WORSHIP AS KENOSIS - Part - I Power and the concept of Sin

Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secret is hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your Holy Name; through Christ our Lord.  Amen.  

From the Book of Common Prayer of The Episcopal Church, USA.



People worship.  Perhaps not everyone, but a number of us still  do.  I believe there was a time in early  human history where most everyone worshipped some form of divinity as an essential function of life on this planet.  At that time the world of humans was largely orientated to theism.  Gods and goddesses ruled every aspect of life and nature and we humans from monarch to slave were dependent on their favor and subject to their wrath.

Worship was a way of ameliorating their favor by a demonstration of sacrifice, an offering up life to preserve life.  This could be a symbolic act or an actual taking of a life, animal or human, as a means to secure divine  favor and protection.  Worship in this sense was done as an appeal to power or a means to acquire power.

This history is clearly evident in the Hebrew Scriptures of Abrahamic monotheism, but the Hebrew narrative changes the perspective of worship from appealing to and acquiring power to divesting ourselves of it, giving it back to God.

This was the intuitive insight that the prophets of Israel brought to bear on theism - God doesn't want sacrifices. God wants us as true, contrite creatures who acknowledge the unbreakable strength of God's tenderness. So worship evolved in Abrahamic monotheism from acts designed to appeal and acquire power to its divestiture and acts of faith.

POWER AND SIN

Let me be clear from the onset of this discussion there is nothing intrinsically wrong with power (the appeal to, the acquisition of, or its use), the instinct to survive, or the desire to succeed.   It's how they are applied, that becomes problematic.

THE MISUSE OF POWER

The mythos of the misuse of power is likely found in every culture and theistic religion.  It is the root cause of every conceivable ill.  What I find interesting is that in the mythic stories  I'm familiar with, power is not specifically mentioned but its misuse is evident.

In Abrahamic monotheism, the misuse of power in human hands  is termed sin; therefore, we need a working definition of power. Power is simply defined in any dictionary as the ability or a capacity to do or influence something.  Having this in mind, let's examine its mythic origins as described in the Hebrew scriptures.

Once again we turn to the Book of Genesis.  Power is first defined as a creative imagination or, to be succinct, God's creative imaging of what exists.  Chaos is turned into Cosmos by God merely calling it into order.  Humans are specifically made in the image of God and brought to life - empowered - by instilling God's ability to be creative, to name the creatures God made, to have the power to choose, to have control.

I have no idea what the writers of Genesis originally  had in mind when writing this story, but I am impressed by its artistic simplicity which allows it to be examined and applied in any number of ways.  As such, permit me to indulge in sharing my thoughts on one way it can be applied.

After making the first human, Adam, God places him in the Garden of Eden. Into this mythic paradise God also places two trees, the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. There is an intuition that the writers of Genesis bring into this story by the introduction of these two trees.  They resonate, on a certain level, with what I have described in earlier posts as the instinctual drive to live and the intellectual desire to succeed.  What becomes interesting is that God forbids Adam from eating from the Tree of Knowledge.  God tells him if he eats it, he will die. This all occurs before Eve arrives on the scene.

Why God only forbids the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is a bit of a mystery.  

Why not the Tree of Life also?

I believe the answer lies in God instilling in humans the capacity for choice in the form of desire.  In Paradise there is no need for the drive to live, so God introduces the human mind to desire by granting humans the power to chose; in essence, to chose between life or death.  The choice is very subtle because death comes wrapped in a pretty package with benefits - life - not so much.

It appears that God is conducting an experiment to see where human desire, as a creative force, will lead.  God does not forbid eating the fruit of the Tree of Life.  He doesn't bring it to Adam's attention. If Adam was aware of it, it doesn't appear to have interested him.  In fact, Adam doesn't bite one way or the other.

God perceives something lacking in Adam. He lacks the capacity for desire. He simply does what he's told - no questions. He doesn't act much better the animals he names.  This incompleteness is described as loneliness; as in, lacking personal initiative or a drive to live creatively.

So God creates a partner from the very being of Adam. In essence, God draws Adam out of himself as another, who will eventually become recognized as a separate entity, Eve.  But from the beginning they see each other as part of the same being. This often gets lost in the telling of the story, but it essential to hold on to this

I would suggest that the characters in this primal myth present general human characteristics.  In Adam and Eve we encounter the Masculine and Feminine Principles which play a role in all of our lives. (Click here for a further explanation). It's not about gender, but rather about perceptual tendencies. In the character of the Serpent we encounter the subtle force of intellect, the reasoning mind which engages desire that is associated with the feminine principle.

I find it interesting and rather intuitive on the part of the writers of Genesis to portray the reasoning mind as a reptile. Serpents in many ancient cultures are a symbol of wisdom and knowledge.  I see it, in my modern application of this story, as a transference between the reptilian drive to survive and the intellectual desire to succeed.

Everything Eve knows of God is through Adam. Adam and Eve are literally one  person in two bodies.  Until Eve's encounter with the Serpent, there is no sense of personal power.  It is the Serpent who presents the questioning mind with a thought, "What if....?"  In fact, the Serpent lures Eve to the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil with a question, "Did God say you shouldn't eat of any fruit from a tree?"  Eve corrects the Serpent and says there is only one, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil; that if they do they will die.  Adam happens to be tagging along during all of this and says nothing - subtle clue to the masculine and feminine principles at play in this story.

The Serpent questions God's warning, "Surely God wouldn't let you die. The fact is you'll become like God, knowing good and evil." If this were a literal story, the concept of death would have had no meaning, since there was no experience of it.  The Serpent plays off this and invents the lie, which is best served with a side of truth. The truth being they will know good and evil.

Being a myth, the writers employ some license in telling this story. First Eve sees that the fruit is good to eat and looks pleasant to the eye, she also desires to become wise and takes a bite and then offers it to Adam and he eats it.  It is only when both eat that their eyes are opened.  This is the first time that power by a human was exercised independent of God and it was an attempt to usurp the power of God by acquiring the knowledge God possessed, which bring us to concept of sin.

THE CONCEPT OF SIN

There are several standardized definitions of sin, most of which I find useless as they generally tend towards defining it as some sort of offense to God.

In essence, the true nature of God cannot be offended.

What is offended is our sense of God as we are prone to lose sight of our dependence on the tender strength of God. Losing sight of God gives us the perception that we can, in some way, offend God because that is the feeling we have when we become aware of what happens to us in our attempts to go it alone, when we attempt to live by our own power and strength and lose sight of God.  We feel that whatever bad happens as a result is either because God turns away or is angry.  Such feelings are merely a projection of our own unbearable feelings projected on God. The reality is we cannot wrap our minds around the concept of God without anthropomorphizing God as having our same feelings.

The basic concept behind sin is getting or doing somethings wrong or, in the parlance of Greek and Hebrew archery terminology, missing the mark.   In keeping with my discussion on theism and the divestiture of power, I would like to suggest that sin, in essence, is the abuse or misuse of power in human hands.

The writers of Genesis brilliantly bring this into focus at the very beginning of their telling of the human story.  The story of Adam and Eve and the story of Cain and Abel are a set that are best read as one continuous narrative as sin is defined first as a desire and then as an act. The saying "knowledge is power" becomes operational in the serpent's temptation of Eve.

At first its all good until she gives it to Adam and he eats and their "eyes were opened." There is a subtle significance in the fact that this story makes knowledge operable only when both eat.  As reality is a consensus of perception, so too is knowledge.  Seeing is knowing and what they see is the unbearable burden of seeing and knowing they are different from each other and ultimately from God.  

They hide/cover their differences so they can look at each other and then try hiding from God. There are many types of death, and the separation they experienced was one.  They also know that they will physically die, the perennial human angst we all have to live with.

Sin in this case, is committed in the act of desire for what will cause them harm.  We are led to believe that the sin is trying to be like God, but the evidence is contrary to that notion, since we already are made in the image of God.  The sin is in the harm they brought upon themselves in ignoring the harm they will do to themselves and which is immediately expressed in the destruction of their unified existence with themselves and with God.  They immediately suffer the consequences of their action.

