Faith vs. Zealotry | Themes (Part 4.4)

Feb 6

This is part 4 of the series “The Place Where Conviction and Insecurity Collide”. See original post here.

COLLISION: Themes

Faith vs. Zealotry

In some ways, this was the toughest theme for me to write.

It was tough because it hits so close to home. As admitted in the acknowledgements of HOBL, I am a devout individual. And in my life, namely my own religious communities, I’ve seen how faith can evolve into something grotesque; how it can warp and sharpen and be weaponized against the most vulnerable.

That doesn’t happen overnight, though. Delusion doesn’t come like a thief, but a lover. It seduces and caresses hearts and minds toward something akin to truth, possibly even feigning its traits, but devoid of its redemptive power. All the while, delusion stirs up the same sort of passion that ought to have motivated one’s original, uncorrupted belief.

There is a popular maxim within the Protestant tradition: Be in the world but not of it.

More often than not, zealotry arises when the latter rule is severed from the former.

People of faith are to be in the world. Meaning, they are to serve the people hurting therein. What happens when individuals, passionate and zealous in their faith, seclude themselves so abstinently from the rest of the world?

They forget to love its people.

When this happens, a poison worse than fear, worse than legalism or sanctimony, seeps into their creed. Resentment is birthed; resentment that those hurting do not bear the image of the zealous.

“Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”
~Saint Augustine

We therefore enter the House of Boreal—the highland mecca of sorts—near the start of Book 3. Everything about the community is purified. From the preparation of meat to the washing of lace. The custom of courtship to the administration of order. The cleanliness of one’s lips to the deity they praise. Boreal is arguably the home to Orynthia’s most faithful. Though other religions exist across the map, it is north of Viridis where believers deny themselves as a way of life. Where they elevate good above all else.

Above anyone else.

Yet that is there where a problem fast blossoms. Resentment has taken root where it does not belong. Poison taints the soil. Tenets have been turned into idols; piety worshipped in the place of God. Goodness has been siphoned—reserved only for the worthy. In doing so, they’ve forgotten its definition.

To love good is to hate evil (Amos 5:15). And to genuinely hate evil, is to hate its bondage over the weak, not the weak themselves. Neither does loving good mean that we should pretend that the wolves are sheep, for there really are wolves prowling our world. One once crossed my doorstep and made his home at my dining room table. Wolves should always, in every circumstance, be identified as such.

But the world at large is full of sheep who are preyed upon by said wolves. Resentment confuses too many, and in those cases, they end up branding the sheep like the wolf who hunts it. To love good is to want to set the hurting free. A feat that cannot be accomplished, no matter the zeal, when completely isolated from their pain.

The world will ever be rescued from behind a spiritual wall.

This is Boreal’s ultimate corruption. No culture, no matter how beautiful or well-meaning, is infallible to sin. In building their proverbial walls so lofty and high, they’ve withheld good from the weak. The Boreali have barred hurting sheep from the pasture that heals and from the inside, harbor resentment for their wounds. They have been gifted the cure—literally, in that their plants are magic! They have a more meaningful cure too, yet administer it only to themselves. Out of apprehension, out of piety, out of a reasonable and appropriate desire for holiness, they have forgotten their first charge. And as long as the Quadren hides within Boreal’s highlands, they must suffer this unfortunate result.

As a native character, Luscia plays both the roles of ‘pasture’ and ‘shepherd’ during this installment. Will she welcome Orynthia’s sheep behind her walls? Will she feed them once they are there? Will she protect them from what is coming?

Or will she model after her brethren?

Their zeal may be a virtue…but their zealotry is not.

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