Burn It Down?

You've probably heard of Burning Man. It's a festival that happens once a year out in the desert where people gather, build an effigy of a wooden "man," and burn it down.

The idea started with two guys who decided to burn an effigy of a man on a beach in San Francisco back in 1986, drawing curious observers and participants. Since then, it has evolved into a whole movement that promises freedom and self-expression, akin to Woodstock on steroids, but without the music.

This year, though, Burning Man made headlines for darker reasons: a homicide under investigation and, more ironically, the mysterious collapse of the festival's infamous "orgy tent." Some are calling it an act of God

For all its talk of freedom, Burning Man has become something else entirely, a desert pilgrimage that looks suspiciously like religion.

A temporary city in a desert in Nevada where people can explore themselves in "freedom", whatever form that may take.

The Gospel According to Black Rock City

Here's a list of principles from the festival’s website.

• radical inclusion
• gifting
• decommodification
• radical self-reliance
• radical self-expression
• communal effort
• civic responsibility
• leaving no trace
• participation
• immediacy

According to this list, Burning Man is a celebration of art, expression, freedom, community, and belonging.

Do whatever you want as long as you don't hurt the environment or others. That's the idea behind it.

However, given the amount of trash, damage, scandal, and a whole host of other things that happen after this festival yearly, these pillars seem more like good intentions or guidelines.

The Real Religion of the Playa

Here's my take: Man is sovereign at Burning Man festival. There is no God, only man.

A particular religion is being practiced, namely the philosophy of humanism.

One that says "Sin's not real if you don't believe in God!"

What Scripture Says

Consider this verse from Romans 1:18-26:

For God's wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth, since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what He has made. As a result, people are without excuse. For though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became nonsense, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.

Therefore God delivered them over in the cravings of their hearts to sexual impurity, so that their bodies were degraded among themselves. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served something created instead of the Creator, who is praised forever. Amen.

Romans 1:18-26 HCSB

The Ancient Pattern in Modern Dress

The search for the divine or access to the spiritual realm has gone on throughout history. Often, people will build temples, create idols, and craft jewelry and other forms of art explicitly designed to connect them in some way to a higher consciousness, spirituality, or God. Something bigger than themselves.

This 'higher purpose', along with a sense of community, is what Burning Man promises. It taps right into a primordial human desire.

What Paul describes here isn't just abstract theology. It's a spiritual diagnosis.

Look closely: people know deep down that God exists, but they suppress that truth. They trade God's glory for lesser things.

At Burning Man, the central ritual is literally the worship of an image of man. The effigy becomes the icon of self-expression, a symbol of human freedom.

But Romans 1 says this "freedom" is actually a form of slavery. God allows people to chase their cravings, and the result is impurity, exploitation, and ultimately collapse. Was the tent that fell in the desert a freak accident caused by a dust storm?

When "Burn It Down" Goes Mainstream

This humanist religion is subtly and not so subtly reflected in our culture today. Everything from rampant consumerism, racial politics, sexual revolution, and 'liberation' of the LGBT movements, democratic socialism, Cultural Marxism, the calls to unconditional acceptance of illegal immigration, crime, and perversions all have roots in the concept of "man as sovereign".

If there were no God, it would work great. But if there is a God, these movements and their proliferators will face a lot of trouble one day.

And ironically, all of these movements call for the systems, traditions, morals, and societal norms that "hold people back" to be burned down.

Freedom That Actually Frees

What then is true freedom and worship? According to Romans and the Bible, it starts with acknowledging God Himself as Creator and Redeemer. In other words, God created you and is the only one who can redeem you through Christ. You cannot free yourself through self-expression.

True Freedom isn't about the absence of limits but rather the presence of truth. One truth, not many. If we all lived for "our own truths," there'd be chaos. Bad chaos.

What We’re Really Burning For

What Burning Man longs for — transcendence, freedom, and community — is not wrong. In fact, it points to something true: the human soul was made to worship, to be set free, to belong.

But it cannot be any of those things apart from its Creator. Man does have a creator; he did not create himself, and therefore does not own himself.

Deciding to ignore Him doesn't change the fact that He exists. We can set up as many idols as we want. Whether that's careers, politics, technology, community, or something else entirely, it's not going to fulfill us completely.

What do people do after Burning Man? They go home, back to their lives and society. The festival becomes a memory of when they experienced 'freedom' and watched the effigy of a man go up in flames.

But what we really need to ask is: Are we burning the right thing?

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