According to this myth, death is not the result of sin.  Death is a result of knowing good and evil - knowing death.  Suffering is the result of sin.   Adam must toil with the sweat of his brow.  Eve will suffer the pain of childbirth and the desire for Adam, the lost oneness they once shared.

The expulsion from paradise is to ensure that their suffering will not be eternal by eating the fruit of the Tree of life.  This can be easily missed as the writers tell the story in a way that can lead one to believe that God felt threatened by the fact that they knew good and evil like God and might become eternal like God.

It's possible to interpret the story that way, but I think it misses the point. Adam and Eve are in a state of suffering the moment they know.  Death is an end to that suffering as God tells Adam that he will toil until he returns to the dust he was made from

The desire and use of power becomes sinful when we use it to harm, to get our own way at the expense of others, to dominate and destroy the other for the aggrandizement of self, in trying to be something we are not - a God unto ourselves. This applies to individuals and nations alike, which brings us to Cain.

Since I have talked about Cain in my last two posts, I won't retell his story here.  The story of Cain killing his brother, Abel, starts with Cain  seeing a difference in how God reacts to Abel's sacrifice rather than his. His jealousy becomes a desire to get back at God by getting rid of Abel.  The story makes a point of God speaking to Cain in order to warn him that his desire will lead him to do evil, which Cain does.

The desire and use of power to do harm and for personal aggrandizement is the basis of sin.  Genesis will carry this through to describe it in global and national terms as seen in the stories of The Flood and The Tower of Babel.

In the story of The Flood humans see no need for God and mingle with the sons of God, which I understand as a reference to the mythological gods of other religions.  The result are demigods, legendary people of great power and might.  I see this as a nod by the writers of Genesis to the other religions that existed at the time it was being written, but what the writers depict as most offensive to God was "that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."  Genesis 6:5

In the story of The Tower of Babel, human hubris literally reaches a pinnacle in a metaphorical attempt to become god-like by making a name for themselves.  They are all one people with a shared perspective and a shared imagination to which God responds, "Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and one nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do."  Genesis 11:6

What the writers of Genesis point out is that sin is a matter of the heart, the seat of imagination from which evil can be enacted.  The King James version captures this by the use of the word imagination, the power to create as opposed to the more literal translation of inclination and purpose respectively.

So sin is rooted in the desire and use of power to do harm in the form of personal aggrandizement whether self is meant as a single person, as a nation or as a species. Genesis does not stop there.  Genesis takes a leap forward to the story of Abraham.  With Abraham, the Genesis narrative changes from myth to mystic legend.

GOD'S CHOICE OF AN AVERGE JOE TO RESET CREATION

Throughout the mythic portion of Genesis, God is shown as trying to reset the trajectory of human history on a restorative path.  I would suggest that story of Cain and The Flood are both depictions of God trying to restore the trajectory of human history.  He tests Cain who fails to heed God's warning much like his parents. In the Flood, God virtually wipes out all of life save two of each kind of animal and Noah and his family. This too doesn't end well with the construction of the Tower of Babel.  So the writers of Genesis depict God as taking a different approach in resetting the trajectory of human history, by making a personal choice in choosing Abraham.

God chooses Abraham and Abraham chooses God as his personal, familial God.  What is interesting about God's choosing Abraham is that there is not much interesting about Abram, as he was first known. Abram truly is an average Joe type.

What Abraham possesses, however, is great capacity for faith.  Abraham and Sarah become God's reset.  God is no longer interested in seeing whether humans can reset themselves by recreating themselves.  It's not about a quick fix, but rather a personal journey on the part of God with God's creation through a chosen people beginning with Abraham.

There are so many layers to these stories that I could spend several posts on each one, so I rely on the reader to have some knowledge of Abraham's story and the promise of God to make his descendants as numerous as the stars in the heavens.  Of course, Sarah, his wife, gives birth to only Isaac.   In turn, God tells Abraham to offer Isaac as a burnt sacrifice to God.  There is no reason given why God demands this of Abraham.  The importance of this story is in the fact that Abraham never questions God's command as a knowing, reasoning person.  And we know Abraham is capable of great reasoning in his compassionate defense of Sodom and Gomorrah.

The story goes out of its way to point out that God knows how much Abraham loves Isaac and still makes this demand.  When Abraham arrives at the appointed destination, he places wood on a makeshift altar, binds Isaac and places him on the altar and just as Abraham is about to plunge his knife into Isaac, an angel stops him and reveals that God knows that he fears God above all else.

Isaac is spared and a ram is sacrificed in Isaac's place.  What matters to God is not the act, but the condition of the heart behind the acts.  Abraham's silence in this account is telling.  He relinquished all sense of personal power in the face of God's devastating mandate. He does not question even though he is capable.  Unlike Adam he does not act blindly, but knowingly.  In Abraham knowledge is sanctified.  We can know beyond good and evil. We can know aright. We can know to act from faith, from the heart rather than the head.  Abraham's faith is the first step in the right direction towards a fuller redemption as he empties himself of all sense of self, his very heart, that is embodied in his son, Isaac.

I believe Christian teaching gets this Hebrew story wrong.  Most Christians see the angel stopping Abraham from sacrificing Isaac because God will send Jesus to be the sacrifice for sins of the world.  The point of the Isaac story is that God does not want any physical sacrifice. Period.

This journey into my musings on the foundation of power and the concept of sin in the Book of  Genesis is to set the stage for a discussion on the topic of worship as kenosis and it's importance today.  The topic of worship as sacrifice is graphically displayed in the stories of Cain and Abraham, both of which present the notion that true worship is not a matter of acts, but rather a matter of the heart rather than the head.  The writers of Genesis place the topic of worship and the trajectory of human history under the microscope of God's chosen people, for us to examine the intimate working relationship with all of creation.  Worship evolves in this working relationship as a divestment of power, which I define as kenosis - the emptying of self as a reset for people on this side of life to enact God's loving power in our midst and in our time as acts of faith to heal the wounds and the suffering that we have inflicted and do inflict on ourselves as individuals and as species.


Until next time, stay faithful.

CAIN AND KENOSIS

  Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord.

                                                                                            Genesis 4:26b



In my last post, I began a discussion on theism as a divestiture of power.  In this post, I am going to rely on my experience as a Christian, but I think what I say  will on some level apply to other theisms.  

Let me begin with the Christian concept of kenosis and then backtrack to where I left off on the Cain story. Kenosis is the emptying of oneself, of submitting one's will to God as an act of faith.  It is most often associated with Jesus emptying himself of his divine nature to be one with us.  I will get back to that theology, but for now I want to go back to the earlier origin of kenosis as found in the story of Cain. 

CAIN

Admittedly, few would associate the story of Cain with the concept of  kenosis.  Here was a man so full of himself that he could not get the beyond the perceived slight God gave when God favored Abel's sacrifice over his.  That he killed Abel as an act of revenge on God was unforgivable.  Yet, God not only forgave Cain, he also marked him as protected.  Although Cain paid a price from the earth not giving of its produce, he would become the mythical founder of civilization and the forebearer of offspring who would become the founders of art and industry.  

How could such a jealous, vengeful person as Cain end up so favored by God?  

This is the question the writers of Genesis want us to explore.  They don't give us much to go on, but I suspect that was done with intent.  Genesis is one of the most complex books of the Holy Bible and is probably my favorite book because it is so rich in questions that beg exploration.  

The first four chapters of Genesis have deep psychological and spiritual implications about human nature and it's relationship to the concept of the divine.  The story of Cain ends this initial discourse on the inability of humans to cope with our own sense of knowing, our own sense of power over the other.  Adam and Eve sought to be what God is and bit off more than they could chew.  Cain showed the depths of depravity that human could sink to over something that did not directly effect Him, apart from his belief that God's favoring Abel's sacrifice was meant to insult him. 

