by Jessica Kuzmier

Created on: February 09, 2009

Abraham Heschel, the Jewish philosopher, questions what role religion has in a post-modernist society. He states that in life, man has become too concerned with comfort, looking for religion to fit his needs rather than the other way around. Religion, in turn, looks to fit the needs of the customer, and becomes the servant that cannot fulfill its master's wishes. By compromising its purpose, which is to be a beacon of justice, it becomes just another counterpart in a world dominated by consumerism. An example of this could be the plethora of denominations that exist within Judaism and Christianity, as though religion was being catered in an all-you-can-eat Italian dinner.

The idea of religion catering to man makes little sense to someone who can't get marital counseling because she didn't get married in the church, or a gay couple who doesn't feel comfortable worshipping in public because they feel their sexuality will be the only aspect that will be focused on. These people certainly don't feel catered to at all; they feel that they are exploited. But this may actually be a strong example of catering, except the catering is not to these people, but their accusers. Because what some people go to worship for is a sense of order in a strange and unfeeling world. Divvying things into black and white gives a sense of comfort. What movie is okay to see if I am a religious Muslim? I don't know, let's call the imam. Is it okay for Christian women to wear bikinis? I don't know, but the pastor said that women need to be modest. Is a bikini modest? I don't know, let's get a second opinion. The comfort comes in letting another make decisions for them. In the cases of the people in the beginning of the paragraph, some congregates may think this way: if the elders decide that only people who are married in religious ceremonies can get marital counseling, and the pastor says that homosexuality is an abomination in the eyes of God, it sounds good to me. If they don't like it, they can go to the church down the street. What are you bringing to next Sunday's potluck?

Freedom within a religious context increases the moral fiber of a person and strengthens the conscience of the individual so he can make these moral decisions comfortably himself instead of incessantly relying on the judgment of another. Comfortable platitudes do nothing to instill a sense of moral righteousness in a person; it only makes him a parrot of someone else's rhetoric. So how does one learn to instill

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