A handful of perceptive artists have successfully captured the contradictory and paradoxical aspects of religion through the ages. The good guys in John Bunyon's Pilgrim's Progress include Faithful, Charity, and Help, but some of bad guys tempting Christian off the straight-and-narrow are coreligionists such as Formalist obsessing over rules, Hypocrisy full of show, and By-ends using religion for social and personal profit. Chaim Potok's protagonists often find artistic and educational freedom beckoning them out of their Jewish tradition, while other characters renounce the world for the meaning and richness found in the faith. Even Bach's religious repertoire captures the contradictions with building dissonance in which the notes create tensions that only harmonious consonance relieves.
Although early pioneer of the study of religion William James described the complexities of both “healthy-minded” and “sick-souled” versions of faith, modern social science observes, yet bypasses these complexities. A strong body of research shows the devout exhibiting better mental and physical health in a variety of ways, and religious youth avoiding high-risk behaviors, but other studies find that not all types of religious practice correspond with healthy outcomes. The paradoxes of religion account for both Mother Teresa and David Koresh, the Inquisition and the abolitionists—and for devout families whose faith enables children to thrive as well as for overzealous ones whose guilt-ridden children find solace in websites like Recovering from Religion. Who wants to wade into that perplexing morass?
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