In both cases God goes lightly on these three humans.  Yes, there were consequences, but they lived through them to see many more days.  The story of Cain  and Abel is presented in the context of acts of worship, in the form of sacrifice.  Why they were sacrificing or offering God the fruits of their labor is not known.  Were they thank offerings?  Were they being offered to ensure God's blessing?  


As a side note to Genesis, the stories in Genesis present a consistent theme of the younger brother being favored over the eldest.   God is depicted favoring the younger brother in order to give us pause on what we think is just. Often it is the younger brother that seems to be least deserving, like the deceptive Jacob and the arrogant Joseph. Abel's sacrifice is favored  by God.  As a result, his older brother, Cain, goes into vengeful rage.

Abel trusted Cain. He had no idea that Cain was jealous to the point of wanting him dead.   
Cain deserved to die and Cain knew it.  When God asks Cain where his brother is and Cain responds by asking God if he is his brother's keeper, Cain realizes that he should have been.  There is a deep psychological dialogue going on in Cain's mind.  God is in the details of our minds, we cannot rid ourselves of God's inner voice. We can try to reason it away, try to ignore it, or try to tune or drown it out, but it's there. Call it conscience or consciousness, but that voice which knows what we don't want said is always there at some level.

Cain suffers from extreme guilt and fear.   In his inner conversation with God, Cain tells God he cannot bear the guilt, and he fears that God will no longer look upon him; that others will seek to kill him.  In essence, Cain spills his guts to God, empties himself to God, and loses all sense of pretense.  He submits to God's will and he is spared. 

In the Hebrew  scriptures, kenosis is expressed as contrition, as heartfelt remorse for failing to do what is right, an admission of one's own weakness, a handing over control and power to God who alone can manage it, a submission to the will of God. This is what Cain does and as the Hebrews scriptures affirm time and time again, God does not despise the contrite heart.  In fact, the Hebrew scriptures goes so far to say God does not desire sacrifice, the context in which the Cain and Abel story is set.  Is the graphic point of this particular story that it was not the sacrifice that God sought, but rather the expressed need Cain had of God?

There is a sense of irony and paradox in the story of Cain much like the story of Adam and Eve.  They parallel each other on several levels.  Their storylines are similar.  God sets the stage for a challenge.  In Adam and Eve's case it is putting the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden.  In Cain and Abel's case it is God's favoring Abel's offering over Cain's.  In Adam and Eve's case God warns them not eat of the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge.  In Cain's case, God encourages Cain to resist his urge for vengeance and warms him of the evil that is seeking him out.  In both cases they fail the challenge. In both cases, they try to avoid their sense of guilt.  In both cases, they experience an expulsion of sorts that leads them to remorse and contrition whereupon God forgives them.  

What these stories tell us is that we are powerless against our own desires when left to ourselves.  We are prone to impulsive behavior and decisions based on feeling rather than reason, which allows one's selfish interests to become dominant rather than acting from a true self interest based on the needs of others.

What these stories reveal is the perception that God is merciful and forgiving; that this awareness is somehow connected to the act of one emptying self of one's failures, real and perceived as an act of contrition, a divestment of personal power. Although the story of Cain does not make a direct link between God's show of mercy towards Cain and people calling upon the name of the Lord, that the story ends with birth of Seth (Abel's replacement) implies a connection.

This interesting obscure verse at the beginning of the Hebrew narrative is easy to pass by without much notice or thought. I suggest that the writers of Genesis are making a subtle commentary on the nature of worship.  Consider the story of Cain and Abel. If sacrifice was not worship, what was it?  The concept of worship is suddenly turned upside down.  Sacrifice was done to appease or appeal to power.  Here at the end of Cain's story people call - talk to God - rather than sending smoke signals.  Here at the beginning of the Hebrew narrative (and at the end of Cain's story) is the point that God does not want appeal or appeasement in the form of symbolic sacrifice, but rather the sacrifice that comes through contrition, through the personal divestment of power, through the emptying of self, through kenosis.

KENOSIS


Kenosis is a Greek term that simply means emptying is mostly applied in Christian theology to Jesus as the Christ of God.  As a teaching about Jesus as the Christ, it maintains that the Christ of God, the Son of God came to earth divesting himself of his divine nature - power to become one with humanity.  This top/down theology was promoted in one of Paul's letter, the Letter to the Philippians as follows:

 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
⁶ Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
⁷ But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
⁸ And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
⁹ Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:
¹⁰ That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;
¹¹ And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2: 5-11 (King James Version) 

As is true with the ending of the Cain's story being overlooked,  so it is the beginning of this narrative in Verse 5, that is easily overlooked:  "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus."  Perhaps it is that Paul goes a bit overboard in his adulation of Jesus as the Christ that throws one off a bit, but Paul recognizes the  essential motive at work in monotheistic worship, that true worship begins with emptying oneself of self.  In principal, it is the divestiture of one's own sense of power and will or, in other words, turning over the instinctual drive to survive and intellectual desire to succeed to the power and will of God that defines true worship.  

The main mechanism of worship is prayer -  Calling on the name of the Lord - talking directly to God - letting it all out, the good, the bad, the ugly and putting it in God's hands as an act of faith without expectation.  This is easier said than done, but it is what Paul is getting at in his hymn of praise to Christ. 

Paul's recognition of kenosis is tied to his understanding of contrition when he says, "Let this mind be in you, which is also in Christ Jesus."   The word, contrition is not found in the New Testament, but the concept is woven into the teachings of Jesus.  I would say that in Jesus's teachings contrition morphs into a sincere heart that seeks to do God's will more than an unloading of one's guilt and sense of failure. 

For Paul  kenosis is the ultimate act of letting go and letting God.  Johannine theology, on the other hand,  tends to sidestep the issue of contrition when it comes to Jesus.  In John, kenosis occurs at the moment of Jesus's death - when the time is right.  The synoptic gospels, however, strongly hint at Jesus's ongoing acts of contrition throughout his ministry, beginning with his baptism and culminating in his death on the cross. Throughout his ministry Jesus pours himself out to let the power of God, the word of God, come through.  

It is in the story of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane that synoptic gospels of Matthew and Luke depict Jesus emptying himself of the instinct to survive and the desire to succeed comes into full play when he prays, "If it is your will let this cup pass from me, but not my will, but yours."  The sacrifice of Jesus begins here with a broken and contrite heart.  It is completely counterintuitive to what we Christians imagine as necessary in Jesus's case, but it is played out throughout his ministry from his act of submission in baptism through this act of submission before his crucifixion.  

In the synoptic gospels, Jesus is in a constant state of emptying himself of personal power.  He is depicted as being in a constant state of dependent worship.  It is his engagement in becoming powerless that renders him so powerful or that exposes the life-giving power of God that is expressed in the story of his resurrection.   This is what Paul is hinting at when he says that his power is perfected in his weakness. (2Cor.12:9).

From taking one's life over a sacrifice as an act vengeance to the act of giving one's life as a sacrifice of love, God is depicted as restoring life to those who pour out their lives, who turn over their drive and desire for power to God.


Until next time, stay faithful.

THEISM AND THE DIVESTITURE OF POWER

                   Give unto the Lord, O ye mighty,
                             give unto the Lord glory and strength.

                                                                               Psalm 29:1

Having ventured into realm of secular religion for the past several posts, I return to theistic religion and will focus on its importance to human existence.   As I have repeatedly said in these posts, religion is about power; the appeal to power and the acquisition and use of power.  


Theism arose from both experience and intuition; experiences with forces greater than mankind and intuitions related to cause and effect.  The ultimate ontological question, "Why are we here?" demanded an answer that humanity has yet to obtain a definitive answer to, but that question ultimately gave rise to a sense of power beyond the reach of human possession.

JUSTICE

Apart from the modern theism of atheism, ancient theisms developed a sense of cosmic or divine justice; that there was a power beyond the grasp of human possession which could only be appealed to and upon which life was dependent.  Humans understand power, use it, but cannot effectively control it without running the risk of killing off our own species.  That risk remains, and today, we have the means to do it more efficiently than ever. 


