Category: theology

STORIES R US

Hildegard of Bingen’s famous visions

made her sick until she wrote them down

and communicated them to others.

God will not let us bury our talents/visions/stories

– they are given to us for the common good.

 

Carl Jung’s story about humans is that

we are all interdependent and interrelated

not just interpersonally but cosmically –

from this came his idea of the Collective Unconscious –

whereas Sigmund Freud atomized humans

seeing each one as an independent individual

Jung fits much better than Freud

in the quantum interconnected story of the universe.

 

A basic quantum theology principle:

ultimate meaning is embedded in stories not facts –

ideologies/mythologies/worldviews/religions

create our world more than facts.

 

The main components of the new story

of the emerging Interspiritual Age:

the evolutionary consciousness movement

the developmentalist movement

Spiral Dynamics/Integral Theory/Einsteinian physics

all these together create a new metaphysical story.

 

In the other major story –

the materialistic/scientific/rationalistic one –

Meister Eckhart’s spiritual concepts are hard to grasp –

the “God-beyond-God” and “praying to God

to rid him of the concept of ‘God’” –

since all our concepts of God are false idols.

 

Even simple Bible stories written for the common good

need interpretation: the meaning of John 3:16

changes radically depending on how you interpret

“everyone who believes in Jesus will not perish” –

does “believes” mean “intellectual assent 

that Jesus is the Third person of the Trinity”

or “everyone who trusts in Jesus” will be saved?”

Biblical interpretation is the story about the stories

that created western civilization.

 

THE BIRTH OF TRANSCENDENTALISM

The big problem for Christianity today:

it has its roots in a first-axial-period consciousness

(500-300 BC when the great world religions formed

including Judaism, Christianity’s precursor)

and Christianity’s cosmology is outdated and irrelevant

according to many postmodernists.

 

Therefore, you sometimes have to use apologetics

(Christian philosophy) to open peoples’ minds

before you can be kerygmatic

(proclaim Christ to them).

 

Ascending religionists (working their way up to God

through more and more perfect virtue)

and descending religionists (working their way down to God

through greater and greater humility)

try to convert each other

but their salvation truly lies in their unity not division

both morals and mysticism are needed.

 

Fifty years before Pentecostalism birthed

in the 1850s, liberal Protestantism birthed

experiential American Transcendentalism with its love of

nature/poetry/spiritual solitude/mysticism

and liberal Protestantism rejected

the spiritual ennui of organized religion/church.

 

The Transcendentalists (Emerson/Thoreau/Whitman/Melville)

urged self-transcendence, a magnificent gift

but one always limited by the realities of life –

transcendence shows us the possibilities

but personal and social limitations

restrict our ability to fulfill the possibilities.

 

But exposing our limitations/mortality/hidden wounds to God

allows us to experience in our shame and brokenness

the unconditional love of the only One

the only truly Transcendent One.

 

Two tenets of Wisdom:

There is a God

You are not God.

 

GOD/FREEDOM/ADDICTION/PAIN

Without God you have no foundational significance

no unshakeable experience

and you get into needing constant self-validation/

self-proving: everyone becomes your competitor

and you are lost in fragmentary/fleeting experiences

that signify nothing.

 

Values highly prized by society: freedom/prosperity

come from God, but without God they become warped

into licence (no morals)/money-addiction –

the values were originally exceedingly good

but need to be rooted in their Divine Source.

 

The disempowerment/apathy/enslavement

caused by patriarchal institutions may be responsible

for all the addictions in our society

that give us the temporary illusion

of escaping our captivity.

 

If you are never fully in the Now where God is

you will never feel full and fulfilled

you will always grasp for more

and become a control freak/addict.

 

The enemy is us and the friend is us –

the more we can befriend ourselves

the more we can admit that we mistakenly think

that the way to get happy

is to blame someone else, even God.

 

Does God chastise us/cause our suffering?

I don’t know but Augustine thought so:

“I exceeded all the boundaries of Your law

and I did not escape your chastisement –

sin has its consequences.

But you were always with me, mercilessly punishing me

in order to lead me to the true delight

that is only found in You –

You fashion pain to be a lesson

You strike to heal.”

 

Is thinking that God punishes us out of love

a warped view of God?

I don’t know, but I think so.

WHAT CONTEMPLATIVES KNOW

God is real, unlike the mythical gods

who have no existence at all.

But God is no body and no soul

God is the life of the soul

which is the life of the body –

God is the Life of lives.

