Faith Zone

Faith Zone, Sophia says. This is going to be good.

It’s like a crap version of the Millennium Dome …, Furio says.

It’s an interfaith temple, apparently, Driss says. Reading: Designed to accommodate the needs of all faiths. Where people from all religious traditions can feel comfortable, safe and respected. Promoting genuine interfaith dialogue and shared practice.

Very accommodating, Driss says. There are symbols representing seven world religions, apparently.

It lacks grandeur, don’t you think? Sophia says.

It’s downright tawdry, I say.

Driss, reading a plaque. Welcoming the gift of diversity. Promoting inter-religious peace. Building cultures of peace and justice. Manifesting love and justice among all life on Earth …

Sounds very nice, Furio says.

United Religions: that’s who’s behind it, Driss says. It’s a bridge-building organisation, not a religion, apparently.

They want a one world religion, clearly, Furio says. Just like the United Nations wants a one world government …

It’s Babel all over again, Io says.

Driss, reading: Embodying the principles and practices of the great faiths. Deepening mutual understanding and trust. Giving and receiving hospitality. Creating cultures of peace, justice and healing. Promoting a new global spirituality. Nothing to object to, eh? Nothing to frighten the horses …

Ooh – there’s a hymn, Driss says: Through the long night we have come. / The sun is bright, the wars are done. / We will unite. We will be one. A new faith has begun. Now that really is half-arsed. Is that the best they can do? I mean, faith in what? What is there left to have in faith in, on the Organisational Management campus?

Organisational Management syncretism: that’s all we need, Furio says. Organisational Management doing religion …

Babel 2.0, like I said, Io says. We’re actually supposed to be divided – there are supposed to be all these different nations. It’s supposed to limit our pride.

This shitshow is a sign of pride …, I say. My God …

Do they really think they can speak of faith? Furio says. Are they that stupid?

Diabolical mockery, Driss says. Deliberate Satanism.

It’s not even that Satanic, I say.

This whole campus is lost, Io says. It’s pushed God away. It’s left the realm of God – voluntarily. It’s renounced God … Nothing remains of God but the void: that’s what this campus says …

That’s what Cicero said, too, I say. God and the world are antagonistic. God isn’t revealed through the world – but against it. And that only happens with complete disenchantment … When we know the world as illuminated by nothing – by no meaning, no direction …

Contraries again, Sophia says.

Organisational Management is an essentially nihilistic project, I say. It’s a nihilism factory. Which means it’s serving God, in its own way.

By making the world really, really shit, you mean? Furio says.

From a certain perspective, the meaningless of the world is itself meaningful, that’s what Cicero told us, I say. It actually means something. When the world becomes purely functional, the conditions of meaning must come from outside.

So the Faith Zone is about worshipping the void? Sophia asks.

It’s about worshipping the opposite of all this, Driss says.

Organisational Management isn’t worshipping anything – that’s the point, Io says.  

Organisational Management is afraid, Helmut says. It’s been sucking all the meaning out of the world, the better to organise everything. The better to manage it. But it knows that it will perish by the world it’s making. That there’s a midnight hour coming, when it’ll have to stare into the void.

That’s good, Helmut – you’re good, Furio says. It was worth breaking your vow to say that.

Faith zone is, like, faithlessness zone, Io says. The heart of their fucking darkness. Doesn’t this campus know its own evil? Doesn’t it understand its own hubris? Doesn’t it understand the dimensions of its sin? That it’s already damned, and utterly so?

This whole campus is lost, Io says. It’s pushed God away. It’s left the realm of God – voluntarily. It’s renounced God. It can only be destroyed – don’t you see?

Destroyed? Is that Christian? Sophia asks.

Something terrible’s going to happen here, I know it, Io says. Something vast – vaster than this campus. Something good – that will appear evil. Something merciful – that will appear merciless. The wrath of God … The fury of God … The Justice of God …

The midnight hour’s close, I say. That’s why they want Philosophy to hold their hand …

Some help we’ll be, Driss says. We’ll just push them into the void. Which is what they deserve.