Instinct may have led homo sapiens to survive in prehistoric times, but with the emergence of the reasoning mind, instinct could be overridden by desire, greed, and a lust for dominance.  Human history is full of sordid tales that exemplify this.   As humans began to dominate their environment, survival as a species became less of a concern; turning the instinctual drive to survive into an intellectual desire to succeed.  Nevertheless, there remains the reptilian mind beneath the intellectual mind of humans. The urge to dominate one's environment as survival has become an urge to eat one's own in order to succeed.  


To curb the instinctual drive and intellectual desire that often proved fatal to our own kind, a sense of justice emerged early in human social development that was theistic in nature.   What prevented us from killing ourselves off long ago is a fundamental knowing that we need others in order to survive and succeed.  Along with that knowing, there emerged a sense of justice aimed at limiting the drive to survive and the desire to succeed at all costs. 

At a primal level, justice could be defined as a trade off for actions deemed unreasonable.  The basic question, then, became whether an action against an other was necessary to survive or succeed.  This remains the fundamental basis for justice in the modern world.

Compensation in the form of retributive punishment has been the mainstay of administering justice throughout human history.   The notion of a life for a life, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth was an early example of limited retribution - the idea that no more than what was lost should be taken from that which caused the loss.  As barbaric as this may sound today, this most likely represents a giant leap in the administration of justice from a human perspective.

The fact is justice, like any form of power over the other, can become excessive, as Lord Acton famously said, "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."  Justice can be manipulated by human desire, greed, and lust as demonstrated throughout our history.  As theism evolved, justice emerged as a central tenant.   This evolution is particularly observable in the Hebrew Scriptures.

THE STORY OF CAIN



Divine power and justice are evident at the very beginning of the Hebrew scriptures.  The Book of Genesis is one of the most carefully written pieces of theistic literature and begins by depicting an advanced understanding of justice and power that belies its title.

Genesis is a book that calls us to reason deeply through its use of myth and legend. According to Genesis, the human adventure begins with an appeal to acquire power, to become like God, knowing good and evil (to use power as divine justice).  The difficulty is that this knowing destabilized Adam's and Eve's use of it.  They immediately feel judged by their act and are expelled from the Garden of Eden.  Pure or true knowledge bears a weight that no one can fully bear.  The lightness of paradise, the lightness of just being, is lost to them and their actions force them into the world that is other, the world of "What is."

This powerful mythic story is revealing about human nature on so many levels, but what follows is a story that I would draw attention to as setting the stage for the divestiture of human power. The story of Cain and Abel represents a turning point in the concept of power and divine justice.
What is important to note is that the justice employed in this story is far advanced than the "eye for an eye" justice that is found four books later in the Book of Deuteronomy 19:21.


The story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4 is mythic; in that, it conveys a truth that requires an illustration to grasp.  The premise of the story is that Adam and Eve have two sons, Cain and Abel.  The youngest, Abel, is a keeper of the flock and the eldest, Cain, is a worker of the soil and tends the fields.  They are both offering sacrifices to God.


Abel offers the firstborn of his flock and Cain offers some of the fruits of his labor.  God looks with favor on Abel's offering, but didn't on Cain's. One could say that Cain's sacrifice did not match the level of Abel's; that Cain held back, but I think that misses the point of the story, entirely. The point is, I believe, that God is testing Cain to see if he can resist evil, which Cain fails with disastrous results.

Cain is overcome with jealousy but cannot get even with God. So he opts to get revenge on what God favors. God, knowing this, warns Cain that evil is trailing him.  Nevertheless, Cain kills Abel for being favored by God.  This is no simple murder.  It is fratricide as act of vengeance against God.  What could be more deserving of death than that?

But God doesn't kill Cain. 

Instead, Cain is confronted by God about Abel.  God asks Cain, "Where is your brother?"  Cain plays dumb and says he doesn't know and goes on to question God with the infamous line, "Am I my brother's keeper?"

God points out that Abel's blood cried out to God and the earth that soaked it up will refuse to give Cain its produce and he will be a wanderer in the land.  The guilt, remorse, and fear - the knowledge Cain has is more than he can bear and he tells God others will seek him out and kill him for what he did.  God tells Cain that he would be marked so that no one would kill him and should any one kill him that person would suffer vengeance seven times worse.

The story concludes with Cain having children and establishing a city.  From his lineage are those who create musical instruments and tools and weapon made of iron. This is not the outcome one would expect in a human world; in a world of retributive justice.  The chapter ends with Seth being born to Adam and Eve, as a replacement to Able, and then the writers of Genesis make the curious statement that at that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord.  I will expand on this curiosity in my next post.

What Genesis establishes from the start is humans are prone to acquire power and use it, but cannot control it; that in our hands it is subject to our desires, greed, jealousy, and lust.  We are prone to acts of injustice rather than justice because of our limited vision and our inability to fully know.  It is God who demonstrates a tempered justice, who sees value where we see none, a knowing justice that proceeds from care and love.  What is established from the start of the Hebrew narrative is a journey into restorative justice, a forgiving justice that redeems and builds up rather than tears down.

This, of course, is not always exemplified in the Hebrew scriptures, but restorative justice undergirds the entire narrative found in Abrahamic monotheism.   What these scriptures stress is that humans lose sight of our own frailty, our proclivity to abuse power when we fail to call upon the name of the Lord. This calling on the Lord (worship) is a recognition that power and justice can only rightly administered in the loving hands of a merciful God.

Until next time, stay faithful.

DIGNITY

AWAKENING TO AN OLD WORLD

As any reader of my blog knows, the outcome of the U. S. presidential election was not what I was hoping for.  When I awoke the  morning after, I felt as if I had awakened to a different world - a familiar place that felt old and tiring.  My anxiety level was very high as I went to bed that Tuesday night, watching the map turn increasingly red, and I awoke during the wee hours of Wednesday morning because I couldn't stop thinking about it to check how things were going only to see that they weren't going well for Mrs. Clinton and the indication was the Mr. Trump would be elected.   

When I officially got out of bed on Wednesday and confirmed that Mr. Trump was now President-elect Trump, I would be lying if I didn't say I was depressed and feeling somewhat disorientated. I couldn't turn on the television.  I didn't want to hear the pundits go through their antics of asking and analyzing their own questions. 

I needed silence to ponder my own questions and the gnawing fear that has been with me since the start of this election season started.  I wasn't motivated to do much that day, and recognizing this, I sat myself down, took a few deep breaths and tried to let reason return to my anxious mind.  By the afternoon, I was able to read and listen to Hillary Clinton's post election speech, which comforted me a great deal as she reminded me and everyone else that President-elect Trump deserved being offered an open mind.  Later, I heard President Obama tell the American people that he sincerely wished Mr. Trump success as our soon to be next president, that we are all rooting for him because we're on the same team.  Mr. Trump also spoke about the divide that exists in this country and his wanting to heal that divide and bring us together.  I hope for all of our sakes and for the sake of the world he does just that.

Those brief dignified moments were missing from a frequently vitriolic and contentious presidential campaign that devolved into labeling whole groups of people; such as, "bad hombres" and "deplorables." Those few post-election acts of dignity calmed me and allowed me the space I needed to process my feelings and gather my thoughts.

Although it is tempting to engage in the great pastime of post-election speculation about the why's, the how's, and the what nows, I will try to avoid doing so. Instead, while the thought of dignity is fresh in my mind, I thought I'd write a post about it.

If you're a regular reader of my posts, you may recall  that I worked in the field of mental health my entire adult life, working 38 years in my state's mental health hospital where, for the last fourteen years before I retired, I was that institution's first Human Rights Specialist.

AN EDUCATION IN DIGNITY

When I became a Human Rights Specialist, I received my best training from the patients I served.  I also had to quickly get up to speed with our state's statutes, federal laws, and the hospital's voluminous policies associated with the issue of human rights.  What is probably found in every states' statutes regarding patient rights is a statute that addresses the issue of dignity.  In my state, the statute read that a "person"  had a right to humane environment that gave them individual dignity, as opposed to other clauses that were prefixed by adjectives like an "appropriate" this or a "reasonable" that.

