The late Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.’s Cat’s Cradle creates a new religion, Bokononism. The bible of Bokononism is the “Books of Bokonon”, written by Bokonon — a British Episcopalian black from the Carribean island of Tobago whose real name was Lionel Boyd Johnson– as a way to distract the people of San Lorenzo from their unhappy lives.
What is important to Bokononists? Not God; just one thing: man. Bokononism is a strange, Post-modern subjective faith that combines nihilistic, and cynical observations about life and God’s will. The supreme act of worship is an intimate act consisting of prolonged physical contact between the naked soles of the feet of two persons, supposed to result in peace and joy between the two communicants.
Hummmm . . .
I know a lot of Bokononists these days. Post-Modern, Post-Christian Bokononist American leadership are asking us to suspend belief. Pastor Clinton C. Gardner, in his book Beyond Belief: Discovering Christianity’s New Paradigm, “raised on Christian fundamentalism, he felt liberated by the grand picture of evolution and the empirical science of the Enlightenment.” Ok Brother Clinton! Imagine, there are people who believe that God really loved us enough that He sent His only Begotten Son to die for our sins! How uncool! And, get this, some of those remnant fundamentalist Christians—who have not yet bowed down and worshiped at the altar of Bokononism—actually believe that Jesus Christ is the only way, the only truth, the only life. How old fashioned can you get!
The last line of Cat’s Cradle includes a warning that I offer here: Pow Tee Weet. At one time song birds were lowered into coal mines to ascertain if methane gas was of dangerous high density. Everything was fine as along as the miners heard “Pow Tee Weet.” However, quite literally, if the bird stopped singing, everyone is in trouble.
I wonder how much longer the song bird will sing.
Pastor Gardner quotes Edward O. Wilson’s Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. Wilson’s grand conclusion is that “all tangible phenomena, from the birth of stars to the workings of social institutions, are based on material processes that are ultimately reducible, however long and tortuous the sequences, to the laws of physics.” He envisions the unification of the natural sciences with the social sciences and humanities. As he puts it, “The human condition is the most important frontier of the natural sciences,” and “the material world exposed by the natural sciences is the most important frontier of the social sciences and humanities. The consilience argument can be distilled as follows: the two frontiers are the same.”
The bird is being lowered into the mines . . .
Can you imagine how much fun it must be to sit through a sermon with Brother Clinton? Wow—Consilience—nice word. What biblical text would he use? Existentialism and nascent naturalism can be pretty cold bedfellows. Ain’t gonna mend many broken hearts though!
Seriously, though, these peckerwoods are arguing quite eloquently that 1. My fundamentalism is not only irrelevant, it is uncool and rude (what a low blow!). 2. My belief that that the Bible is the inerrant, infallible Word of God is, well, old fashioned. 3. Finally, my belief in a 24 hour creation is likewise dumb.
What can I say? I believe all these things and more. The God I serve is amazing, far more amazing than the God of Brothers Clinton and Edward.
Pow tee weet.