sin – Intelligent Christian Spirituality

THE EVOLUTION OF BROTHER LAWRENCE

Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection

decided at eighteen years old

to make God’s love the goal

of all his actions

but he suffered for ten years

due to his preoccupation/anxiety over his sins

despite God showering him

with graces

if he was seeking God with his whole/undivided heart

he would have found God

and God’s Love

in all things:

positive and seemingly negative –

in warm sun

and in winter days

when he was healthy

and when he was cold and sick

in bread he ate

and in being hungry

in the song of birds

and in the noise of cities

in his virtue

and in his sin –

“For God hath made Christ, who knew no sin, to be sin for us

that we might be made the righteousness of God in him”

(2 Corinthians 5:21)

Brother Lawrence eventually learned

that it is acceptable in God’s sight

to be imperfect

and that we are all subject to

a Higher Law

hidden in every human heart:

that life is all about growth

and we can all evolve

out of chaos and darkness and sin

into Order and Light and Love.

SPIRIT UNDERLIES AND CONNECTS ALL

When the Spirit of God – always feminine in the Bible

breathed life into human beings in Genesis

She breathed life into all human beings

not just Jews or Christians – these two world religions

have no exclusive claim to the Holy Spirit

so it is not surprising a Buddhist like Thich Nhat Hanh

claims the Holy Spirit as the Source of his life and all life

the Holy Spirit connects everything –

Rupert Sheldrake postulated that repetitive behaviour

creates “morphogenetic fields” – gene-transforming spiritual fields –

that influence the behaviour of all members of a species –

this explains how generation after generation

of birds and butterflies know what pathways to take

when they fly south guided by the Spirit

therefore, contrary to the great atheist Richard Dawkins

we are more than our selfish genes –

our Spirit-fueled behaviours/relationships/souls guide us

the desire for God is behind all our motivations and all our sins –

pride wants what is lofty, but nothing is loftier than God

so pride wants to be God – to replace God with ego

ambition seeks honor and glory

but God alone is worthy of honor and glory

cruelty wants to arouse fear

but the only thing we ought to fear is God –

the Lord Almighty/Creator of Heaven and Earth –

but Jesus said “Do not fear God for God loves you

and even numbers all the hairs on your head” (Luke 12:7)

sloth is a desire for a quiet life

but God alone gives true rest

the problem with the Bible is it’s true teachings

always become subverted by counter-teachings –

the radical assertions of Jesus are subverted

by putting rhetorically violent words in his mouth –

the sheep go to eternal bliss, the goats to eternal torture (Matthew 25) –

on the other hand, Jesus was always authentically himself

and expressed what he truly felt: even anger and grief

he lived what he preached –

walked his talk no matter the cost –

expressing all aspects of love: self-revelation/

understanding/empowering/celebrating/

uniting all things.

THE GREAT REVERSAL

There was a development from first generation Christians who

focused on the special relationship of Jesus to God

to second generation Christians who

to counter growing Gnosticism

focused on Jesus as the Cosmic Christ

as the only way to redemption

the kingdom/queendom/kindom of God

is available to us here and now

because Jesus is the door

thru which we enter the kingdom/salvation/life everlasting

and we do not go to the kingdom – the kingdom comes to us –

since Jesus not only is the door – he stands at the door/knocks/and asks

will we let “Thy kingdom come” to us?

this is the Great Reversal: Jesus showed us

we cannot deduce anything about Jesus

from speculation about God – everything about God

must come from what we know about Jesus

Jesus unconditionally accepts sinners –

he does not condemn them

but gives them a strong challenge:

he will not tolerate

objectively destructive behaviour that ruins people

therefore repentance – turning from sin –

is the key to Christ’s door

of a new beginning –

Jesus unconditionally accepts sinners

but does not unconditionally accept their sin

“Besides the ‘Communion of Saints’

we should also affirm the ‘Communion of Sinners’

since all of us firmly belong to both groups”

– Richard Rohr

“God says ‘Abide in me, abide in my love,

make your home in the love

of the homemaking God

and you will bear much fruit’”

– Canadian folk music legend

Bruce Cockburn

FALLING AND RISING CONSCIOUSNESS

If there is such a thing, “original sin” would be the fall

of the human person from contemplative union with God

and “kyriarchy” would be the fall from union with others –

it is “lordship” – it goes beyond male patriarchy –

white women have lorded it over

both black women and black men for centuries –

lordship is a deeper problem than patriarchy

Ken Wilber’s Integral Vision has color-coded levels

of consciousness that explain all our falls and risings

and cause us to interpret divine beings differently

depending on our level:

red: the magic Jesus

amber: Jesus the lawgiver

orange: Jesus the world wisdom teacher

green: Jesus the savior through multiple paths

turquoise: Christ-consciousness in all people

violet: Jesus the Eternal Self beyond all suffering

similarly, the Enneagram, a powerful tool for alleviating suffering

distinguishes three different types of human beings:

gut/sexual

heart/social

head/self-preserving

who develop/grow/love in different ways

since love is the drawing and driving force

which activates and empowers the universe

it is seemingly contradicted

by “survival of the fittest”

plus nature’s other ways of being violent:

volcanoes/hurricanes/tornadoes/earthquakes –

but love is not always a purely positive force –

it often involves suffering in its movement

towards greater wholeness/greater being

in all our ordinary activities

sin and grace contend

so what we need is sober realism

rooted in the hope the Holy Spirit gives us

rather than naïve optimism – we need to:

despite trying family problems exercise charity

despite deadening routine find meaning

despite the frustrations of daily life nurture contemplation

despite powerful oppressive systems work for justice.

PERILS OF DUALISM

Brother Wayne Teasdale thought the unitive experience

found in all major religions

could form the common ground

for interreligious dialogue

on the other hand, dualistic thinking begets sin

since it divides up the oneness of life –

to sin is to separate yourself

from Earth/your true self/others/God

dualistic thinkers use knowledge –

even religious knowledge –

for ego-enhancement/shaming others

for their ignorance/controlling others

thank God healing is now holistic/unitive –

heal the whole family system

not just the individual who may be a “GOAT” –

not the “Greatest Of All Time”

but a “scapegoat” –

an outlet for the family’s sickness/dysfunctionality/rage

to flow to and through

all rage and even what we call the “wrath of God”

stems from falsely disconnecting natural and supernatural –

we only connect the two in so-called “acts of God” –

earthquakes/floods/avalanches/tsunamis –

this disconnection means the only “supernatural”

action is saying prayers

and social/Earth justice/transformation

are conveniently avoided as “secular”

dualistic thinking splits matter from spirit/

nature from grace/psychology from religion

when in fact they interweave

for example – every religious event

takes place in the “psyche”

which in Latin means “soul” –

there is an intrinsic religious factor

in every psychic development

but we have separated the soul from religion

and then we wonder why

religious institutions are in trouble!

SUCCESS AND THE TRUE SELF

The highest norm of human life is the divine law –

objective/universal/eternal – by which God

governs the whole universe and the human community

with a plan conceived in wisdom and love.

But Bernard Lonergan’s greatest criticism

of the old/dogmatic theology

was its exaggerated notion of the objectivity of truth

and its corresponding neglect of the subject, the self

particularly since in the recent history of thought

Hegel/Kierkegaard/Nietzsche/Heidegger/Buber

emphasized the importance of subjective truth.

According to Carl Jung, “individuation” is the process

of continually finding parts of our subjective self that were lost –

this refinding of the whole self/True Self

is what the parables of the lost coin/lost sheep/

lost prodigal son were really about –

Jesus was way ahead of modern psychology.

The “prosperity gospel” sees success as the sign

of God’s blessing, but success is never what your True Self

is really about/never the real goal of the journey of life –

success only feels good/right temporarily

and then it is gone – all things must pass – except God.

After the Second World War everyone wanted to blot out

of their consciousness that disaster which pointed out the lie

of the liberal ideology of eternal progress

by highlighting our capacity for total depravity –

so everyone got into success and upward mobility

and to accommodate this we developed a culture

of choice not obligation – there were no longer any

religious or social obligations – there was no longer any pressure

from others to be religious – it became a choice not an obligation –

and many chose to be spiritual but not religious.

Once we were old enough to make conscious acts of love

our life became a never-ending series of choices

between our false self with its selfish ambitions for success

and our True Self with its loving consent to

God’s Mercy

despite our lostness and total depravity

which the True Self includes and transcends.

CAST YOUR NETS INTO THE DEEP

The growing gap between theology and science

for five centuries meant religion got relegated

to the backburner of fixed abstract concepts

which couldn’t cope with a universe of dynamic change –

Isaac Newton believed God’s living commands

would be replaced by mathematical laws

and Darwin’s theory of universal evolution

destroyed the immutable world of religion.

We either accept our fixed views/beliefs/assumptions

about reality, or we challenge them –

to remain open and curious, according to Buddha

is the best use of our lives.

Evolution entails a continuous revolution

in consciousness that eventually expresses itself

in deeper religious understanding –

most Christians today are rethinking Augustine

who gave way too much weight to one verse:

“I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin

did my mother conceive me” Psalm 51:5.

The idea we all are sinners

right from the moment of conception

gave birth to the prevailing paradigm of Original Sin

and convenient communal amnesia about the verse

that God originally created everything

including us humans “very good” (Psalm 1:31).

Religious ideas in western Christianity

are now in flux/diverse/non-dogmatic

even in religious America only .05% believe

they or their neighbours will go to hell

and 70% believe many religions lead to eternal life –

contemporary atheists now seem to know more

about traditional Christian beliefs

than most Catholics and Protestants!