Being of a philosophical bend, I pondered long and hard on the simple fact that the people we served in our mental hospital had an undefined "RIGHT" to INDIVIDUAL DIGNITY.

The questions that immediately came to mind is who or what determines what an individual's dignity is, if not the individual?  

How do I, as an advocate for a patient suffering from a mental illness, protect that patient's sense of dignity should it be counter to what others working in the hospital consider to be a"common sense" meaning  of dignity?

What I intuitively knew from working in mental health and was quickly validated in this new role is that individual dignity is maintained, first and foremost, by being heard.  I found myself listening, literally for hours at a time, to individuals who were very ill try to explain their needs to me often through expressions of anger, delusion, and illness that often masked sincere and valid concerns which most direct care staff didn't have the time to sift through.

I was not their therapist.  I didn't offer advice on how to cope with their illnesses, but rather to listen through their illness to discern the voice of the person speaking to me.  In finding that voice, what I found (and was also acknowledged by some treatment teams) was that through the patient's experience of being heard, the patient felt better, acted better, and was better able to communicate valid concerns to that individual's treatment team. 

State mental health institutions are a microcosm of the world-at-large.  Almost every social issue that our world faces will pool in a mental health facility.  In my role as an advocate, I dealt with racism, homophobia, sexism, xenophobia, ageism (both old and young versions), and religious rights, along with a host of other issues. We served patients from around the world and so there were also cultural issues that arose from time to time.  All of these concerns and issues revolved around and were effectively resolved when the individual's personal sense of dignity was maintained.

DIGNITY AND SAFETY

As can be expected, safety is the primary concern of every inpatient mental health hospital.  Trying to maintain a safe treatment environment for individuals who are affected by severe mental illness or emotional disturbances that render them unstable and at risk of harming themselves or others is no small task.  The hospital were I worked was very safety-aware. In fact, it was so safety-aware, that the right to individual dignity could and was, at times, overridden by safety concerns or, to be more succinct, the fear, on the part of those in charge of patient care, of the fallout that could happen should a patient do harm to self or others.

Care on the part of care providers that is highly motivated and based on a CYA (Cover Your Ass) approach to care delivery is very prone to ignore the person in the patient and the patient's right to individual dignity.  Anyone, in any form of health care, has been trained in the CYA approach by the institutions they work for as a means to avoid litigation.  When I worked in direct care, I certainly well aware of that approach, but as a Human Rights Specialist I saw where this approach could become very counterproductive and, in fact, inadvertently put patients and the hospital at risk.

A MINOR MIGRATION

When I began my career as a Human Rights Specialist, my state was faced with a crisis involving the closing of its juvenile justice's  "training" facility which directly impacted our hospital as it became the depository of a large number of juvenile offenders displaced by the closure of the facility that once housed them.  It was a forced migration that had the hospital's adolescent program scrambling for space and facing a behavior control crisis of its own.

The result was that individuals with behavioral and legal issues had to be blended in with individuals who had extreme emotional and mental health issues because of space and staffing availability. It was a clash of two different institutional cultures being forced to coexist. Behavioral chaos was the result, and soon I was hearing from adolescent patients complaining about a number of issues.

When humanitarian chaos erupts, the individual is easily lost.  The adolescent staff, many of whom were not much older than the adolescent patients in their care were experientially ill equipped to handle such a drastic change to their work environment. The other factor that played a role in the chaos had to do with how the whole adolescent population was viewed.  They were "minors."  

It's an interesting term, minor, in that minors are subject to whole set of law pertaining to their rights at various stages of their age of minority. Just being a minor can curtail the right to individual dignity that pertains to all people regardless of one's age, and minors can find themselves at a loss with how to deal with the adults in their lives who are prone to ignore anything a minor has to say. 

LIFE IN A PETRI DISH



Dignity became a major issue on one adolescent unit in particular when I first started my new role.  With the influx of juvenile offenders from the justice system into our hospital, one unit, in particular was reserved primarily for patients with the most severe emotional problems associated with adolescent mental health.  This made a lot of sense due to the mix of adolescent in the hospital, but given the extreme emotional and mental health issues pooled on this one unit, the level of staff anxiety and fear regarding patient and their own safety consumed them.



My initial exposure to adolescent care started on this unit with a call from one of their patients. Prior to his call, I had worked as a direct care giver in the hospital adult acute care program.   My understanding of the hospital was largely based on my experiences there and was not until this young man's call that I understood that there were actually five different hospitals housed in one facility, each with its own care history and culture; the adolescent program being the most divergent in its approach to patient care from what I was familiar with. 

When I arrived on this unit, I witnessed a literal verbal siege taking place, with staff on their side of the desk lobbing verbal directives to the patients on the other side of the desk, who largely deflected them.  While this was taking place and the patient who called me was being summoned my direction, one staff member told me, "He's the worst patient we have. He's going to be here for the rest of his life." 

The patient was fourteen.

The patient and I were taken to a group room where the staff left the two of us together and closed the door behind them which, given the description of this young man, struck me as perhaps indicating the staff had an agenda in mind.  After introductions, I asked the patient how I could help.  He described an incident that was not in keeping with concept of individual dignity or safety but rather was done, from what I could gather from the patient, out expediency on the part of the unit's staff and would, if found to be factual, violate hospital policy on a number of levels.

About a minute after explaining the incident to me, the patient began a verbal tirade against me, the staff, and the hospital.  He used words and twists of phrases that I thought only sailors would know.  This tirade lasted fifteen minutes.  I know because there was a wall clock behind the patient.  I didn't interrupt his tirade. In fact, I zoned most of it out because it didn't make a lot of sense.  After he seemed to be done, I was able to interject and validate that he had very strong feelings, and then he started in again for another five minute. 

Finally, he got all of his pent up anger out and recognized I was still there listening to him.  As a result of this tumultuous introduction to adolescent care, I was, in very short time, able to find a  number of systemic issues that needed to be addressed; issues that infringed upon the right to individual dignity under the guise of unit safety.

The overt safety concerns of that unit's treatment team created an unrealistic fear that resulted in  invisible walls being built by the use of blue masking tape on the floor to separate certain types of patients from one another.  All patients, at the time, had to take their mattresses off their beds at night and sleep in the hallway in order to be observed by staff who sat in each hallway.  Patients were not permitted off the unit to attend other adolescent activities because of concerns about the juvenile offender presence.  Patients couldn't cross certain blue lines without getting into trouble.  Patients were assigned rooms, but were not allowed in them unless supervised by staff.  All of these efforts became targets and challenges the patients could and did use to get the individual attention they inwardly craved, even if it was negative.

The result was that patients on this unit developed a behavioral economy they controlled.  Good behaviors did not get patients anywhere, "bad" behavior did.  If your behaviors were bad enough, chaotic enough, you could get privacy by being detained in seclusion.  If you and your comrades-in-arms worked together and managed to fill all the seclusion rooms, you could get transferred, even if temporarily, to another unit because one's friends were occupying that unit's seclusion areas. In one case, it led to a patient being permanently transferred to a different unit.

Unit rules changed about every day to address anything viewed as some sort of infraction of conduct.  They were literally handwritten and taped to the wall behind the nurse's station. These dysfunctional approaches to treatment would have been obvious to most, but the staff on the unit were not seeing it.  They were too close to it, too obsessed with putting out fires with the very things that were actually fueling and fanning them. They simply were unable to see a way out of the corner they painted themselves into.

Ironically, the ones who saw it for what it was were the patients who, in fact, told me exactly how "their" system worked.   Metaphorically, the unit became a plugged septic system of dysfunctional behavior.  Even psychiatrists were oblivious to the obvious because of the "minor" status of the patients who had bettered them.

