Copernicus/Galileo/Newton opened the door
to the new cosmology – there is more to the universe
than Earth as its center, and gravity connects us
not only to Earth but to the stars. It is all one!
You can let the ki/chi/energy of the whole universe
flow thru your body
thru deep rhythmical abdominal breathing –
breath is central to all Asian forms of meditation
and in the mythology of some Asian religions
the universe was created
thru the intercourse of the gods.
Similarly, a Christian mystic in the fifth century
named Pseudo-Dionysius believed that
Creation is an outpouring of Divine Ecstasy –
the Big Bang is God’s Orgasm!
In the magical/mythical pre-rational religious stage
myths about God are taken literally
for example, God is an angry Old White Man
detached from humans and living far away in the sky.
In the post-rational (but not anti-rational) religious stage
God is Spirit – the unitive Ground of Being
a timeless Presence accessed by unity-consciousness.
These two religious stages were separated
by the renewal/new dawn of reason
in the so-called ‘Enlightenment.’
Christians need a new dawn too –
we must no longer stand with Saint Augustine
who separated grace from nature
causing our current environmental crisis
but with Saint Irenaeus who saw everything in this world
as good/a manifestation of God’s grace –
grace is in nature and therefore in human nature!
We cannot grow spiritually
if we separate our humanness from spirituality
and we cannot grow in humanness
if we separate out our spirituality –
good anthropology is foundational to good theology
and good theology is foundational to good cosmology.
Intelligent Christian Spirituality 