The request of Peter by Jesus

to cast his nets into the deep

was a symbolic invitation to us to go deep into our souls

and haul up a treasure of self-knowledge –

that, and communal remembering

and becoming mystics as Karl Rahner advocated

are the only ways we will make Christianity work again.

THE TRANS-PERSONAL MESSIAH

For the past 500 years, the scientific lens

in which everything is rational and testable

has been robbing us of the wonder

of the former magical/mythical era.

We should have integrated science and religion long ago

since they are both foundational to our makeup

of both body and spirit.

Immanuel Kant was on the right track –

he refused to let religion be reduced

to objective scientific explanation

because he demonstrated subjectivity

cannot be reduced to objectivity

and he was an enlightened Lutheran who believed

what contemporary theologians believe –

we are in a dynamic/trans-personal relationship with God.

Quantum theology today focuses on

‘sin’ as ‘missing the mark’

which implies a dynamic process of seeking

and flexible/multiple ways of arriving at the ‘mark’

rather than rigid/dualistic/mechanistic notions of right/wrong.

Scientific research shows three broad arcs

to human psychological growth:

pre-personal/pre-rational/pre-conscious

to personal/rational/conscious

to trans-personal/trans-rational/trans-conscious.

Scripture is tran-spersonal in Second Deutero-Isaiah

where we first hear that Yahweh is not just God of the Jews

but of all people, and we first hear of the Messiah

not just as the ideal king of the Jews

but as the Universal Ruler over all people.

The only way Buddhists and Christians

can keep Buddha and Christ alive today

is for their followers to live their teachings –

Jesus needs Christians to thoroughly practice

his central teaching, the Beatitudes

for, as Teresa of Avila said:

“The only feet/eyes/hands

God has are our feet/hands/eyes” –

The trans-personal Christ is mediated to the world through us.

CLEARING UP RELIGIOUS MISUNDERSTANDINGS

Stories move people more than reason

because they transport us right into the living context.

The Jewish and Christian scriptures are full of stories

that bring God into the richness/messiness of life.

Meister Eckhart knew that stories promote understanding

more than logic, and he defined ‘understanding’

as ‘deiformity’ – conformity to the mind of God –

when we rightly understand how the world works

we are drawn into/formed in the mystery of God.

There have been many misunderstandings in Christian history –

Saint Paul has been grossly misunderstood

as anti-marriage/pro-patriarchy/anti-Semitic/pro-slavery.

In all this he did not betray Jesus or invent Christianity.

What he did was: challenge Jews to new ways of thinking

and confront Roman patriarchal theology by proclaiming

Jesus not Caesar is Lord.

More misunderstandings: some theologians think

the doctrine of original sin is optimistic –

it does not teach humans are evil by nature

but that evil in humans is unnatural/a disorder/a sin.

If evil were natural to humans

we would be perfectly happy in evil

but evil people are not happy

or if they are, it is not natural.

Misunderstandings caused his fellow monks

to treat Saint John of the Cross harshly.

After eight long months in prison/a dark closet

and constant beatings by other monks

he escaped in 1585 and wrote his spiritual classic

Ascent of Mount Carmel.

Misunderstanding Bible verses such as

“Be perfect as God is perfect”

results in perfectionism/fear/legalism/hypocrisy

but the context is: God exhorting us to love everyone

just as “God makes the sun rise and the rain fall

on the good and the evil” (Matthew 5:45-48).

Perfection therefore consists in

unconditional love not moral flawlessness.

THE KEYS TO THE UNIVERSE

Nonbeing was used as a concept

by Plato to contrast suffering/existence with pure essence

by Plotinus to describe the loss of the self/soul

by Augustine as an ontological interpretation of sin.

It is inevitable that we fall into nonbeing/sin –

the tension between our freedom and our finitude

creates anxiety as we confront

our great responsibility to fulfill our potential

and our limited ability to do so.

Our thoughts carry us away like the wind

but if we let them dissipate like mist

we end up in the Present Moment

where there is primordial richness and wisdom.

We need to always return to the Present – the Gift.

We also need Community – no matter how flawed.

If the Sangha is having trouble

you first need to transform yourself

into a candle which lights the other candles.

But any Sangha, any Community

Is better than no Community –

Evil/Ego wants to separate and divide us.

In the Body/Ego stage I focus only on

my own physical body and its survival.

In the Mind/Us stage I can put myself in others’ shoes

so I focus on relationships.

In the Spirit/All of Us stage I become aware

not only of all our differences

but also our common values –

the common good of all sentient beings.

Love at all stages: self/others/all creatures

is the Universal Key – God has given humans

the Keys to the Universe

and “Each of you will be rewarded

according to the measure of your love

not according to the amount of work or time it took.”

– God speaking to Catherine of Siena