Harvards Black Mass A student group at Harvard will be performing a Black Mass on Monday. After the performance, there will be discussion about the spectacle and what it means in a country founded on -- among other liberties -- freedom of religion. For those unaware of the ritual, a Black Mass is an intentional perversion of the traditional Catholic ritual of the Eucharist, taking the whole sacrament and turning it on its head. It is offensive to Christians and specifically to Catholics -- and to be frank, it was designed to be that way. Although, during the European witch trials, there were plenty of allegations that the wild worshippers of Satan were engaged in Black Masses (along with other awful perfidies performed at secret orgies in the woods), the real performance of a ritual like a Black Mass often came down not to Devil worshippers but to Atheists and Rationalists who were seeking to mock the religious fervor of their Christian peers in a time when they felt the devout masses should know better. Yes, Im suggesting the Black Mass is an outgrowth of the Age of Reason -- a loud, flamboyant and somewhat mean-spirited reaction to religious fundamentalism. Given the atmosphere in the US today, it should not be surprising to see intellectuals going to such an extreme. In a country where we pride ourselves on our liberties -- freedom of religion being a major one -- we recently had a member of the Hindu clergy more or less shouted down by Christian extremists when he attempted to lead our Senate in prayer. Notably, he was invited to do this. That wasnt good enough for the folks whose notion of our country has skewed from the Land of the Free to One Nation Under God -- a God who, apparently, must always be theirs. The Black Mass then -- and in a similar vein, the Satan statue thats going up in Oklahoma -- is an equal and opposite reaction to this frothing extremism. It is a conscious spectacle of satire in the spirit of mock religions like the Church of Bob or the Internet religion surrounding the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It is also -- though the utility of this remains to be seen -- an intellectual exercise intended to make people think about what it means to allow anyone to worship however they please. Civil liberties are at the heart of many of our hot button issues right now -- with freedom of speech and freedom of religion in the thickest and nastiest parts of public discourse. The Black Mass at Harvard contains by its radical satire of an accepted Christian right a powerful question in subtext: if freedom of religion means any religion (including no religion), where do we draw the line between one groups right to worship as they please when that worship is directly offensive to the beliefs of another, equally valid, group? In a world that seems divided down the ranks of Christian, Muslim, and Jew -- while any people who fit into the none of the above category get caught in the crossfire, in a world where the science show Cosmos is cut off the air in states that feel it should express, not science, but Creationist views, in a world where law-makers speak with horror about the possibility that Sharia law may creep into our system -- only to turn around and pass legislation blatantly based upon Biblical Christian values, this is a damned good question. Where do we draw the line? And perhaps its an older question than we realize. It may surprise most of you, but the Black Mass at Harvard hearkens back to the activities of at least one of our founding fathers. In his dealings with Dashwoods Hellfire Club, it is almost certain that Benjamin Franklin himself participated in mock masses inspired at least in part by that Age of Reason disdain for organized religion. Something to think about -- and thats the whole point.
Posted on: Fri, 09 May 2014 17:11:52 +0000
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