Submissive Void

In the 1970s, I met one of Hitler’s leading propagandists, Leni Riefenstahl, whose epic films glorified the Nazis. We happened to be staying at the same lodge in Kenya, where she was on a photography assignment, having escaped the fate of other friends of the Fuhrer. She told me that the “patriotic messages” of her films were dependent not on “orders from above” but on what she called the “submissive void” of the German public. Did that include the liberal, educated bourgeoisie? I asked. “Yes, especially them,” she said.

- John Pilger

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Propaganda - The systematic propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause.

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There is no doubt that you begin to come of age as a Christian when you realize that the church, both the church at large and in its various manifestations, is nothing more than an agent of propaganda. And it is not only the officials and theologians who are responsible for this, but every person who stands up and dares to speak the word God, professional and lay alike, have both been appropriated and are seeking to appropriate others into a profound imperialism which simply traps everyone, holding them enthralled to doctrine, and denying them the tools and wherewithal to directly experience God. You see, it is not the call of Christians to see themselves as messengers of anything. It is their call to encounter God directly. And in order to do that they need to understand the hidden agendas behind the messages and myths that surround the message as promoted by the churches.

Make no mistake. There is indeed a precious inheritance found within Christian faith. It is nothing other than the experiences which God has confided to people for four thousand years. These experiences have occurred to those who formally seek to be open to the life-giving presence of Christ. They also occur prior to the coming of Jesus, as well as to those who are outside of Christianity, and even to those who deny the very existence of God.

The single common denominator in these experiences has always been the person’s simple orientation to raw, un-propagandized experience itself. This is the gift that un-indoctrinated contemplation within any religious tradition offers in the search for human authenticity. And within this history the simple transcultural practises of silence, solitude, poverty, hospitality, labour, humility, chastity and all of the traditional forms of ascesis work together to open one attentively to the holy wind of God.

This is not some sort of specialized charism. It is at the core of what it means to be a Christian. Unfortunately people are thoroughly doctrinally brain washed into being a submissive void and this applies not only to the uneducated but to the critical thinking religious elites as well...yes, especially them.