Eventually, things changed when, under new unit management, the unit's protocols were refined and limited to necessities.  Patients were allowed off the unit to participate in adolescent activities with other units. Patients were eventually allowed to have off unit jobs that not only allowed them to earn some money, but increased their sense of self worth. The unit's treatment team developed a fail-safe treatment agenda that extinguished the potency of bad behavior and facilitated safe patient privacy which underscored the importance of individual dignity.   Eventually, behavioral incidents became the exception not the rule on that unit.

HEALING WOUNDS THAT DIVIDE US WITH THE BALM OF HUMAN DIGNITY

My point in sharing this experience is that what happened in the microcosmic petri dish of that adolescent psychiatric unit some sixteen years ago appears relevant to the macrocosmic chaos being played out in today's world. 

I had a choice on how to respond to that fourteen year old's tirade, I was almost old enough to be his grandfather and his language certainly reflected what the staff on his unit described him as, but I chose to hear him out and not become offended by his language or his attitude towards me at the moment.  I learned on that adolescent unit that people live up to the expectations others have of them, especially if there is no way to change the expectation others have. This is particularly true of children and I believe it is true for humans in general.

The result was that this fourteen year old never used inappropriate language with me. He was polite, respectful, and was eventually discharged from the hospital as an adolescent.  I never addressed how patients talked to me during my time as a Human Rights Specialist, but rather I sought to get their message. Just getting the message frequently, if not invariably,  resulted in a change for the better.  I think most adults know this, but it seems to be knowledge that isn't being applied on a regular basis. We have grown impatient with one another and patience is not only a virtue but a necessity on everyone's parts in moving forward.

I think one can see the applicability of my hospital experience to the world we live and the challenges we face in the United States, post-election.  There are stressors that have affected global and national perspectives based on the migration of whole populations across borders - individuals seeking a better life - seeking life due to economic hardship, terroristic violence, and warfare.  There is fear created by the unpredictable behavior of lone wolves of every kind who take it upon themselves to wreak havoc on the public square.  There are large numbers of people who have seen their quality of life decrease with a sluggish job market where pay hasn't caught up to the pre-recession level.  All of these things helped bring about the election results that we have in the hope that they will be meaningfully and peacefully addressed.

Unfortunately, the vitriolic, labeling language of this election has given rise to expressions of hate towards individuals based on their race or religious beliefs or sexual orientation by extremist groups; in particular, white nationalist extremists in the West. There is clearly a lot of work to do to relieve the fear that creates such hate.  Listening to the voice of fear and hate is hard to do, but necessary to understand the underlying dysfunction that causes it.  Moving past entrenched ideological beliefs that foments anger which functions much the same way chronic anger masks delusions and paranoia found in mental health is vital in exposing the person behind the ideological mask. 

A determined ear does much to soften the hardened heart.

One of the most dignified acts that recently occurred after the election was demonstrated by our vice-president elect, Mr. Pence. After attending the musical "Hamilton," the cast respectfully addressed Mr. Pence in order to make an appeal for the incoming administration to respect the diversity that makes this nation great.  Mr. Pence respectfully turned to listen to their appeal before exiting the theatre.

That was a healing moment that did much to reassure a great many people that night.    Mr. Pence made it clear he did not feel bullied and was not offended by the cast's comments.  His calm created calm, if for a brief but enlightening moment.

Listening sets the stage for being heard. Treating the individual on the stage or on the street with the balm of dignity has a way of penetrating deeply to heal the wounds that divide us.  We don't have to agree in order to be respectful or treat others with dignity. Sincerity is conveyed through respecting the dignity of the other by listening patiently before exiting. There are many voices in world wanting to be heard.  Listening to them and seeking the true message will create a calmer more peaceful world.

   "There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole."

                     From an African-American spiritual.

Until next time, stay faithful.

SELF INTEREST AND THE RELIGION OF WEALTH

The concept of wealth as religion may strike some as a misnomer.  One can make the argument that wealth doesn't really bind us together as it seems to separate us into economic and social classes.  Theistic religions tend to view money and wealth as an evil necessity at best, as being somewhat antithetical to the basic impulse of religion, of needing each other.

Still, perhaps, nothing offers an argument for theism better than wealth. Like the concept of god, wealth is something we can believe in and feel its impact - its influence in our lives - but what is it?

What makes some people richer than others? The simple answer is some have more money than others.  They can buy more than others, but what is money? Is it really tangible, apart from the manufactured symbolism of its currency?  Who decides the value of money? The answer to that is equally simple - people decide the value of money. But from there the simplicity stops.

Metaphorically speaking, economics is the theology of wealth.  Like theistic religion, the religion of wealth evolved over the millennia.  Like theism, the dawn of wealth proceeded from need of the other.  As with theism the need of the other led to difference, which I have broadly identified as the differentiating paradigm of religion, which effects every human enterprise.  What we identified as mutual needs led to identifying tools to meet those needs and soon enough we started assigning value to our needs and the tools necessary to meet them.  This ultimately led to barter and trade.

As is true with all religion, the religion of wealth is about power - the appeal, generation, and use of power. As the value of goods and services exceeded the ability to barter effectively, currency was developed as a feasible means to assign value, first as weight and then symbolically as coinage and printed paper money.  Today the use of coins and printed money is becoming a thing of the past, as value is now being assigned digitally.  I am usually without cash in my wallet and rely heavily on my plastic credit cards. Check writing is quickly going the way of tangible currency as we pay bills in timely fashion electronically.

The religion of wealth has seemingly made more advances than theism with regard to human interconnectedness. Everybody's economic well-being is connected to the economic well-being of others in every corner of the globe. There is a truer, more observable sense of the religious impulse found in the religion of wealth  As such, wealth is also connected to the differentiating paradigm of religion.  The religion of wealth is, as I will attempt to explain, an essential player in defining and bringing about religious singularity.

The concept of wealth is, like the concept of god, rather ambiguous.  For example, a person who is monetarily wealthy, may feel deprived, lacking, and impoverished at some level; whereas a person who has very little money has an appreciation of  personal worth that imbues that individual with a sense of wealth. Ultimately, wealth is a measure of the things one values.  That is all good and said on a personal level, but what about a global level?  For the purpose of this post,  wealth will be viewed as a means to preserve individual dignity, happiness, and worth.

SELF INTEREST AND WEALTH

Like reality, wealth is largely a consensus of perception. The value of money and it's currencies are in a constant state of flux, depending on the equally ambiguous concept of the market.  The religion of wealth has a mystical side, just as theistic religions do. The market, itself, is a rather mystical entity that measures the value of things bought and traded, including the value of the currency by which things are sold and paid for.

The prophet of modern day capitalism, Adam Smith, in his discussion of the wealth of nations described a force related to wealth which he identified as the invisible hand.  His concept of the invisible hand was  based on a phenomena he observed; that those who acted from self interest in the accumulation of wealth often resulted in an unanticipated outcome that benefited society as a whole.  What Adam Smith  observed is what I have been describing as the religious impulse inherent in any pursuit addressing a need that appears as self interest, but which, in essence and of necessity, is related to the needs of others.

The principal at play here is that even in cases where one is working under the presumption of self interest, that interest ultimately, if based on a true sense of self, cannot be an isolated interest. Ironically, a true sense of self can only be perceived against the backdrop of an other or, in this case, the interest of the other.

Here I must differentiate self interest from a selfish interest.  In other words, what is beneficial to one's true sense of self, is likely to benefit the interests of others. A selfish interest is not a true self interest.  As I have explained in another post, selfishness is not one's true self.

There is, as Smith described, an invisible force in the religion of wealth, that produces unpredictable economic results (either good or bad) depending on whether the action of the individual or the ubiquitous market acts from a true self interest or from a selfish interest.  Here I must associate the concept of the ubiquitous markets with the concept of self; as in the market acting as a self interested entity.

Let me further tie self interest to the impulse of religion, the concept that we need each other.  For example, one of the basic teachings of Jesus is that we should love our neighbors as ourselves.   The problem we encounter in making a connection between Jesus's teaching and the unintentional benefit self interest has on society is in Jesus's use of the word love, a word that connotes emotional subjectivity - a word rarely applied, in a positive sense, to the concept of monetary wealth or its acquisition.

