politics – Intelligent Christian Spirituality

MYSTICISM AND POLITICS

Mysticism is direct experience of God

but most mainline pastors are sceptical about experience

because they believe faith must have intellectual content –

and it must involve social justice –

true faith is not simply pentecostal or mystical.

Johann Metz’s theology of politics was influenced by

Catholic theologian Karl Rahner

existentialist philosopher Martin Heidegger

marxist philosopher of hope Ernst Bloch

Jurgen Habermas’s critique of modern consciousness

liberation theologian Gustavo Gutierrez

and the base communities who

practically and politically implemented

the ideas of all these thinkers.

If Metz were alive today he would include scientists and mystics

since mysticism explores consciousness

and understanding consciousness is

the next big frontier for science.

What most pastors miss or forget

is that Divine Co-creativity works

within the evolutionary process

and within us –

the Spirit works primarily through

our mind/heart/gut’s consciousness and experience

rather than as an external agent of cause-and-effect.

“The universe is the primary Sacred Reality

and we become sacred by participating in it” –

Thomas Berry

This is how we get wholeness/salvation –

salvation by participation in the universe

since the whole cosmos was designed and created

with a view to the Cosmic Christ

the noble goal/perfection/center of the universe.

This is the starting point for Johann Metz

in his theology of politics.

LIVING IN BABYLON

Major structural injustices in which we

live/move/have our being

create haves/have-nots

and are hugely immoral – but most religions

while preaching personal and interpersonal ethics

ignore systemic evil and most believers accept

massive injustice as “the way things are” never asking

“How can individuals be moral in an immoral culture?”

The typical response of Christians living in

our Babylonian culture, in exile, is:

try to be faithful husbands and wives

raise virtuous children who are

compassionate/contemplative/seek justice

and who kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight.

Catholics adopt Protestant practices:

daily Bible reading/speaking in tongues

and Protestants adopt Catholic practices:

praying the Divine Office and trying out

Benedictine/Franciscan/Ignatian prayer styles

and perhaps this is the Holy Spirit

weaving the entire Church together

so we all may be one

or maybe this is just rearranging

the deck chairs on the Titanic

as long as the structural injustices persist.

Hopefully, the Contemplative Way

will save and transform us:

because sometimes contemplatives

as they are liberated from all addictions/attachments

gain psychic powers/siddhis such as

telepathy and clairvoyance – genuine contemplatives

always hide these super-powers

but maybe they could use them to fight injustice?

In any case, the ultimate secret of the spiritual life:

“ever-present divine awareness” is not hard to attain

for anyone and is impossible to avoid

according to Lao Tzu/Shankara/Paul/Augustine/

Plotinus/and Teresa of Avila because it is always there

and awareness of the divine is the only thing

that makes living in Babylon bearable.

SOLIDARITY

The modern-day Apostle Paul Tillich warned

that a culture dominated by religion

stagnates/becomes monolithic uniformity/

loses the dynamism of pluralism/

degenerates morally into legalistic conformity/

ironically loses its inner Spirit.

Most nation-states form their solidarity around a religion

but America has always been religiously pluralistic –

therefore, the Founding Fathers

wisely built solidarity not on religion

but on self-evident truths.

Humanists are always concerned

that belief in God limits human freedom

and creates apathy to life on Earth.

However, this is misguided thinking:

belief in God does not block freedom and dignity

because God is the Source

of freedom and dignity.

Also, believing in our future union with God

does not block our discharging present responsibilities –

God wants us rooted and perfected in God

which provides both stability and motivation to act now.

Theism naturally gives birth to the idea of resurrection

and a spiritualized and transcendent view of the self

which humanism completely misses

making humanists ironically unable to really help humans

since real humanness involves divinization –

being filled to overflowing with God and God’s love

so your love flows out to all sentient beings.

Mystics always find a God who does not

judge/compare/differentiate/compete – since all these block love.

Our minds are meant to be like God’s:

all-embracing, all-loving receptors and givers.

The Apostle John spoke of Jesus as the revelation

of our solidarity with God/ourselves/others on a local scale.

The Apostle Paul spoke of Christ revealing unity on a cosmic scale:

“Through Christ, God was pleased to reconcile all things

to God whether in Heaven or on Earth” (Colossians 1:20)

so that “God may be All in All” (I Corinthians 5:28).

