Religion, true & false.

A lot of questionable and even silly things have been written about religion and the nature of belief following the suicides of thirty-nine members of the Heaven's Gate cult last month in Rancho Santa Fe, California. Variously known as UFO nuts, New Age dreamers, or millennial fanatics, the cultists killed themselves in anticipation of the arrival of a spaceship, supposedly following behind the Hale-Bopp comet, that would "beam them up" to the next level of existence, the "Level above Human." It sounds crazy, and it was. In killing themselves (by suffocation, facilitated by phenobarbital and vodka), the followers of Marshall Herff Applewhite, a former church and college choir master, hoped to shed their "earthly containers" or "vehicles." This contempt for bodily existence and the trappings of a corrupt and irredeemable world was manifest in the group's social isolation and ersatz asceticism. Most evident to the outside world was the cult's suppression of sexual difference in appearance and clothing. Celibacy was also required - children only complicate one's ties to a world whose end is imminent. Indeed, several cult members deserted their children to join the group. Six of the men, including Applewhite, had themselves surgically castrated.

Put together a rejection of the "things of this world" with the trappings of monasticism and (especially) the practice of celibacy, and evidently a good many people assume you get something like "religion" or even Christianity. Thus the public commentary on the cult's bizarre suicides - each cult member carried identification and luggage for the next world - ranged from scientists' bemoaning those "living a life innocent of empirical rigor" to village skeptics' praising the cult for keeping the killing to themselves or eagerly noting that to outsiders all religions appear equally "bizarre."

Perhaps the most penetrating analysis of the tragedy and its coverage was offered by the New Republic's literary editor, Leon Wieseltier. "What all these commentators were trying to elide was the reality of the hunger of the soul," he wrote (April 21). "Since it was incontrovertible, it had to be controverted. For the inanity of Marshall Herff Applewhite's teaching did not vitiate the truth of what had transpired: people had sacrificed everything, and then themselves, for a spiritual objective." Yet Wieseltier rightly insisted on distinguishing between real food for the soul and poisonous substitutes. "The serenity of these men and women did not disguise the magnitude of their misery."

It certainly did not. Nor did their video-taped professions of good will hide the grisly reality of their deaths, or their detachment from the rest of reality. Mere passivity is not a reliable measure of spiritual health, just as a studied innocence or helplessness is more an invitation to manipulation than a sign of hard-won simplicity. In this instance, both were symptoms of the sort of neediness and confusion that can spell disaster.

There are ways to judge how closely religious belief and practice correspond to reality - if not to ultimate reality. Universality and longevity are two measures, although not infallible or sufficient ones. Still, a creed that has given shape and meaning to the lives of millions over millennia can claim more than a superficial understanding of human nature, and should not be lumped together with every passing fancy that happens to "look like" a religion.

Yes, Christianity has periodically succumbed to delusion and violence. But despite such failures, there remains a profound difference between a suicide cult and any authoritative religious tradition. Even a religion with a pope does not invest all authority in a single guru or leader. Ideally, countervailing sources of authority and an openness to the world and to other faiths constantly test the truth of any religious tradition. Christianity juxtaposes spiritual reality to the transitory nature of this world, but is careful not to consign the spirit to a supernatural realm and the created world, especially the body, to another. God, it teaches, does not despise human form or the material world, but created both and came to redeem them.

Nevertheless, it is true that, like the cultists, Christianity has long looked to the heavens as a herald of God's action. Indeed, watching the Hale-Bopp comet blaze its fiery path across what usually seems an unchanging firmament, the layperson is forcibly reminded of what the scientist is daily made aware of: that this creation is not a fixed and determined machine, devoid of chance or significant incident, but an ongoing miracle of which we are a part. Indeed, comets like Hale-Bopp, science now tells us, may have played a pivotal role in seeding the earth with the carbon-rich chemical compounds from which all life comes. So, too, Christianity has taught that the heavens speak to us of life, life in this world and beyond, and even life everlasting. Surely that is the real message trailing in the comet's wake.

ET CETERAS

HALE-BOPP HITS MANHATTAN

That Manhattanites hold their little island in considerable esteem is not a well-kept secret. But occasionally even New Yorkers are shocked into realizing that there is a larger world out there. Sometimes that revelation seems quite unintentional, as is evident in the following conversation overheard between a woman and a man in an Upper West Side bookstore that caters to academics and intellectuals.

Woman: "We walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. It was a beautiful night, and perfectly clear, and the view was terrific. And the comet - God, it was incredible. It even outshone Manhattan!"

Man: "Unbelievable."

Woman: "It was."

FURTHER SIGHTINGS

An end to Commonweal's passage through the wilderness is in sight - and so is a new office. But first we want to thank the dozens of Commonweal friends and supporters who have written and phoned in an effort to help us find a new place to hang our hats (and heads) in Manhattan. As of this moment, we are planning to move to a building for nonprofit organizations at 475 Riverside Drive on the Upper West Side. Not every detail has been finalized, but we do want to thank all of our "Separated Brethren and Sistern" at the Interchurch Center who have so graciously gone out of their way to provide us with a home that we can actually afford.

We hope to be settled in by the end of the summer.

SHE WANTS TO BE A WRITER!

Jacqueline Dowdell joined Commonweal in 1991. She soon took us through the pangs of computerizing - Quarking, Photoshopping, Adobing - all the assorted electronic tricks that brought us into the late twentieth century. Now this wizard, and truly dynamite human being, is moving on. A fellowship for the writing program at Cornell University is snatching her away for a two-year program in which she will write and learn to teach writing.

Alas. That is why you see below notice of our need, come July, for a new production person - a Jackie clone.