Jesus's use of this word, however, has to be understood somewhat objectively.  If I were to paraphrase Jesus's teaching in strict economic terms, it might sound something like this, "What benefits others, economically, is directly related to the actions I take in my own economic self interest, " or "What ultimately benefits my economic self interest is, when acting from my own interest,there results a benefit to the economic interests of others."  Ultimately, one cannot separate one's  own valid interests from the valid interests of others.

A universal teaching found in theistic religion that has application to one's self interest is the Golden Rule, doing unto others as you would have them do to you.  The premise of the Golden Rule is based on self interest as the primary factor in producing actions that benefit the greater social good.

While we may not like to admit it, we are bound to each other by the concept of wealth.  For example, as the monetary market narrows (becomes more interconnected, more singularized), the more global its impact.  This is not to say we perceive wealth in the same way, but rather that the concept of wealth is universal.  Ultimately, wealth is the measure of things valued and the things we value are becoming more global or in the terminology of singularity, more narrow.  

Adam Smith's invisible hand is, in my opinion, a metaphorical realization of the unseen interconnectedness that exists between the interest of self and the interest of others; that what one sees as a need or what one values is fundamentally based on shared needs and shared sense of value. If not, the question would be whether one has a need that no one else has or one values something no one else values, would it truly be a need, truly a value, or would it be some type of obsession or mental illness? 

POVERTY

If I am going to talk about the religion of wealth, what about poverty?  After all, the vast majority of people in the world are bound together by poverty. 

Is poverty a religion?

No


Here I must offer another observation about religion as a whole.  I am compelled at this point to say explicitly what is implicit in all my discussions on religion.  Religion is about the choices we make, about the ideologies and ideals we clump around.   As such, poverty is not a religion, as true poverty is not a choice. It is a condition into which people are born or thrust.

I can sense the questions, what about those who choose to live in poverty, what about monasticism or those solitary yogis who live their lives as beggars?

Poverty might be a religious choice proceeding from a religious ideology, but I would maintain that such a choice is not true poverty, since poverty as a choice can be viewed as a luxury.

Consider for a moment monasteries.  Many of them acquire vast sums of monetary wealth.  It seems to me that it is relatively easy to take a vow of poverty when one doesn't have to worry about money or where one's next meal comes from.  This is not true poverty.  Poverty in this sense is a luxury proceeding from a detachment to personal wealth and a personal responsibility to in providing communal wealth.

This is not meant to be disparaging comment about monasticism, as many monastics address the issues raised by true poverty.  To choose solidarity with the truly poor of this world is a noble cause when such solidarity is done from a sincere desire to raise the truly poor from their poverty.

True poverty, however,  is a distortion of religion. Poverty is simply a fact that religions of every type confront in one form or another, whether it is theism, the religion of politics, or the religion of wealth. Poverty exists as an antithesis to the religious impulse.

Like peace, many consider the eradication of poverty as unrealistic dream; that at some level poverty must exist for there to be wealth - that there will always be those considered poor. As Jesus is famously quoted in John 12: 8, "The poor you always have with you."  After all, isn't poverty,  like wealth, a relative term?

Is it?

Ask the billions who face starvation every day, those who are deprived of medical care, who lack clothing, or those who sleep without a roof over there head.  All religions find poverty abhorrent, especially the religion of wealth.

In religious terms what plays a role in the reality of poverty is the differentiating paradigm of religion, which fosters an "us and them" perspective to everything we humans do.  In actuality, theism has done little to erase the plague of poverty that has affected humankind throughout its history. In my opinion, what has addressed poverty more efficiently and effectively is the religion of wealth.

As Adam Smith predicted, an unintended result of  the pursuit of wealth as self interest has been the rise of a middle-class, as labor based production at the dawn of the first technological era we call the Industrial Age created a consumer driven supply and demand economy that resulted in the flow of wealth we call capitalism.

Poverty was no longer a given class in which people had no choice but to be born into and from which they could not escape by their own power. With the dawn of the Industrial Age, the individual could theoretically do something about rising from poverty through one's initiative, through one's labor, which had an identified monetary value increasingly determined by a commercial market as opposed to the whims of one's employer.  Mass production resulted in mass consumption and money was no longer the reserve of the noble classes or landed aristocracy as the need for and the value of labor rose created a monetary flow as remuneration for labor which, in turn, created a broader consumer market.

As money began to pool in increasing quantities; banks and business owners found that money could generate wealth in the form of investments to enhance production and consumption and increase personal profit.  Investment in the labor of others resulted in laborless middle class known as the bourgeoisie, who lived on the profits earned from their capital investments.  Wealth begat wealth, or as the saying goes, "The rich get richer, while the poor get poorer."    This resulted in an imbalance in the acquisition of wealth.  The laborers salaries became stagnant as the supply of labor increased and the need to maintain a profit for the investors became a paramount concern for industry owners. 

As labor became cheapened to enhance profitability, there arose a labor movement to correct this maladjustment and gave rise to labor unions and the philosophy of Karl Marx to counter the impoverishment of the laborer by his or her employer.   "Workers of the world unite" was Marx's economic theology known as Communism.  Marx was an astute observer of the conditions of workers, particularly in capitalistic England.  He also observed that poverty was too much accepted as the status quo by Christian churches and commented that religion is the "opiate of the people;"  that it sidestepped addressing the suffering present in this world by promising a better hereafter in the next.

COMMUNISM

The problem that Communism faced, unlike Capitalism, was that it relinquished the role of self-interest as being beneficial.  In my opinion, this was its Achille's heel.  Ultimately, one's self interest was subordinated to the self of the state, and the human individual became increasingly valueless as the needs of the proletariat, outweighed the needs of the one.   In this sense, Communism is and was purely anti-religious.

It's economic theology is flawed in its passion to make all things equal, by eliminating the differentiating paradigm of religion.  The fact is, communism was and is not sustainable.  Wealth as a religion disappeared along with theism in communist countries.  Poverty became the status quo of the proletariat as the state became omnipotent, a religion to itself. Ultimately, communism collapsed under its own oppressive weight and the lack of individual worth necessary to support any functioning society.

At any rate, Communism was doomed to failure because the fate of human labor is doomed to become a thing of the past.  In this regard, Capitalism is also facing a fast approaching economic shift that will effect the religion of wealth.

THE TRANSCENDENCE OF WEALTH

We are on the doorstep of another technological age, the age of Artificial Intelligence, which I prefer to call Augmented Intelligence. Intelligence, whatever its source, is simply that, intelligence.  As technology advances and we are faced with the likelihood of manual labor being replaced by intelligent robotic systems in the not too distant future, the economics of wealth will face an enormous paradigm shift. As the cost of labor will become increasingly negligible and the conditions for human employment become increasingly specialized, large numbers of people could find themselves without gainful employment.

Capitalism, the predominant economic driver in the world market today is based on both human productivity and human consumption.  Goods and services that are by produced by human labor is bought with money earned by the humans who produced such goods and services.  What happens when humans are no longer needed to provided the bulk of goods or services, as is quickly becoming the case?  What happens to wealth when the need for humans to produce goods and services diminish -  when the need for an other is no longer a functional necessity?

Stephen Hawking and Sam Harris are among a host of scientists and economists who are warning of dangers Artificial Intelligence poses to humanity.   There is no small amount of irony in the current political atmosphere here in the United State's presidential election with talk on all sides of the political spectrum about bringing jobs back to the United States.  The likelihood is that industry will inevitably return to our shores, but jobs may not.  In this regard I find our economic politics very short-sighted, if not short-minded.

As I write this post, there are computers being developed that can think on their own, learn on their own, and adjust skills as needed.  In essence they will do everything our intelligent minds can do, only much faster and more efficiently.

Consider the likely scenario we face globally in the near future.  Corporate and private industry will likely opt to employ intelligent automation that can out perform their human counterparts, be more reliable, without the need for a payroll or providing work befits like insurance. Production will become more efficient, but the question becomes what will happen to consumption?  Who will purchase such goods as wealth pools and the vast majority are faced with a dwindling financial resource?