INTEGRATING THE GLOBAL SHADOW

By separating the contemplative/unitive thinkers

into monastic communities, Institutional Churches

were able to continue in their rationalistic/dualistic/modus operandi

and the status quo was preserved – no transformation necessary.

However now inter-spirituality is spreading –

world religions are sharing experiences of unity consciousness

an inevitable part of the world’s move

towards multiculturalism/globalization/the theosphere:

God as All in All.

Even political action can be spiritual:

elevating humans as daughters/sons of God

liberating them from the old gods of lust/greed/power/war –

the gods which toxic masculinity worships.

Toxic masculinity/patriarchy continues because:

homophobia prevents deep male-to-male relationships

men confuse spirituality with religion and flee from it

bar mitzvahs and confirmation are inadequate

rites of passage/initiation rites for males in the postmodern world.

The male unconscious is not concerned with moral injunctions

but does try to balance whatever is happening

in the conscious male, and soften his toxic masculinity:

a man who defines himself as a righteous male

dreams about a degenerate woman –

the unconscious is not telling him to avoid this type of woman –

it is telling him he is this woman – he and her are one.

If he owns his shadow, it softens his heart.

In the past, those promoting morals and ethics

were unaware of the power of the male shadow

and alienated it further by labeling it “evil.”

But in the new quantum/unitive theology

what morality consists in

is full integration of the shadow

all the way from the personal to the global –

the global shadow, not admitting

humanity’s brokenness yet oneness

results in war and climate change.

War will never cease, God’s good Earth will never turn green

till the Global Shadow/Patriarchy is owned.

EINSTEIN, MARX, AND ‘I AM’

Einstein’s Theory of Relativity in 1905

swept away Newton’s World

of absolute/empty/space and fixed time.

Space and time are now one continuum and

time is no longer seen as an absolute constant

flowing at the same rate everywhere.

Einstein resisted the idea that the universe

is constantly expanding, but this led

the Belgian priest/physicist George Lemaitre

to conclude that the universe must have a beginning

and in 1949 George Gamow proposed the Big Bang Theory

the best explanation so far.

The Marxist cult of constant expansion/progress

accused Christianity of leaving humans

divided/alienated/mournful.

But the solution continues to be Christian optimism:

God leads us to the Promised Land

we don’t get there by political revolution.

It is God’s kingdom not Karl Marx’s.

For Christians the main discipline is to let the horsepower

of our experiential union with God do the work

to keep the cart (us) behind the horse (God)

and not foolishly take on the harness our self.

Led by the Holy Spirit

well-developed individuals and civilizations

go thru archaic/magic/mythic stages

in infancy/childhood/adolescence

but 70% of believers remain stuck there.

Only religion, which contains these stages,

legitimizes/honors/respects people at these stages thus

only religion can lead them out of these stages

to higher consciousness.

When you surrender to God

God stops being an ‘object out there’

and becomes your own ‘I Am’.

And since you now know your self

thru/with/in Somebody Else who loves and guides you

your little ‘I Am’ becomes a great ‘We Are.’

THE INTER-SPIRITUAL GOLD STANDARD

Inter-spirituality – religions getting along

and learning from each other – is an ideal

like the ethical gold standards:

economic egalitarianism

abandonment of militant nationalism

nuclear disarmament

which are promoted by globalism

and multiculturalism.

Conservative spirituality needs to loosen up

its fixation on ethnocentric myth

and learn how the Spirit expresses itself

in worldcentric reason

and postconventional love.

The Church is both human

since it exists within time

and is subject to forces of history and culture

and it is also divine

because it resolutely presses towards

the final Kingdom/Queendom/Kindom of God.

“Christians must resolutely strive towards

justice in the real, ambiguous world

where grace and sin abound.”

– Reinhold Niebuhr

The idea of God/Christ/religion evolving

rests on the notion that humans evolve –

in fact, technology has become so pervasive

we have evolved into a new species –

techno-sapiens.

At the microlevel of subatomic particles

there is an unceasing flow of energy

too vast for our minds to comprehend.

The Universal Christ is this energy incarnate

in every church/religion/all humans/the universe –

the Universal Christ is the inter-spiritual

gold standard.

PERFECTIONISM,HYPOCRISY, COMMUNITY AND PRAYER

Many great souls live on the margins of society

so they don’t get hoovered up by it.

