The Importance of Ritual

Rituals are important. Nowadays it's hip not to be married. I'm not interested in being hip.

Rituals can get in the way of the important things of life – like helping out our neighbours when they’re in need, visiting the sick and those in prison, and looking after creation. In the Old Testament, prophets like Amos often criticise their religious authorities for encouraging the wrong sort of devotion to God. Instead of practicing righteousness they’re getting caught up in attending temple and making a great show of how good they are and why they’re better than that man beside them. Amos doesn’t spare hypocrisy of any sort, as this extract shows:

A lot of our information about rituals – especially the rituals of civilisations long gone – come from archaeology. The link here tells the story of recent archaeological finds in Nazareth, the town in Israel where it is thought Jesus spent his childhood. Much of what’s been dug up relates to ancient rituals and practices and burial – including well preserved human heads! Where there is death there is inevitably the use of rituals – can you imagine how death might be handled without any ritual at all?