Religion seems to have two possible purposes. One is personal salvation. The other is “the achievement of a society which puts into practice God’s desires for the human race” (from Karen Armstrong’s 2000 book “Islam, A Short History”). Lets call it “social salvation”, for short. I don’t know which one is worse.

Personal salvation makes religion seem rather trite. The achievement of a God-like society sounds a lot more desirable and powerful. But it all runs into so many problems. The biggest problems regard “God’s desires for the human race” and how to put them into practice. Over the course of history, a lot of people have been pretty sure that they knew what God’s desires were and how those desires should be put into practice. But someone else always disagrees, and people end up getting hurt — when they’re luck. Usually, people wind up getting killed when a group attempts to achieve God’s social desires. Could that really be what God intended?

For most Christians, Christianity has been mostly about personal salvation. However, there are Christians who still have visions of “Christendom”, which in ancient centuries caused a lot of fighting and grief. The founder of Christianity, Jesus, was definitely looking for the formation of a God-like society. However, he had the good sense to tell his followers not to try to bring it on themselves; wait until God does it, he said. Jesus thought that God was due any day. His followers kept that faith for a few decades after he died. But once it was clear that God wasn’t coming to establish a Kingdom of Heaven on Earth anytime soon, the early Christians decided to flip over to personal salvation. That would have been OK, but the whole movement got co-opted by the Roman Empire and the kings and nations who would follow the great Emperors. Unfortunately, some of those powers decided to bring back the idea of Heaven on Earth, but contra Jesus, thought that their swords could make it happen. And a whole lot of nasty history ensued.

I think that religion can still be a good thing, and that planning for a better world can still be a good thing too (despite all the lazziez-fairre worship of market capitalism going around these days). And the two of them can go together. But the guiding principle should always be gentleness, not force. And if that means that nothing can change right now, then so be it. Personal salvation can be had all at once. Social salvation is a long-term, slow-burn kind of thing. Which is why impatient firebrands always mess it up so much, despite all their good intentions.