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7/23/12

The Gods Are Dying - by Frederick Buechner

"The gods are dying. The gods of this world are sick unto death… Which gods? The gods that we worship. Their sacred names? There is science for one: he who would redeem the world from poverty and disease; on whose shoulders mankind was to be borne onward and upward toward the high stars.

Or democracy, that gentler god with his gospel of freedom for all peoples, including those peoples who after centuries of exploitation and neglect at the hands of older democracies can be set free now only to flounder in danger of falling prey to new exploiters.

There is communism, that holy one so terrible in his predilection for blood sacrifice but so magnificent in his promise of the messianic age: from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

And we must not leave out from this role of the dying what often passes for the god of the church: the god who sanctifies foreign policy and our business methods, our political views and our racial prejudices. The god who, bless him, asks so little and promises so much: peace of mind, the end of our inferiority complexes. Go to church and feel better. The family that prays together stays together. Not everybody can afford a psychiatrist or two weeks of solid rest in the country, but anybody can afford this god. He comes cheap."

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