church – Page 4 – Intelligent Christian Spirituality

THE HARDNESS AND EASINESS OF DISCIPLESHIP

Raimundo Panikkar sees the world as in a crisis

of biblical proportions ecologically and humanly –

therefore the Church’s main focus should be on this

not its own inner disputes: sexual morality/ordination of women

these are important but first world problems while 75% of humanity

lives in subhuman conditions of poverty/war/destruction

of the earth and the very air they breathe – smoked out by wildfires/

washed out by floods/starved out by droughts –

the “First World” will only help the “Third World”

if we learn asceticism – giving up endless consumption and greed

The Imitation of Christ, a tenth century manuscript

by Thomas a Kempis is asceticism to the max –

an antidote to our contemporary culture’s fixation on

egoism/materialism/hedonism to the max

On the other hand, the ego is necessary and not evil in itself

it is our functional self – we need it to survive

the problem is our culture tells us

our ego is the only reality and should control everything

for its own pleasure and enjoyment

without counting the cost to others

On the other hand again, there is plenty in the gospels

to encourage asceticism: pray always/sell all you have/

deny yourself/pick up your cross/die to your ego/

die with Christ/the person who finds their life loses it/

the person who gives up their life for Christ’s sake finds it/

the “world” and the “flesh” as seen by Paul and John were demonic

and Jesus wrestled with his own inner demons in the wilderness

After God created humans in a state of holiness/oneness with God

from the start we abused our freedom as sons and daughters of God

set ourselves up against God

tried to find our fulfillment apart from God

Yet the first promise of Jesus in Matthew 11:28-30

despite all the necessary asceticism was

“Come to me, all who are weary and heavy-laden

and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you

and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart

and you shall find rest for your soul

for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

INTEGRATING POLAR OPPOSITES

In some mythology and theology

all contradictions/opposites/polarities

emanate from Providence: good and evil/life and death/

pleasure and pain/prosperity and destitution –

God is everywhere and in everything –

God is with us/for us in all things – even dark things.

“Meister Eckhart, more than any other thinker

knew how to integrate opposites:

biblical theology and spirituality

prophecy and mysticism

faith and reason

art and life” – Matthew Fox

Asking questions in search of integration

can help us with polarities –

asking questions was the basic method of Thomas Aquinas

in his monumental Summa Theologica

in which he integrated all medieval theology –

in his search for Truth/God, he kept asking questions

and turning over in prayer the profound mysteries of

philosophy/scripture/church teaching/the universe.

Thomas Merton also used questions to find Truth/God –

he questioned how can we integrate polarities like

Church as Beloved Community versus

Church as Institution of Individuals under Church Law?

If you use questions and search hard enough you will find

your True Self/your ground floor spirituality/an absolute

reference point that is at one and the same time

utterly within you

and utterly beyond you.

If you are aware of your True Self’s original blessing

you can handle your original sin/

if you are aware of your True Self’s ultimate security in God

you can handle earthly insecurities/

if you are aware of your True Self’s original dignity

you can handle insults easily/

if you are aware of God as your heavenly Father/Mother

your earthly father/mother

cannot hurt you too much.

VISIONS

In the vision of Bonaventure and Aquinas

humans are central to the Creation –

It would make no sense for God to create

a universe to reflect God’s glory

if there was no creature conscious enough

to appreciate God’s glory/reflect God’s glory/

lead all Creation back to God.

When we believe humans are just

an accidental collection of atoms

it results in despair/collective irresponsibility

which results in dangerous passivity/apathy

in the face of the political/ecological crisis

which is currently in our face.

Besides, there is only one human problem –

to discover who we are/our purpose

in the economy/reign/rule/life of God –

if I find God I find my true self –

the face of who I was before I was born –

and I find my true purpose –

and if I find my true self and my true purpose

I find God.

To find your true self, start your meditation/

prayer practice where you are –

do not wait until you have it all together –

nobody ever has it all together.

If you are the most violent/depressed/

egotistical/self-hating person in the world –

those are all good places to start.

And as you come to see that God loves you

in your shadow/wounded parts

you can accept those shadow/wounds in yourself

and so bring your whole self to God and be healed.

In the vision of Teilhard, Christianity is a new “phyllum”

with the Church at the cutting edge of evolution

leading evolution forward through “amorization” –

“union in love” – guiding evolution as it moves toward

its fulfillment in the human/Cosmic God

Jesus the Christ.

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.

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.

A TIMELY ASSESSMENT OF TWO POPES

March 13 was the 10^th anniversary of the pontificate of Pope Francis, and since Emeritus Pope Benedict passed away just a few months ago (December 31), it seems like a good time to reflect on what they achieved.

