Newsletter 30 September 2009
Pilgrimage or Tourism, cont.'d
Peter J. Miano
The story of pilgrimage becomes very interesting, indeed,
in the Modern period, beginning, say around the 19th Century. Two new developments
changed the profile of Christian pilgrimage. The first, most obvious factor,
is the invention of new transportation technologies, such as steamship travel,
railroads, cars, buses and airlines. All travel became easier. The spiritual
value of pilgrimage was much more appealing when it was made easier. At the
same time, a wider market for travel developed and high volume, commercial
tourism under the guise of pilgrimage was born.
The second development is less obvious, but perhaps even more significant.
It is the post-Enlightenment change in the intellectual climate of the modern
world in which the culturally conditioned values and assumptions of modern
“science” came to be considered intellectual imperatives. Alexander
of Cappodocia never could have imagined what historia was to become. Subjected
to closer and more careful scrutiny, with the requirement of “proof,”
people began to realize that the sites long associated with biblical events
and people had precious little evidence to support their identification. What
kind of evidence could be adduced to identify a site as the place where Jesus
preached the Sermon on the Mount? The fact that more than one different site
had come to be associated with the same biblical event aroused disbelief in
many, eroding the credibility of pilgrimage. How is it, for example, that
two sites in Jerusalem could mark the eternal resting place of Mary, the mother
of Jesus? And how, if she were eternally resting in Jerusalem, could she also
have been taken to Ephesus where pilgrim tradition insists that she lived
the rest of her life?
In the modern world, questions that never nagged
early pilgrims came to dominate modern scholars and pilgrims alike. Combined
with the obvious commercialism of high volume tourism and the hucksterism
it generated, the values and demands of the modern intellect cast pilgrimage
in an increasingly negative light.
In 1867, Mark Twain took part in a well publicized “pilgrimage”
to the Holy Lands. Displaying all the time bound values of his day, he tells
of his experience in The Innocents Abroad. Assuming the mantle of an enlightened
muckraker, he applied a hefty dose of Yankee skepticism to the enterprise
of pilgrimage and exposed the practice of pilgrimage as simply high volume
tourist gimcrackery with little intellectual credibility.
Today, Christian pilgrimage is plagued by the same kind of commercial hucksterism
Mark Twain made fun of and many Christians view pilgrimage to the Holy Lands
with suspicion. And well they should, because most Christian travel to the
Holy Lands is little more than an elaborate money transfer system—a
high gloss scam, one part Wal-Mart, one part Amway. Christians embark on guided
tours packing misguided theologies and today we inherit the illegitimate offspring
of this illicit marriage. The Holy Land is rendered a biblical Disneyland.
Thus, the need to redeem pilgrimage from commercial sightseeing and the mission
of The Society for Biblical Studies.
Among its three distinct objectives, The Society for Biblical Studies seeks
to redeem pilgrimage from the corrosive effects of commercial sightseeing.
There are many dimensions to this goal, but the primary method of pursuing
it is introducing the traveler to the contemporary dynamics, including issues
of war and peace, in the places we visit. Commercial sightseeing, frequently
in the service of political forces, seeks to insulate the tourist from contemporary
realities. Tourists, cloistered in high volume, Western styled hotels and
restricted to carefully selected sites, never truly encounter the culture
where they travel, often not even sampling local cuisine. More often than
not their only exposure to local people is their guide or bus driver. Until
we encounter the people who live and work where we are traveling and allow
them to tell their own stories, we have not begun to experience authentic
pilgrimage.
What is the difference between a tourist and a pilgrim? Tourists pass through
places, but pilgrims let places pass through them, allowing their hearts to
be changed. Tourists seek comfort, pilgrims seek the cross, allowing themselves
to hear the stories and experience the feelings of people faced with enormous
challenges. Tourists ask questions about sites, pilgrims let sites ask them
questions about personal responsibility in the face of obvious moral challenges.
Tourists ask to walk where Jesus walked, pilgrims ask how Jesus walked.
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