How sacred meaning gathers strength, and how vigilance keeps it from becoming domination
We cannot speak truthfully about religion if we only call it a bag for transcendent meaning or a communal act of designating the sacred. Those are true. But they are not the whole truth. For religion does not only carry meaning. Religion wields power.
Every time people name something sacred, a claim is made. That claim shapes loyalty, directs behavior, and orients imagination. To say, “This is holy,” is to say, “This has authority over us.” That is power. Religion is never neutral. And so, it always shows us two faces.
On one face, religion turns power toward life. It gathers scattered individuals into communities of care. It tempers raw desire with shared responsibility. It breathes courage into those who resist empire, whispering, “There is something greater than your fear, more enduring than your chains.” It recalls us to coherence when greed and violence pull us away. In this face, religion is a river of strength, carrying people into justice, mercy, and sacred clarity. And occasionally, it carries us into intimacy itself—the sacred power of touch, embrace, tenderness, and eros. Power is in the caress that reminds a body it is cherished and in the kiss that seals trust between souls, not just in thrones and laws. This, too, is religion shaping power toward life.
But on the other face, that same power corrodes. It ossifies into orthodoxy. It submits to empire and elevates the powerful. Sacredness is no longer designated by a living people; it is deified into an untouchable idol. Coherence hardens into dogma. Community collapses into conformity. Transcendent meaning is sealed into a locked chest, guarded by authorities who claim to speak for the sacred while silencing dissent. In this face, religion becomes the strangler of life.
This double power is not an accident. Religion is inseparably bound to power. The same fire that forges also burns. The same water that nourishes also drowns. To pretend otherwise is to lie to ourselves.
So, if we are to live religiously with integrity, we must be vigilant. Sacredness is designated, not discovered. It is entrusted by human beings to one another. And if we forget that—if we mistake coherence for eternal truth, if we declare our symbols immutable rather than provisional—then religion becomes a cage. It becomes the servant of empire.
Without vigilance, what was meant to be a table of fellowship becomes a throne of domination. The table that should gather us as equals is raised as a seat of control. But with vigilance—living vigilance—religion remains a table: open, shared, and sustaining.
Religion is not only symbol and story. It is command, ritual, and demand. That power will not go away. The question is: will we surrender it to empire, or will we bend it toward life?
This is the burden of religion. This is its promise and its peril. And this is why community is not just for comfort but for clarity. Only clarity, only vigilance, can keep the table from being claimed as a throne. Only vigilance can keep the vessel supple, alive, and coherent. Only vigilance can bend the shaping power of religion back toward its sacred purpose: the service of life, the witness of coherence, and the keeping of meaning—whether in the courage of justice or in the tenderness of touch.