 

Until the 1960s, people were taught meditation

as an exercise of the rational mind

drawing upon the three powers of the soul:

memory/understanding (reason)/will.

There was no training in contemplation –

the experience of the living God in silence.

 

The contemplative person eventually realizes

s/he no longer knows what God is

because God is not a thing but a Thou

who constantly says “I AM”

which allows me to constantly say “I am, too!”

God makes me real.

 

All the contemplative knows is: God is Love –

the core energy of evolution and its goal.

Love-energy is the most universal/tremendous/

mysterious of all cosmic forces –

“The physical structure of the universe is love” –

Teilhard de Chardin

 

But what gets in the way of love is anxiety –

“Anxiety is the greatest evil that can befall a soul, except sin” –

Saint Francis de Sales

 

To combat anxiety we need to stay focused on God

particularly the Incarnate God, the Christ

who shows us “Perfect love casts out fear” (I John 4:18).

Indeed, the hymn in Colossians 1: 15-20 makes Christ’s divinity

as great or greater than the prologue of John’s Gospel

(John 1: 1-18) which declares that

Jesus is not only God

as the Cosmic Christ

He created the whole cosmos

and is its goal: The Beginning and the End –

the Alpha and the Omega.

 

 

STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS/UNITY/LOVE

Brother Teasdale, a monk mentored by Bede Griffiths

had a vision that nondualism would create

a Christian Renaissance.

 

Beyond that, Ken Wilber believed

the great Wisdom Traditions: Christian Mysticism/

Vedanta Hinduism/Vajrayana Buddhism/

Jewish Kabbalah/Islamic Sufism could be united

in seeing the three ordinary states of consciousness

waking/dreaming/deep sleep

as treasure troves of spiritual awakening

if we learned how to utilize these common states.

 

Beyond even that, unity could go beyond this world

to what Anthony Burgess refers to as “exoChristianity” –

assuming there are trillions of Earth-like planets

outside our solar system and assuming

there would be intelligent life on many of these “exoplanets”

which would be fulfilled in unique incarnations

of the Cosmic Christ, then the primacy/significance of Christ

would be raised to a new level.

 

Radical amazement at all this results in contemplation

which catches us up in the Love of the Creator

who lavishes love in us/on us/around us/as us.

 

By its very nature, Divine Love begets

institutions like marriage and churches which are ordained

toward the embodiment and spreading of Love

in procreation and spiritual education of children

who are the ultimate crown

of any healthy institution.

 

The Love of God is in life-giving individuals and couples

and points towards eternal life as the whole coin

of which death is just a small part – there is physical dying

but no eternal death – everything and everyone is energy

that goes through multiple states: life/death/rebirth

and can never be destroyed.

 

 

EASTERN AND WESTERN WAYS TO GOD

Buddhists should not leave the Sangha, the community

just like Christians should not leave the Church

for it is hard to practice the faith without others.

The Sangha has arhats similar to Christian saints –

both arhats and saints can help us live fully.

 

But Sangha and Church leaders can serve or dominate you –

dominator hierarchies such as caste systems

exploit people and prevent individual/collective growth.

Growth/developmental/actualization hierarchies

lead humans from ego/ to ethnic/ to world/ to cosmos-centrism.

 

Many people, particularly men, are stuck in their lives:

afraid of introspection/pleasure/repressed emotion

disconnected from their bodies

asleep in patriarchal theocracies

but starting to wake up to their vulnerability/sensitivity.

 

Fear of being human

and information overload, a total head trip

is making Western Civilization neurotic –

the Asian belief in the richness of silence/

wordless wisdom/human wonder

is necessary and appealing

but fast disappearing.

 

However, bad discontent and good discontent exist in the West –

discontent with never having enough possessions/

always wanting more

and discontent with all the injustices in the world

that call one to take action.

 

In the East there are three main ways to God:

the way of the head – the way of intellect/knowledge/truth

the way of the heart – the way of emotion/devotion/beauty

the way of the gut – the way of will/action/goodness.

 

To Jurgen Moltmann, a European theologian

Christ’s death and resurrection, according to Colossians

reconciles and unites all three ways/all Creation/all creatures

so that the Cosmic Christ flows through all

and Creation, as Eastern Orthodox theologians say

is deified/filled with/fulfilled through

the Divine.

SOLVING THE HUMAN DILEMMA

Henri Nouwen holds the mystical path

devotion to God

to be central to the life of the heart.