This can take hard forms:

monks/nuns/hermits/

poverty/chastity/obedience

or soft forms:

everyday believers

fasting from television/shopping/violence/

flaunting wealth/lust/rebellion.

This is not perfectionism –

religion that tells you that you must be perfect

for God to love you

forces people to deny and repress their sin

and so become hypocrites and inhuman.

Empty churches/mosques/synagogues come from

hypocrisy not secularization.

Dualistic thinking creates hypocrites

because it totally separates

good from evil/saint from sinner/soul from body:

an ongoing disaster for Christians.

I am my body – the body is no add-on

or afterthought to who I really am.

Not handling the body and sexuality well

results in the hypocrisy of sexual abuse.

Thich Nhat Hanh: Buddhists do not talk

about Original Sin but about negative seeds:

hatred/lust/racism that exist in us all

overcome by developing Buddha seeds

that also exist in us all:

love/purity/inclusion.

The key for any human, whether religious or not

is to be true to one’s

self/inner guiding light/conscience.

But no one can open and surrender to truth

unless they first feel heard and loved –

loving a person in all their sin/delusion/wrongness

is the only thing that opens their door to Truth.

And the self is always embedded in a community

hopefully a community of love, the Beloved Community

so life is not just self-realization

but also community-and-world-realization.

The Beloved Community is created by prayer:

true prayer is the Holy Spirit praying to God in us

often with a love too deep for comprehension

so our spirit becomes one with the Holy Spirit

one living Flame of Love.

Sitting quietly in prayer is practicing

under-doing and under-achieving

which gradually forms us into a human being

rather than a human doing –

prayer thus saves the world from itself.

But there can be politics to prayer:

the truly spiritual are always a threat to politicians

because what politicians tell us is real

the devout see as ephemeral and unreal –

wealth means nothing to those who come back

from near-death-experiences

who see the Big Picture

through God’s Picture-Window.

Neither politics nor science has all the answers –

science must be silent

on ultimate questions

because it must always be open to disproof

but our hearts and spirits still want

ultimate answers

and honesty means honoring this universal longing.

There are strong empirical reasons for believing

in things that cannot be proven

such as love and friendship

that give our lives meaning

and help us endure incredible hardships –

we are destroyed if we think “no one loves me”

and life is just

Shakespeare’s “tale

told by an idiot.”

REUNITING SPIRITUALITY AND RELIGION

God, who is not in time and space

has to do with being not nonbeing

is better than anything we can conceive

and transcends all our heart’s desires.

Sacred marriage, the object of all our desires

is a powerful archetypal symbol

of the union of all women and men in God.

But with Descartes’ dictum “I think therefore I am”

the self-thinking individual

replaced the transcendent self

united to the whole cosmos.

No longer one with the cosmos and God

human beings could now possess the cosmos

and play God.

Likewise, when science displaced religion

(in the Enlightenment mind anyway)

mass and energy were considered

to be the ultimate reality/god

for, never created or destroyed

they are eternal and omnipresent.

God, if considered at all, became

energy, or at most, Spirit

but devoid of religious content.

During the twentieth century

‘spirituality’ came to be identified

with the realm of private thought and experience

‘religion’ came to be identified

with institutions/formal rituals/official doctrines.

Spirituality connoted positivity and authenticity

religion connoted negativity (thou shalt not) and rigidity.

Previously, religion and spirituality were one.

The western world therefore needs wise women and men

and mysticism from the East

to put religion and spirituality back together and

to penetrate more deeply into the gospel of Jesus the Christ.

Otherwise, the west will be devoured by

rationalism/scientism/materialism/pride.

The western world, driven by survival of the fittest

and capitalism, hates compassion, calls it weakness

lets cruelty outweigh mercy and throws off humans

our conscience, Christianity, whatever makes us feel guilty.

But some people, like Thomas Merton, chose conscience

even though it meant living in anguish and constant questioning.

According to Ken Wilber

there are three major stages of consciousness:

ego/ethnic/world

and five major lines of intelligence:

spiritual/moral/interpersonal/cognitive/emotional.

According to Elizabeth Johnson

this consciousness/intelligence is embedded in the universe

and integral to the whole evolutionary process

culminating in the human mind and spirit –

humans perfect the universe.

