Category: theology

COMMON THREADS IN WORLD RELIGIONS

The world’s great religions, diverse as they are

share a common existential thread:

self-reflection and self-transcendence

to St. Paul baptism means you transcend/die 

to the Roman Empire’s violence 

maintaining its patriarchy/hierarchy/slavery

hierarchical and biblical authority

the mainstays of Catholicism and Protestantism

have been problematic for feminist theologians

because there are many ‘terror texts’

hard to believe as ‘inspired by God’

because they maintain subjugation/exclusion/

violence against women –

by seeing biblical texts as interactive with the reader

feminist theologians reclaimed the Bible for women 

by biblical criticism prioritizing the life-giving/

political/ethical/nonviolent texts

but the vision of the hierarchical Fathers 

of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965)

was to help the Church be evermore true

to its divinely-inspired mission:

to effectively serve all people 

both men and women

with generosity/empathy/love

and in Buddhism the Three Jewels:

the Buddhist Trinity of Buddha/Dharma/Sangha

(Teacher/Teaching/Community)

are all meant to sow seeds 

of love/peace/understanding 

throughout the world

and in Taoism the sage Lao Tzu teaches us all

how to accomplish much 

without effort

by allowing the Tao, the Hidden Force

motivating the universe

to act in and through us

spreading wisdom and joy everywhere

Spirit hides in all these traditions.

COSMIC SHIFTS IN CONSCIOUSNESS

The only direction of evolution is “convergence” –

which is both positive and creative –

the creation of evermore complex life forms

the “Axial Period” within that positive direction

happened between 800 and 200 years before Christ 

in China (Confucius and Lao Tzu)/India (Buddha)/

Persia (Zoroaster)/Israel (Prophets)

all arose and transformed everything

that human beings could be

Hugh and Richard Saint Victor

Christian philosophers/mystics 

wrote in the 12th century that there are three eyes:

the first eye of flesh gives us sight

the second eye of reason gives us meditation/reflection

and the third eye of contemplation gives us true understanding –

the ability to see with the eyes of the heart –

the brothers Saint Victor continued the God-given

unfolding of human consciousness

but in Buddhism and Christianity there has also always been

a “contemptus mundi” – a contempt for the world

however, churches in the postmodern world 

can no longer pretend they are the only sources of grace 

and that the Holy Spirit is not active in all civilizations

or churches will continue to become irrelevant/fringe groups  

the tradition of churches condemning their best thinkers 

like Meister Eckhart (who in 1329 was labelled a heretic)

means that the real victim was not Eckhart himself 

but Christianity since Eckhart’s “Creation Spirituality “

which is Jewish/biblical/prophetic

was replaced by an anti-intellectual asceticism

which is apolitical/dualistic/introverted not world-shaking

still, conscious evolution goes on – 

Christianity finally shifted from the fall/redemption 

Era of Peter from Constantine’s Holy Roman Empire 

in 310 AD to the 1960s – the beginning of the Era of John

a mystic of the Cosmic Christ

who promoted Cosmic Consciousness

and noted that even Peter was a mystic –

for he repeated three times

“Lord, you know that I love you” (John 21:15-17).

FREEDOM FROM SELF

Humans are the apex of the created world

are open to the Infinite

seeking fulfillment in God

and this openness and seeking of God

constitutes the very nature/structure/meaning

of what it is to be human

spiritual transformation has two movements:

self-appropriation – owning who you are

and what is going on inside you

and self-transcendence – becoming God-centered

not ego-centered

intellectuals and sceptics never think

to check out the Source of their intellect

in their pride they reject God and religion 

they never slay the dragon 

of their ego

our one desire should be to seek God’s will for us

not pleasure or wealth or fame 

or even virtue or wisdom

liberation theology is about not just 

struggling for others

which suggests paternalism

it is also about self-liberation:

realizing you are not completely fulfilled

without others

and you are living in a society 

that alienates you from others

and therefore from your true self 

which always needs others 

for fulfillment

prayer is the best way 

to step out of self-centered living

into the big picture: God 

and a vision of peace and love 

for all

prayer is

“Enlightenment:” freedom from self.