When morality gets too much attention

it subverts the priority of the mystical.

 

In any case, true morality flows out of oneness

the Law of Karma rules:

“You cannot do good or evil to your self

without doing the same for your neighbors”

– Catherine of Siena

 

To the extent we can look at our self

clearly/compassionately, we can confidently/fearlessly

look into someone else’s eyes – and into their soul

since eyes are the mirrors of the soul.

 

For Teilhard de Chardin love is not

an epi-phenomenon – something humans can acquire

rather it is what we constantly bathe in

something closer to us than our breath

which includes agape/eros/philia (brotherly/sisterly love)

and undergirds/supports the rise of consciousness –

deepening love and rising consciousness go together.

 

Similar to Teilhard, theologian John Macquarrie

illumines the human condition

by his main theme of self-transcendence

which simultaneously opens us to God the Infinite

while recognizing our essential finitude.

 

We humans are always a problem to ourselves

because we are finite yet longing for infinity –

longing for the Godhead, for Infinite Love

the living God beyond our images/idols of God.

 

This is where we need faith –

because according to Simone Weil

“Faith is the ability to hold creative tension

between paradoxes that are irresolvable

such as being finite but longing for infinity.”

 

Faith in God is the solution

to the otherwise unsolvable human dilemma.

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.

 

 

KNOCKING ON THE PEARLY GATES

On all the key issues in spirituality:

the equality of men and women/

the harmony of body and soul/

the holiness of being/the goodness of humans/

the compatibility of mysticism and prophecy

Meister Eckhart exceeded the Aristotelian Thomas Aquinas

and so Eckhart was definitely not a Neo-Platonist

as he is often portrayed – he sought the unity of opposites –

the unity of Heaven and Earth.

 

But Newtonian physics separated all things –

and thinking of matter composed of     hard     separate     atoms

impacted our view of self – the individual against community

and our view of Spirit – as somehow opposed to material science

and our view of nature – as a product to be exploited for gain –

the result has been massive alienation

from self/God/nature.

 

The Jewish world of Jesus thought of all things

as created/hierarchical/anthropocentric/

governed by fixed laws with a fixed beginning and fixed end.

But modern evolutionary physics sees reality

as a dynamic interplay of chance/law/interconnection –

Aristotle’s fixed reality of matter and form

has been deconstructed by relativity and quantum mechanics

into a never-ending/interconnected/flow

of energy and information.

 

The creative union of God and matter

is not a metaphysical doctrine as much as a

pragmatic explanation of the universe –

the religious paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

had an innate tendency/power to see God

not apart from the physical world

but in it/through it/as it.

 

The Kingdom/Queendom/Kindom/Presence of God

is within us and all around us

so we do not have to die

to get to the Pearly Gates

(owned, conspirists claim, by Bill Gates –

therefore the “Gates of Heaven”)

we only have to be fully alive with God

in this present spiritual/material world.

GOD LOVES YOUR SHADOW

Trying to find absolute rights and wrongs is a trick

we play on ourselves to feel secure and comfortable

but it is far more daring to keep your heart open

and not make anyone the ‘enemy’

not even your shadow.

 

Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle says the soul

is a mansion of many rooms, but there is a room

in which we should always dwell – self-knowledge –

coming to consciousness of the dark side

of one’s personality is, according to Fr. Thomas Keating

the ‘sine qua non’ – the ‘essential condition’ for

psychological/spiritual growth/humility/wholeness/holiness.

 

Our shadow only becomes hostile

when ignored or misunderstood –

like any human being you have to get along with –

often you have to give in/resist/show love.

 

Holy men and women have unconsciously written whole books

claiming it was all dictated to them by Jesus/Mary/the Holy Spirit

but John of the Cross would be sceptical about this

and Fatima/Medjugorje/end-of-the-world predictions.

 

Kick at the darkness/the shadow not out of illusion

not out of triumphalism, but out of grace –

kick at the darkness because it is ubiquitous

but it is not sovereign – it will not have the final word.

 

God’s way of being just is to show mercy/unconditional love

to those who were loved conditionally

and therefore repressed the ‘unacceptable’ parts of themselves

and so developed a shadow.

God loves all of us, even our shadows

and this formed the basis for Karl Barth’s belief

that we can at least hope for

the salvation of all souls.

 

God is patient with us

not wanting anyone to perish (2 Peter 3:9).