Pope Francis has made it a hallmark of his reign to lead by example, walking his talk as a living embodiment of the church’s preferential option for the poor and marginalized. One of his first actions was humbly washing the feet of prisoners in a jail. He also has taken refugees into the Vatican and welcomed LGBTQ+ people.

He has extended this sensitivity to women by promoting them to key positions in the Vatican, and seriously considering the “sensus fidei,” (sense of the faithful), that God speaks through lay people as well as the ordained hierarchy. He has called for several synods where the 99% of the church who form the laity can speak their minds freely.

He has emphasized the church as a pastoral organization rather than a dispenser of dogma, that is, its first calling is to be compassionate toward all those who suffer. His visit and apology to Canadian Indigenous who suffered from residential schools was his attempt to make amends for misguided church abuse.

Francis has been committed to interreligious dialogue, particularly with Muslims, visiting Islamic leaders in their own countries to discuss how these two major religions can get along and work together for the benefit of all.

His major encyclical “On Care for Our Common Home” represented the first attempt by a pope to integrate environmental concern into the theology of the church. Published just before the Paris Climate Accord in 2015, it had an impact on the deliberations there.

A major achievement recently was developing a new constitution for the church, which reformed the Curia (church administration) by replacing Vatican congregations with “dicasteries,” that is, departments meant to help the pontiff govern the church by implementing changes instead of resisting them.

However, it has not been all roses. Francis has been attacked as a “socialist pope” by several conservative bishops, who even suggested he should resign. And he has been criticized by the left due to their disappointment he has not ordained women as clergy.

Except for two notes, I won’t say much about the legacy of Pope Benedict (2005-2013) since so much has already been written by others. His reign was not nearly as substantial as that of Francis, and I agree with some that the best thing he did was step down when being pope became overwhelming.

However, on a positive note, it amazes me that everything I have read has missed Benedict’s greatest achievement, the development of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Before he became pope, Cardinal Ratzinger chaired a commission of 12 cardinals assisted by seven diocesan bishops as well as experts in theology.

The Catechism is a synthesis of the essential contents of Catholic doctrine on faith and morals in light of the Second Vatican Council and two thousand years of church tradition. Its main sources are sacred scripture, the liturgy, writings of the saints, and the church’s “magisterium” (teaching office). A first draft was sent out to all the world’s Catholic bishops who made thousands of suggestions, all of which were incorporated in the final draft promulgated by Pope John Paul II in 1992. This was the first major catechism in over 400 years and will be a model for all local catechisms for the foreseeable future. Reminiscing about this, Pope Benedict stated in 2011 that it seemed like a miracle they were able to pull all this together into a contemporary catechism.

However, all was not roses in this case either. The Catechism became very popular among lay Catholics, some of whom weaponized it in the way some Protestants have weaponized the Bible. In other words, it has been used to shut down debate, mature reflection, and interpretation, instead of facilitating it. I have heard Catholics say, “The Catechism says it, and so I believe it.” End of discussion.

It has been extensively studied in parishes, but it should be read along with books such as Adult Faith by Diarmuid O’Murchu. Otherwise, lay Catholics run the danger of being trapped in an adolescent faith that thinks it has all the answers. Still, the Catechism is a masterpiece of Christian thought, and Benedict deserves full credit for it.

BEWARE THE CHEESE MONKS!

Modern values focus on individualism

postmodern values focus on relativism

and often both result in nihilism and meaninglessness.

We all have limitless wealth –

the whole Creation is given to us by God

but we get so caught up in individualistic or relativistic

competition/defeat/victory

that we no longer see

what is right in front of us.

A competitive society is violent

so the apparent passivity Jesus preached

in the Sermon on the Mount –

turn the other cheek – seems absurd

but is actually subversive resistance

which forces perpetrators to face

their own violence.

What Thomas Merton rejected in the “world”

was not wealth or ambition

but the world’s triviality –

its fads/advertising/masks of hypocrisy

which even his comrades he disparagingly called

the “cheese monks” got caught up in –

as if their true calling/purpose was to produce

excellent cheeses or liqueurs!

The Catholic Church got so off track

that sex scandals broke it –

one third of people raised Catholic

vacated the premises

and with the pandemic

another third departed.

If real transformation never happens for Christians

then for professional church staff

their work becomes just a career

and for lay people church becomes something

one just attends, an afterthought

instead of the living Body of Christ

which heals the “world” and its violence

by giving it profundity.

THE STRAWBERRY OF GOD’S EYE

A Fourth Awakening of Christianity may be coming –

postmodern Christianity started in the 1960s and is more

pluralistic/egalitarian/experimental/environmental.

Harvey Cox, a Harvard sociologist/theologian thought

a 1500 year “Age of Belief” was ending

and an “Age of Spirituality” was beginning.