REVOLUTIONARY WORLDVIEWS

Copernicus (1473-1543) upset two worldviews:

the Earth was not fixed in place but rotated

and the Sun was the center of the cosmos not Earth

Duns Scotus, Franciscan theologian, upset another two:

“Our predestination to glory precedes by nature

our tendency to sin” – we are original blessings

not original sinners – and “The goal of perfect love

is the perfection of love, therefore Christ 

would have come to Earth even if there was no sin

and therefore no need of redemption” 

Meister Eckhart upset a fifth worldview:

God is not “out there,” but rather

“The soul is the deepest/truest part of being human

and the place where we are united with God

who creates us in every moment”

the spiritual and physical are united –

the Father/Son/Holy Spirit are in our heads/hearts/guts

Jacques Ellul’s theology upset both the capitalist and Marxist

world-views: “Christian social action must put the emphasis

on individual humans not the collective masses

nor on the technological means of production –

a human being is not a cog in mass machinery

nor a tool to be used by the professional politician”

another upset of the modern worldview: sex is healthy not “dirty” 

“Evolution continues through humans only to the extent

that we are conscious of the integral wholeness of love

which includes healthy sexuality. In other words

healthy sexuality is a key to evolution’s progress”

– Teilhard de Chardin

but there is a major problem with males and females:

we can see our shadow and the shadow of others

much more easily in our own sex than in the opposite sex

we overlook the shadow of the opposite sex

which means that men see their own shadow

in other men, fight them, and create wars

and women are jealous of other women

overlook the flaws of men

and make seriously bad choices 

in whom they fall in love with and marry.

WOMEN ASCENDING

According to the great theologian Paul Tillich

anxiety appears in three forms:

anxiety of death

anxiety of meaninglessness

anxiety of condemnation

another great theologian Karl Barth

wrote that God condemns no one to hell – 

we create our own hell –

thus in Church Dogmatics Barth radically departed

from John Calvin’s doctrine of double predestination –

God predestines some to heaven

and some to hell – what kind of God would do that?

so, Barth favored a simple predestination to heaven

however, people can create hells for other people –

going beyond Barth, higher education allowed women 

to create postcolonial/liberation/inculturated theologies –

the spread of women’s voices across the world

gave them the power to address unjust global structures

of finance and business

and to connect capitalism/colonialism/racism

the basic motivation in healthy Christianity 

is based in union with God –

from there the sacred water keeps flowing

and washes away all women’s sense 

of inferiority/unworthiness/low self-esteem

but women today can get caught up

in perfectionism – “having it all” – 

making unrealistic demands on themselves

the pursuit of excellence on the other hand 

allows women to take pleasure 

in striving to meet their own high standards

without castigating themselves 

they learned that loving themselves

means embracing their own

strengths and weaknesses

insights and stupidities

successes and failures

body and soul

badness and goodness

finiteness and infiniteness

so there is no longer any shame or self-condemnation.

Wisdom versus False Religion

Spirituality is about growth without limits/

/waking up/blessing others/gratitude

we would not think to do good

if God had not already moved us to it –

good spirituality always gets you in touch

with what God is already doing within you

the only true joy in life is to escape

from the prison of the False Self

and by love enter into union

with God who dwells within you

love cannot remain blind –

it has to become conscious

to see reality as it is/people as they are

and go beyond disillusionment to commitment

to love all there is

despite all the flaws

particularly in human beings

if we want growth in friendship/marriage/religious life

Richard Rohr equates internal resurrection

with finding our True Self

which may cause one to not fit in 

with any particular religious system

since a lot of religion is obsessed

with the False Self

since the opposite of faith is not doubt

but certainty/thinking you have all the answers

and you/not they are right about everything

the ego/small/False Self

loves to be right/safe/not uncertain

Seneca, a statesman/dramatist/Stoic philosopher 

of ancient Rome wrote extensively about

the relationship of courage to religion:

“Undisturbed by fears

and unspoiled by pleasures

we fear neither death 

nor the gods.”

the beginning of wisdom

is to love/not fear God.

Preferring the Poor

If we believe that science and religion are incompatible

we will live in one world

and pray and believe in another

the Newtonian view of the world

did not include the human person –

everything was mechanical

and even when the new physics gave us a dynamic cosmos

religious consciousness was stuck in a medieval cosmos:

a perfect/immutable/unchanging/hierarchical/

anthropocentric world

evolution may be a painful movement forward

marked by dramatic suffering and losses

the losses cannot be ignored

but neither can the progress

from hunter-gatherer

to mythic religious empires

to pluralistic informational societies

spiritual regress happened with Nietzsche’s

“will-to-power”

which is not “will” in the psychological sense

nor power in the sociological sense –

for Nietzsche will-to-power

is ontological/basic reality/the way things are

spiritual progress happened after the death

of Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection in 1691

when his Abbott published Lawrence’s Practice of the Presence of God

and it exploded around the world

spiritual progress also occurred with Gustavo Gutierrez

and his radical theology of the poor –

theology from the perspective of poor people not victors

the polar opposite of Nietzsche’s will-to-power

and mirrored in the Second Vatican Council’s

“preferential option for the poor.”

