WHAT THE HALLELUJAH COMPLEX ISN'T
World political figures, from Hitler to Stalin to Caesar to Osama bin Laden to Ronald Reagan, have established a long-standing tradition of identifying one's enemies as simply "evil". It's the easiest and most generalizing way to demonize those you oppose...rather than bother with even barely-specific terms such as "oppressive", "imperialistic", "uncivilized" or "undemocratic", they go right for the kicker. The word "evil" can mean anything and nothing at once, so it's the best way to group all the people you don't like together into one big demonic kingdom.
I'm trying to avoid making the same mistake here, as I consider the Hallelujah Complex. (If you're just joining us, see the introduction below for a short explanation of what I mean by this term.) The whole purpose of this sight is to seek some sort of explanation for "why religious people are so weird", in other words, to find a good definition for the "Hallelujah Complex". The Complex that makes religious people strange in so many different ways is ethereal, intangible and apparently incomprensible. Ironically, as this fact motivated me to start this discussion, it simultaneously stands as a great danger to me and anyone else who would undertake such a task. It is quite the temptation to simply take any part of religious practice, tradition, culture or theology that I don't like and to label it as a part of the Hallelujah Complex.
In the interest of avoiding this temptation, I thought I'd take a moment to consider what the Hallelujah Complex is NOT. Not only will this help get any other personal agendas of mine out of the way, it will help us start pinning down a definition for this Hallelujah Complex and all its accompanying religious weirdness. For instance, let's assume that I'm entirely right in all my understandings, beliefs and approaches to Christianity and religion. Even then, it would not be accurate for me to include all my criticisms of modern Christianity under the title, "Hallelujah Complex". This is because...
#1: THE HALLELUJAH COMPLEX IS NOT JUST "WHAT'S WRONG WITH CHRISTIANITY (/YOUR RELIGION HERE)"
We could sit around and talk about where religions have gone bad until the cows come home, but if we do this while discussing the Hallelujah Complex (hereafter known as "H.C."), we'll end up defining the H.C. merely as "anything and everything wrong with religion". Plenty of good discussions can and should take place about that question, but they're not all going to here.
I'll give a good example from my own personal life. In the United States, much of American Christianity (especially the evangelical and fundamentalist varieties) has been co-opted by the Republican, right-wing agenda. Several friends of mine have drawn-out debates with each other about whether it's even possible to vote Democrat and be a real Christian. Millions of American churches, come election-time, will actually hand out pamphlets telling believers what the important issues are. The result of this is that many people think Christianity has nothing to do with racial justice but everything to do with homosexuality, has nothing to do with poverty but everything to do with prayer in schools, and has nothing to do with the environment but everything to do with pornography. A side-effect of this is that nationalism and military expenditure are often considered "Christian" or "moral" values.
I find this all quite repugnant and tragic, a perversion of religion towards distorted goals and focus. I cannot, however, in all fairness, call this a part of the H.C.. We will have to narrow it down to a more specific definition.
Let me set up another, even more specific boundary:
#2: THE HALLELUJAH COMPLEX IS NOT (NECESSARILY) ANY HATEFUL, REPRESSIVE OR EXTREME CONSERVATIVE RELIGION
While reading my first post, you may have caught whiff of these characteristics in the accounts of the H.C. in real life...excessive rules with harsh enforcement, etc.. While religious repression, fundamentalism, and harsh legalism are intricately tied to the H.C. (as will be discussed at length in the future), they are not one-in-the-same. The main reason for this is that I have already called the H.C. the phenomenon of religious people being "weirdos". In order for us to be talking about the H.C., we will have to be considering something that separates religion or religious people from the "normal life" of a society.
Consider, though, a deeply fundamentalist society like that of many Islamic extremist countries. Many Westerners are shocked by the strict diet, religious criminal punishment and restrictions on women's rights that we read about in these countries. While characterized by the same dark, repressive cultural restraints that are common among fundamentalists of all shapes and sizes, though, any elements of religious conservatism, no matter how harsh, cannot be called H.C. if they are the cultural norm where they exist.
That being said, however, it is difficult to imagine every single citizen of such countries completely in agreement with the cultural norm. When restriction is laid upon restriction, resentment towards the authority is likely to emerge in one form or another, and much of such resentment is likely directed towards religion in such societies. Furthermore, such societies are "weirdos" of a sort in the global community at large. In spite of this, for the moment I will continue to focus on the H.C. in its more visible form, where it creates a noticable gap between the "religious people" and the "normal people". While elements of Russian Orthodoxy may have been free of "H.C." accusations hundreds of years ago in villages where the culture and traditions of the Church were unanimously accepted, the introduction of modernity to Russia forces me to bring it into the discussion.
Finally:
#3: THE HALLELUJAH COMPLEX IS NOT (NECESSARILY) ANY ILLOGICAL OR INCORRECT BELIEF
Were this not stated up front, it would be easy to get off on a hundred different doctrinal side-tracks, arguing about why the teachings of the Catholic Church or the theological trends of evangelicalism or the traditions of Mormonism aren't what Christianity was meant to be.
Let me give a personal theological example. (I say the word "theological" at my own danger, running the risk of driving off not-so-religious readers who are afraid I'm about to start some stupid inner-circle "us religious folk only" discussion, likely with a bunch of terms they've never heard of and couldn't care less about. If this is you...bear with me, you're not about to hear the words "transubstantiate", "post-tribulation" or "sanctification".)
Within the Judeo-Christian (that's not a technical term, is it?) tradition, there are three main spiritual statements made about humanity, all of them referring to a problem with our present condition and pointing towards a solution. The first statement is that humans are in bondage to certain things (political, psychological, societal), and in need of liberation. A second is that humans are estranged and far from the "good life", and need to be brought back home. A third is that we have made mistakes, and are guilty of doing wrong, needing forgiveness.
Throughout a 2000-year old history that I don't have time to go into, the third narrative made its way to the forefront of Christian thought and began to dominate the religion, often to the exclusion of the other two. The result of this is that much of modern Christianity has become a religion that is all about guilt and forgiveness, that is focused only on the afterlife, that is morbidly obsessed with imperfections and mistakes, and that just plain doesn't address the things we really struggle with in our lives. I hate the fact that this is the case...however, in all fairness, I cannot label this fact of Christian theology as a part of the Hallelujah Complex.
So what is the Hallelujah Complex? That'll have to wait for the next posting, it's time to go to bed by now...
