The Significance of Religious Poetry

Poetry and art have always been deeply rooted in the sacred soil of culture. Throughout history, they have elevated culture to higher levels on the scale of divine and human creation. Their purpose has always been to reveal beauty and divine truth. Sacred poetry can be found in cultures of the world throughout the ages. It originated in sacred cults and rituals before the advent of writing. God is the greatest Poet who has ever existed, having created the world from nothing through the Word and the power of the Holy Spirit. He has also revealed Himself through the dreams and visions of the prophets, saints and religious poets who by the means of symbols and lyrical expressions made emotional connection between the divine and human thought.

Thus, no less than thirty-three percent of the Bible consists of reflective poetry. In the Old Testament, David chanted praises to God while Solomon spiritually rhapsodized in the Song of Songs. In the New Testament alike, Paul wrote the most beautiful poem of divine love, while John of Patmos unveiled a vision of the end of times in the biblical epic poem of the Apocalypse. The religious poetry found in the sacred texts of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, and Lamentations goes beyond mere poetry. It serves as a means to reveal and express genuine religious experiences. While these sacred books contain poetry, it differs in value from the reverent and devotional poetry found in hymns used for worship and prayers, which allow believers to express their gratitude to God.

In the past, there was a strong inclination to express faith through poetry and to find poetic inspiration through faith, as influenced by religious traditions. However, in today's de-Christianized world, this impulse is no longer as prevalent. Nonetheless, the failure of secularist and liberal ideologies to offer a spiritual and meaningful alternative to existence, aside from a utopian secular or pagan faith characterized by death and despair, makes it imperative for poets of faith who write about faith to keep the creative spirit of poetry and the language of spirituality alive.

Religion and poetry both originate from the depths of the human unconscious, and serve as creative interpretations and expressions of the wondrous existence we inhabit. Unlike science, religion and poetry do not require validation, judgment, or scrutiny by a rational mind because their origin, meaning and purpose are different than those revealed by the laws of the natural and material world. The spiritual, moral, and aesthetic values conveyed through religion and poetry are existential in nature, conveyed through the use of metaphor, allegory, symbol, and ineffable glimpses of divine beauty and truth. The realm of religion and poetry exists separately from the natural world and the phenomena studied, explained, and exploited by science. The allegories, symbols, and metaphors utilized in both religion and poetry are rooted in patterns and archetypes hidden within the depths of the unconscious, drawing their essence from the fertile and emotional soil of religious and spiritual experiences that have been ingrained in the human mind since the dawn of time.

The religious poets, regardless of whether they are aware of it or not, serve as an laic priest or uncalled prophet, heralding and envisioning a new world through their imagination, a world in which the human soul can find solace in symphonic harmony. This world stands in stark contrast to the fragmented reality created by the abstract systematization of experiments carried out by the new priesthood of modern science, clad in their white robes. Poetry that does not interpret life can easily lose relevance and wander into the realm of fantasy. Likewise, a jumble of words and images without meaning is not true poetry, just as incoherent babbling is not true inspiration or genuine mystical experience. When poetry lacks substance, when it becomes mere verbal expression without depth or inner light, it fails to shed any light on the world or touch the minds and hearts of people with the indescribable beauty and joy of existence. It fails to offer a glimpse of the divine in religious life of man. Also, abstract poetry devoid of feeling, religious or metaphysical substance, moral significance, spiritual depth, or aesthetic value is like a shallow well that cannot tap into the depths of life, the human heart, or the human mind.

Both religion and poetry, when approached with a higher level of imagination, can better perceive and appreciate the beauty of the world, the human heart and mind, the springs of life, and the spiritual winds hovering over the waters. The heart cannot thrive on abstractions alone. While logic, philosophy, and theology may be true and grounded in concrete reality, they fail to satisfy the human longing for something greater, for an inner glimpse into the ground of being. The human heart yearns for divine reality, even if many times that reality is only a rushing river of emotions and inspired imagery. Religion and poetry provide such a subliminal vision of the divine beauty, serving as a foretelling of the spiritual world to come.

In the modern era, poetry and art have distanced themselves from religious inspiration, relying solely on aesthetics as the measure of artistic value. This separation was necessary to protect them from becoming mere imitations of previous styles and from being influenced by harmful ideologies. Freed from the constraints of aesthetic and moral compromise, poetry and art thrived and produced remarkable works of art.

However, in the postmodern era, where values have become relative, the criterion of aesthetic judgment has lost part of its significance for the mass culture, and high-value art has been subjected to the Procrustean bed of non-values. It is now perhaps time for poetry and art to retrace their origins and return to the sacred soil that nurtured them throughout history. Without perennial roots, even the most beautiful flower will wither and fade away.