 

Authentic Spirituality

Spirituality should move people from 

mortality to immortality/

sin to salvation/

law to grace/

bondage to freedom/

ignorance to enlightenment/

suffering to fullness of life

without transformation religion is merely

the institutionalization of spirituality –

a belief and belonging system –

there is no change of consciousness/motivation –

conversion means moving from outer to inner authority

– from “the Church says”

to “given what the Church says

what also does the Holy Spirit/my conscience/

my experience say?” –

inner authority leads to the True Self/God within

true piety is not turning our face from West to East

true piety gives of its substance:

alms to the needy/strangers/travellers

ransoming of slaves

when I seek God, every event/moment/

sows God’s seeds in my will

and eventually Bibles burst out of my mouth

we are paradoxically both empty and full

full of emptiness/empty of fullness

and there is satisfaction in being empty

if we let God come in and fill us up

the divine/human encounter 

in the Sacraments

is with my own True Self/the Church/God

and therefore should change 

planetary/cosmic consciousness

transform the small/egoic self/the Church/

and the world’s cosmic messiness.

TEACHINGS OF THE LIVING CHRIST

The birthing of the universe is miraculous:

one-trillionth of a % faster = universe flies apart

one-trillionth of a % slower = universe collapses into itself

only God could pull this off

only God is able to do all things

including bringing life out of death

as with Christ

according to the Buddhist saint Thich Nhat Hahn

“After Buddha’s death devotion turned 

from the Dharmakaya (the teaching)

to the Eternal Buddha (the Teacher)

Buddha became in Mahayana Buddhism

the Buddha of Faith/the Living Buddha

like the Christ of Faith/the Living Christ”

(Living Buddha, Living Christ)

Jesus taught thru the Bible that love takes place

in personal care for:

children: “Let the little children come to me, 

and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven 

belongs to such as these” (Matthew 19:14)

parents: “Honor your father and mother

that your days may be long in the land 

that the Lord your God is giving you” (Exodus 20:12)

the sick and poor: “Come to me, all you who are weary 

and burdened, and I will give you rest –

take my yoke upon you and learn from me

for I am gentle and humble in heart” (Matthew 11: 28-30)

Jesus also taught thru the Church 

“Contemplative prayer is a gift/a grace

that can only be accepted in humility and poverty” 

(Catechism of the Catholic Church)

and he taught thru the saints 

like Teresa of Avila 

that “If you get to the fifth inner mansion

there is absolute certainty

that God has planted Godself

in the center of your soul

and at that point your only desire

is to do God’s will”

(The Interior Castle).

LONELINESS IN A FRANTIC WORLD

All beings have a propensity to unite with other beings

without this internal propensity which some call “gravity”

from atoms to galaxies

love would not appear at higher levels –

this propensity to unite, this gravity, is “attraction”

the primordial beginning of love

 

“Love/conviction/service not theology

are the keys to the Great Awakening –

it is not ‘what’ we believe but ‘how’ we believe

what is ‘actionable’ that counts”

– Diana Butler Bass

 

if God made you with this internal propensity to love

and made you intrinsically important to God

why would God change her mind in the next life?

God’s Love is the one eternal thing that takes away

our foundational fear of death/annihilation

 

so we never need to feel alone

God is always with us

but loneliness is not the same as being alone or solitude 

loneliness is a feeling of not being a part of anything/

being cut off from others and life/

being intrinsically unworthy of love/

a feeling of guilt/a taste of death

but Love is stronger than death

 

we can be alone and be happy

if we feel we are still part of a loving family/community –

Church was originally meant to be the Beloved Community

 

but people try to fill the hole in their soul –

their loneliness – with work

but a distinction exists

between sound/healthy/meaningful/life-giving work

and frantic work

done out of loneliness/fear/greed/

our sins/society’s sins

 

Love and our recognition of that Love

are the only answers

to our frantic lives in a frantic society

in a frantic world.