I have long thought that religious practice and belief should always be attended by warning labels and the type of cautionary advisory that now accompanies all prescription drugs.

-- What should I learn before using this product?
-- What are the possible side-effects if I regularly use this product?
-- When should I avoid taking the medicine?
-- What happens if I overdose?

Unfortunately, when it comes to religion, such precautionary advice is never given and the answers to such questions are seldom explored. At a time when our nation seems inundated with television evangelists, religious testimonials, mandatory piety in politics, bumper stickers and T shirts proclaiming that the owner is a “Jesus Freak”; the idea that one can overdose on religion is taboo.

Early in my career I accepted a call as the priest in charge of a bustling and vital suburban congregation. In the first weeks and months, as I struggled to preach, teach, and lead this family oriented, well educated congregation, I was thrilled with the devoted volunteer effort and involvement of a woman in the congregation.

This woman was pleasant, gracious, smart, capable, and hard working. Whatever needed doing, whatever program was offered, she could be counted on for her helping hands and enthusiastic participation. Moreover, she had taken this same prominent role during my predecessor’s tenure and I regarded her as a living symbol of my acceptance by the congregation. Only very gradually did I start to have doubts about the negative affect of this woman’s valuable and extensive involvement in the church.

Despite how much her participation meant to me and to the congregation, I began to wonder about the signs I was beginning to notice of damage to her marriage and family and to this woman’s own sense of self and vocation. When my doubts eventually crystallized, I met with the woman and we discussed these issues. In the course of the conversation she began to recognize that her involvement in the church was an escape from issues in her marriage and her career that she needed to meet head-on.

I, of course, realized that I was going to lose the most valuable volunteer in the congregation. The woman did make dramatic changes in her church involvement and, as a consequence, in the health of her marriage and family. Since she and her husband became life-long friends, I was rewarded in a manner never anticipated for the hard-to-swallow reality of her severely diminished role as a key member of the congregation.

It was about this same period in my life, when, in a small seminar on the potential of the parish, one of my colleagues said: “I know the parish is important because I can see how much damage it has done to so many people.” Whether we are thinking on the “micro” level of individuals and congregations or the “macro” level of societies and nations, I believe religion always has the potential to inflict severe harm and damage. Sometimes one can read that a possible side-effect of a prescription medication is death. We expect our medical advisors to take such warnings very seriously as they guide our use. I believe we should expect religious leaders to pay the same attention to the side-effects of religion. Hitchen’s quote is a reminder that failing to do so has all too often led to horrible consequences.

On the other hand, Hitchens is in error if he believes the world will be a better place if the quest for God disappears – because it isn’t going to disappear or diminish. What is happening, and will continue, is that the search will take new paths and an increasing variety of forms. The authority of the established churches, their formularies, rituals, and prescribed beliefs, are crucially important for many persons. Nevertheless, these religious authority systems do not, any longer, have the power to hold sway over vast multitudes. I suspect many religious pilgrims, moving beyond the bounds of “authorized” religious belief and practice, are readers of Hitchen’s book in their search for what needs to be known before ingesting more religion.

P.S. For my small coterie of loyal readers, I have been vacationing in Wyoming and Montana, hence my absence from response to On Faith’s important and interesting questions.