Franciscans think of themselves as Christian humanists

reflecting the goodness of God.

God can best be understood through our humanity

therefore, anthropology is as important as theology

in understanding the mystery of God.

To alleviate the anguish of doubt and questioning

people prematurely surrender themselves

to Someone ‘larger than life’

some authoritarian who imposes answers

so the questioner no longer has to question

or be in doubt –

thus, they save meaning but lose their soul.

However, the restless pilgrim spirit

is the unstoppable essence of Christianity

right from the beginning:

God calls each of us like Abraham

to leave our family/wealth/comfort zone –

everything for the sake of the Lord.

“God made us for himself

and our hearts are restless

until they rest in God.” – Augustine

Healthy religion includes both peace and spiritual restlessness.

GOD, THE SEED OF LOVE WITHIN ALL

A complete mythology serves us in four ways:

metaphysical/mystical, cosmological,

social and psychological.

In Christian mythology, God the Great Mystery

leads us into

paradox, darkness, never-ceasing journeys of inner growth.

Simplistic religion without mystery

causes people to leave religion.

Certainty, not doubt, is the opposite of faith.

Seeds need darkness to germinate

and darkness makes life reach its full potential:

injustice causes us to strive for justice.

As a chaplain in World War One

Paul Tillich saw first-hand

the satanic impulses

unleashed by secular culture.

Demonic injustice was the seed that germinated

Tillich’s method of correlating scripture and reality

in his systematic theology.

To receive the seed of God’s Word

the soil must be loose not hard-packed.

If we are too opinionated, too sure

we have the whole truth and nothing but the truth

too settled and comfortable,

the seed falls on shallow ground

and ironically cannot get in.

In process theology, God is the seed

buried in the universe

who participates in All from within

rather than creating from without.

Jesus changed the world by working within

by changing hearts, not by political action.

His big revolution was including the poor

in the kingdom/queendom/kindom of God

and pointing out the corrupting influence

of wealth and power and how hard it is

to thread a camel through the eye of a needle.

Jesus made authentic subjectivity

the foundation of truth when he said

“I am the Truth.”

Truth is a person, not an abstract concept.

Bernard Lonergan, the great Canadian theologian

of authentic subjectivity

first exhausted himself

in writing technical theology

but later immersed himself

in love and mysticism

and the eroticism of the Song of Songs.

Lonergan wrote that

self-transcendence happens through being-in-love:

“Love is the first principle from which flows one’s

desires and fears

joy and sorrows

decisions and deeds.”

Karl Rahner wrote that

his greatest religious experience was immersion

in the incomprehensibility of God

in daily life and ordinary things

not in prayer and meditation.

True religion is seeing God

in commonplace things

like Francis of Assisi in his

Sermon to the Birds:

“My little bird sisters

you owe much to your Creator

who you must always praise

with your song

because God has given you

the freedom to fly

anywhere.”

ONLY IN GOD DOES EVERYTHING BELONG

Only in God

does everything belong:

the good and the bad –

all other systems exclude

contaminating elements

for ideological purity.

Both communism and capitalism

believe in a future paradise/utopia

in which there is no shadow

which makes them ironically open

to every moral infestation/corruption.

Only by abiding

in God’s unconditional love

do we find the safety and freedom to be

who we really are (our True Self)

all that we are (good and bad)

more than we are (saints)

and less than we are (sinners).

People believe

if they find their True Self

all problems will be solved.

However, this narcissism

ignores social/cultural dimensions

necessary for transformation of civilization.

Sorry, evangelicals:

converting individuals

does not convert society

does not create the kingdom/queendom of God

the Beloved Community.

Ego intuits Spirit

as Higher Self, Soul

Archetype, Enneagramtype

Inner Voice, Witness

Universal Mind, Pure Awareness

Transcendental Consciousness, Gnosticism

but this leaves out

the We of culture

the It of politics.

Christology must be seen

thru eyes of victims’ oppression

not thru magical conceptions

of victors’ redemption.

When scripture is seen

literally/historically

not spiritually/symbolically

the Perennial Philosophy

mysticism……is lost

which is what the world

needs most.

We must learn to live with relativity

of all human ideas

all theological/scientific dogma.

The future is open-ended and inter-connected:

the freedom to flow and connect

are the new survival skills

in this twenty-first of all centuries.