Some think the 300-year-old “Enlightenment” has fizzled:

people no longer trust science for all the answers.

Phyllis Tickle described an ongoing “Christian rummage sale:”

every 500 years or so everything changes –

500 AD Christianity became the Holy Roman Empire

1000 AD the Western and Eastern Churches split

1500 AD the Protestant Reformation

20^th Century: the Second Vatican Council.

“In the monomyth of the Hero’s Journey

the normal rites of passage are magnified: you separate

from ordinary life and enter a world of supernatural wonders/

overcome fabulous challenges/return with boons

for all mankind.” – Joseph Campbell

After the first millennium, the “wandering ascetic”

was abolished – monks were ordered to “leave the world”

and live in monasteries. However, now we see

that ordinary, everyday life abounds with fabulous challenges:

opportunities to practice holiness/honesty/commitment/

trust/compassion/patience/forgiveness – we used to think

holiness consists of heroic deeds somewhere else

but it is all right here/right now.

Canadian folk music legend Bruce Cockburn:

“If you don’t see beyond normal sight

you can get trapped forever in the fraying-rope/

uneasy/anxious treadmill our culture is on.

You never see that the whole world is full

of the Spirit’s light/life/love.”

It is true that in the cosmic scale you are nothing

but “Do you not know that your name

is written in heaven?” (Luke 10:20) –

to God you are everything – the apple

of God’s eye – the strawberry of God’s “I.”

LGBTQA HAVE GIFTS TO GIVE CHURCHES

The criticism by Pope Francis of laws criminalizing homosexuality (London Free Press, January 26) was hailed as a new milestone by gay rights advocates, but it fits with his overall approach, based on the Catechism of the Catholic Church, that gay people must be welcomed and respected by the church rather than marginalized or discriminated against. “We are all children of God and God loves us as we are” he said.

Personally, I find it helpful when thinking about this issue to keep in mind Richard Rohr’s tricycle. Rohr, a Franciscan priest, says that the front wheel is your own personal experience: does this religious teaching make sense given what you have experienced? Then you check your experience against the back wheels of scripture and tradition.

My own experience of life is that God loves diversity – there are so many varieties of plants, animals, and birds. No two moons, planets, stars, or galaxies are exactly alike. The same holds for people, we are all different. Perhaps God loves sexual diversity too.

Some of my own life experience with sexually diverse people is as follows (with names changed to protect confidentiality).

Walter, who was not interested in sex at all, fits the new category, asexuality (the ‘A’ in LGBTQA). Ronald was a devout Catholic I met in the early 1980s. Among the staff where we worked, the heterosexual married and single staff were all jumping from one bed to another. My wife Grace and I, and Ronald and his gay partner, were the only monogamous couples. This blew apart any stereotypes I had about gay men. Arnold, a devout Lutheran, seemed to be a woman trapped in a man’s body. He had the voice and all the mannerisms of a woman.

Lawrence, a youth minister, told me he wasn’t sure he was gay. We were both concerned that if he came out of the closet, he would lose both his job and his marriage. So, for two years we explored all the reasons why he might not be gay. Finally, we concluded that he was in fact gay, did not choose it, and was born this way. He said he knew it all along but wanted to double check it with a trained spiritual director.

My experience with gays is most of them would love to be straight so they could fit in with the majority, but they cannot deny how they were created. As Ronald said to me “I did not choose to be gay – why would anyone choose to be persecuted?”

Fr. James Martin, a Jesuit priest whose book Building a Bridge addresses how the Catholic church and the LGBTQA community can get along, has had positive meetings with Pope Francis about this, and spoke in London a few years ago. He started off by asking “When did you choose to be white, heterosexual, male or female, short or tall?”

He also made many suggestions about how any religious community could constructively approach LGBTQA people. First, like all of us, LGBTQA people are much more than their sexual lives, so do not reduce them to this. For Catholics, he reminded us that if a LGBTQA person was baptized as a Catholic as a child, you don’t have to try to get them into Catholicism. They already are Catholic and part of the church.

Not only that but LGBTQA people bring a lot of gifts to any church. They know the suffering of the marginalized and therefore can minister more effectively to outsiders than a straight person can. So, they should be included as part of the church’s ministry.

As far as the back wheels of the tricycle go, although the scriptures contain a few verses some interpret as anti-homosexual, they also contain many other things we now see as outdated, such as stoning to death people who work Saturdays (the Sabbath)!

In general, the scriptural message is one of love and inclusion of everyone. Jesus never said anything about homosexuals and repeatedly reached out to the marginalized – prostitutes, the crippled, blind, and lepers. It is no stretch to believe he would welcome LGBTQA people. And Christian tradition has always taught that we are to imitate Jesus.

Bruce Tallman is a spiritual director and religious educator of adults. www.brucetallman.com/books