Ekklesia

I recently returned from vacationing in Vietnam where our tour consisted of visiting several temples and pagodas that are important to the Vietnamese people.  Several things struck me as we visited these sacred places to the local people.  1).  Some of the temples were Hindu, either run by Hindus living in Vietnam or remnants of the Cham dynasty (these were not ethnic Vietnamese people) which once covered most of central and southern day Vietnam.  In spite of Vietnamese people traditionally being Buddhist and worshipping their ancestors these Hindu temples also recieved many Vietnamese worshippers who paid their respects to the Hindu gods.  Some of the temples were known to have healing properties.  I asked our tour guide about this and he stated that the people must respect those gods too because they’re there.  2).  The Vietnamese government is Communist which means its officially atheistic.  But, several years ago the city of Hanoi, which is the capital, rebuilt a portion of the Confucian temple that had been destroyed in one of the recent wars in Vietnam.  Instead of reconstructing the destroyed dorms and classrooms at this temple where the first university in Vietnam was established the government submitted to the people of the country a poll to decide which students who graduated from the university should be honored at the temple.  (The temple and university are at the same place since religion and academics once went together.)  Four names recieved the most support and included a famous teacher and three kings who had studied at the university; all in the distant past.  These four now have statues in this new building and are worshipped by anyone who wants to ask them for help.  I find it remarkable that the communists government would perpetuate the worship of past heroes on a scale that transforms them into gods.

 In light of these oberservations several questions have been brewing in my mind. 

Do the gods exists because people remember them?  If so, then when people forget the gods do they cease to exist?  If this is the case then what happens in the Christian tradition when we take the Eucharist in rememberance of Christ?  Does the Eucharist have transforming power because those partaking are remembering?  Further more, Paul speaks of idols as being masquerading demons.  If the people forget the god/idol then what happens to the demonic that is associated with it?  Does the demonic, through human interaction, create a new god to “decieve” the people?

It seems that worship and the “existence” of the gods is the result of a fusion within humanity between the spiritual side of reality with the physical or material reality (In the east these two can’t be separated and I would tend to agree).  Religion is a human reflection of the interaction between the created and the spiritual or Divine.  Therefore, religion is a construct that reflects the worldview of the people and their understanding of Truth and the Divine.  The gods and temples are not “demonic” but neither are they truth.  The demonic is present where there is a distortion of the truth but the Divine is also present.  It’s always a mix of the two because nowhere can God not be found but, within Creation, everywhere there is brokenness and evil. 

Rodney