I'll take a shot at explaining why that is so.  It's because that's a slogan, a bit of marketing. It doesn't necessarily mean anything, and if you ask me, it suggests a near-impossiblity: that under the present and historical conditions, "faith" is something that can be "reclaimed." Raising the question of what that means, simply brings one closer to this uncomfortable, inconvenient fact.

It seems to me that, when religion and faith have become the source of problems, the addition of more religion and more faith would be rather ineffective as a solution. When faith and religion become mere justifications of the position that life is not worth living outside of a system that neatly provides the neck of some poor unfortunate soul under one's boot, and that the placement of that neck under the boot is an expression of a cosmic order, faith and religion provide only minor quibbles over whose concept of cosmic order, divine sanction, and divine retribution should apply, rather than addressing the fundamental human injustice of the boot on that neck.

Meanwhile it seems that one of the primary activities here on this site (a valuable activity, to some degree, but not to the exclusion of other tasks) is some kind of cosmic sorting mechanism, into who or what group qualifies as "dominionist" or "religious right" or "theocrat" or somesuch and what some dead or nearly-dead leader of that flavor once said. While the source of the changes push by those easily identified by those names is something that is much harder to put one's finger on, but must be dealt with; that what's actually being changed is the means by which people conceptualize basic assumptions about how the world works and what should be valued. Some call that a "worldview" for short, but I think it's important, since we're supposedly trying to figure out what's happening and what to do about it, that the particulars of what that means be spelled out.

The meanings of the words "freedom" and "liberty," as just one example, are being changed out from under us. Beyond that, the ability to cognize what those things are is simply being undermined, to the point that people can no longer want what they can no longer think about. Freedom is not just another word for consumer choice!

Order is redefined at both the individual and global level, not as the product of a natural process in which all participate, but as something imposed in a hierarchy by a "godly" oligarchy, often through the indirection of an alleged divine sanction or divine direct intervention. Thus we see both the attempted elimination of the teaching of evolution in schools and the imposition of a totalitarian state to micromanage and monitor every aspect of an individuals' life.

I don't see much of a role here for "faith." I also see little need for marketing that is completely disconnected from any course of action in the physical world, because the great weak point, as much as there is one, in this whole process is the rapidly growing divergence between the way people think about the world and the physical world itself. This is why the outright lie has become the hallmark of both our politics and our journalism, that there are few, if any, physical consequences for those who talk and act against their own interests and even their own existence. People are not losing their jobs or their power to any significant degree as a result of these lies. The dead are pushed to the margins or overseas where they can't interfere with this collective denial of the physical limitations on this worldview.

It becomes difficult to even suggest what kind of action can be taken in such an environment, but I will say this: the use of language, slogans and marketing that imply an action without at least some skeletal explanation of what form that action takes, and how that action will eventually be effective in the physical world, is really a display of inpotence. Such is this suggestion that "faith" can be "reclaimed."
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Acquire the Evidence: on Ron Luce, Teen Mania Ministries and the "BattleCry" campaign. acquiretheevidence.com

by Mike Doughney on Sat Jan 28, 2006 at 03:22:00 PM EST