Why Religion?: A Personal Story

by Elaine Pagels

a primary theme of Jewish mystical tradition: that the “image of God,” divine light given in creation, is hidden deep within each one of us, linking our fragile, limited selves to their divine source. Although we’re often unaware of that spiritual potential,

I am the first and the last. I am the one who is honored, and the one scorned; I am the whore and the holy one . . . I am the incomprehensible silence, and . . . the voice of many sounds, the word in many forms; I am the utterance of my name . . . Do not cast anyone out, or turn anyone away . . . I am the one who remains, and the one who dissolves; I am she who exists in all fear, and strength in trembling. I am she who cries out . . . I am cast forth on the face of the earth . . . I am the sister of my husband, and he is my offspring . . . but he is the one who gave birth to me . . . I am the incomprehensible silence and the thought often remembered . . . I am the one who has been hated everywhere, and who has been loved everywhere. I am the one they call Life, and you have called Death. I am the one whose image is great in Egypt, and the one who has no image among the barbarians . . . I prepare the bread and my mind within; I am the knowing of my name. Whoever sang, chanted, or wrote Thunder wove Jewish, Egyptian, and Greek images into a single, complex pattern.

From the first to the mid-fourth century, before various creeds were increasingly formalized, many Christian monks were open to exploring other traditions along with their own, just as monastics today often include in their libraries writings that range from the works of Moses Maimonides to the Buddhist sutras; apparently they were less concerned with what to believe than with deepening their spiritual practice.

“Shock and Awe,” the popular name for the bombing of Baghdad, was meant to signal to believers that while the massive bombing might shock unbelievers, it would arouse awe among those who understood that American bombs were delivering God’s righteous wrath.

Wasn’t Jesus Jewish? Why do you imagine that a Jew who’s not ‘born again’ is going to hell?”),

Why do so many Christians, whether Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox, insist that Jesus “had to die” before God could forgive human sin?

wondered, What kind of God lives in her imagination? An all-powerful god who, Christians say, “is love,” and “loves the world,” but who cannot, or will not, forgive human sin unless an innocent person—his own beloved son—is horribly tortured and slaughtered? Christians who preach that message

Long before that, Saint Augustine shored up this dire fantasy by inventing “original sin,” insisting that every human being, even a newborn baby, is born infected with mortal sin, which he pictured as a sexually transmitted moral disease.

light. I live in everyone, and I delve into them all . . . I move in every creature. . . . I am the invisible one in all beings . . . I am a voice speaking softly . . . I am the real voice . . . the voice from the invisible thought . . . It is a mystery . . . I cry out in everyone . . . I hid myself in everyone, and revealed myself within them, and every mind seeking me longs for me . . . I am she who gradually brought forth everything . . . I am the image of the invisible spirit . . . The mother, the light . . . the virgin . . . the womb, and the voice . . . I put breath within all beings.