituals, those get togethers, those significant watershed moments, those stepping stones through life, did mean something spiritual to us. People get to physically act out there values in a way that is communal and mainstream. That was the whole point in the first place. That in itself, I believe, would lead to a more moral society. It would inspire meaningful human culture. And it would promote the human community.

Are we to accept that the major rituals in our society (the ones that define our lives and our culture at large) are to remain in the hands of a dying institution?

Or do we evolve new rituals that may allow people to act out their beliefs in a more meaningful, mainstream way? What form would those rituals take? What basic beliefs would shape them? With all the knowledge that we all have now about humanity, the earth and the universe, is it possible to us to evolve a grand belief system relevant to people on a global basis?

I will deal with that in the next post.