Capitalism is largely dependent on the flow of wealth, in terms of a monetary flow.  When money begins to pool, is possessed by a wealthy few, economies slow as consumption slows and debt for the vast majority grows.  What has emerged over the past several decades is a whole new monetary industry based on credit.  Credit has kept capitalism alive and has kept a middle-class viable but it is largely a patch job.   The fact is value has exceeded the ability of most to afford consumption without a reliance on credit - borrowing money and paying as one can afford with an accruing interest rate.

The problem with credit is that it has allowed people to live beyond their means and in the long run has contributed to a decline in the middle-class.  Consumption was at one time based on the production of necessities by a human labor force, but innovative technology is not only changing the concept of labor, but also the commodities consumers need in a ever changing technological world.

AUGMENTED INTELLIGENCE

In my opinion, this is not a hopeless situation, but rather one that calls for transitional preparation.  There are many ethical issues related to Augmented Intelligence.   It is not only possible to make intelligent automation and machines, but we can also augment human intelligence via digitalized and Nano-technologies to increase our knowledge and problem solving abilities.  Many scientist and economist fear that this could result in the end of the human race as we know it today, that we will morph into incarnated technological creatures of our own making.  Some see it as the ultimate course of human evolution, the merger with mankind with mankind's creation, a new form of technological incarnation, if you will,  which is the singularity of such innovators and thinkers as Ray Kurzweil. Others see this as a human disaster waiting to happen.

This will a be good topic for another post down the road, but for now I wish to consider the implications of Augmented Intelligence on the religion of wealth.  As the need for factory laborers decreases, for example, what will happen in areas where such labor was the mainstay of their economic stability?   As productivity becomes increasingly based on technological sustainability, what happens to the consumption driven market when earned money is in short supply? 

We are already seeing the effects of people being laid off of jobs in both in the manufacturing industries and fuel industries.  The dependence on commercial labor is waning and it is one of the reasons, in my opinion, why wealth is pooling at the top.  The short term fix is touted as bringing jobs back to our shores, but the reality, I fear, is that technology is making human labor increasingly obsolete. 

This looming crisis has given rise to what some economists are throwing around the water cooler as Universal Basic Income (UBI) - social security for all.  Personally, I'm not sure what to make of UBI.  The premise of UBI is to keep money flowing at a basic level which seems to be an attempt at keeping capitalism alive, but it also strikes me as putting traditional capitalism on a life support system.  And we all know what life support systems mean, the original system is about to die.

SOCIAL CAPITALISM

On the other hand, UBI has the potential of creating an augmented form of capitalism, what I would call social-capitalism.  Social-capitalism, in my mind, attempts to do two things that are very consistent with principles of this nation and most democratically orientated nations are founded on - preserving the common good and preserving the dignity of the individual. 

People in the United States fear anything that smacks of socialism because we have been so indoctrinated against the concept.  We are victims of a stringent work ethic instilled in us by our Protestant founding fathers who thumped the biblical notion into our heads, that those who do not work, should not eat (2 Thessalonians 3:10).   As physical work was abundant then, it was easy to say this, but we live in a world where physical labor is diminishing. 

We are entering into a world, (provided we don't blow ourselves up first) in which we can augment our physical bodies, address physical disability, cure what was incurable in the past through technologies never thought of when the Bible was written or when our founding fathers reached these shores.  

Self interest must be preserved as a necessary component in facilitating both innovation and social benefit. True socialism cannot negate the individual, but rather must treat the individual as an integral component in fostering social benefit and contributing to the common good.  Individual dignity, happiness, and worth is foundational to any well functioning society.

Social-capitalism augments Adam's Smith unintentional result of self interest as social benefit by intentionally relating self interest to social benefit. In this sense each individual has an intrinsic value, the sum of which is the measure, not of a nation's gross national product but as a measure of societal health. 

Social-capitalism recognizes the need for social stability as a vital component in promoting innovation and free enterprise.  The driver of social stability is individual self interest (dignity, happiness, and value) that generates innovation and free enterprise.  The driver of individual self interest is to engage in innovation and social productivity by tapping into the flow of wealth ensured by social stability.

What creates social stability, economically, comes in the form of an augmentable UBI  for every working age individual. Augmentable UBI must be viewed as a right with no strings attached and can be used by the individual as the individual chooses and does not limit or prevent the individual from earning other wages or income from investments.  Social stability is also sustained by a right to health care, parenting rights,  a right to free education and affordable housing.

Money as we know it today would become intangible and wealth more transcendent - as the value of goods and services will exceed any tangible measure.  Interest free credits, as opposed to tangible currency, will be the means of conveying value and earned wages.  Taxation will not be based on earned credits, but rather on spent credits.   For every credit spent there would be usage fee attached to it, a standard percentage that would be sent to centralized credit administration.

To offset costs, credits are earned by simply being productive.  For example, basic housing would be funded by a central credit administration, that would purchase materials at a cost through a centralized credit system. Any human labor associated with building would come in the form of earned credit, however, it is likely that most building will be done by intelligent technological labor. If a wealthy individual wanted to build a mansion, he or she could do so.  While a  percentage of the credits spent on the project would be collected, the cost of any human productivity associated with it would receive a percentage of that credit from the credit administration and the owner could  receive credit for building and maintaining housing and upkeep.  In other words there would be an incentive to be independent of administrative housing.

Credit usage would have a ceiling, a point at which an individual would have to bank earned credit that exceeded the ceiling and would only be allowed access to such banked credit if the individual's useable credit decreased below a certain level below the ceiling. Only then would the individual be able to access a percentage of his or her banked credit which could not exceed the credit usage ceiling.  In other words, wealth could not be  pooled as it does today by a few, because such wealth would be pooled socially at a certain level, which then would be doled out as needed. No one really would own wealth in a tangible way that today's money markets encourage.  Self interest would be ultimately tied to social benefit in way that is totally opposite of how we view wealth today while preserving the motivating force of self-interest to be innovative and productive.    This of course would require a well planned and well managed credit system that allows for a limited degree of uncertainty (flux) to keep self interest interesting,

The fact that I'm not an economist is abundantly clear by now to any reading this post.  I'm almost positive that others have thought of the same scenario and could describe it much better than I have. In fact, while I was looking at this and wondering what people would make of such fantasizing on my part, I recalled that Jesus, some two thousand years ago, suggested a similar system in one of his parables, the parable about the hired laborers, which is found in Matthew 20. So allow me to sidetrack for a moment to take a look at it.

A PARABLE

When Jesus told his audience the parable of the hired laborers he was not thinking about wealth or economics. He was talking about the generous equity of God. Yet, it seems to fit well with what I have written in this post.  So permit me some license to play with this parable and treat it as parable about social capitalism.

Putting a twist on the metaphors used in the original story, the vineyard represents the goods or commodities that benefit society. It symbolizes social benefit. The owner, the person hiring the labors is the credit administration, whose function is to facilitate the production  of goods and services by ensuring the flow of credit by which goods and services are affordable and purchased.

The interesting thing in the original parable that relates to my extreme paraphrase is the owner, the administrator credits each worker with a days wage no matter at what time the individual enters the work force or is at the age of productivity.  All are paid the same basic income by which to afford the goods being produced.

Jesus's parable foreshadows the concept of Universal Basic Income and it addresses the inevitable argument against it:

Those who have been working longer feel they should be paid more because they worked more and complain that those entering workforce and have worked less receive the same daily credit.  

In my paraphrase, this argument is somewhat muted as insured basic income allows the individual the freedom to do more to increase personal wealth, if desired, by innovative entrepreneurship or service that benefits society.  Such a system would not eliminate all the ills associated with monetary wealth and the pure unfettered, self correcting view of Adam Smith's capitalism, but it would curb it. Poverty and a sense of social class would likely exist due to the differentiating paradigm of religion that is omnipresent in every human endeavor, but I would suspect it to be greatly mitigated and modified.

As the concept of human  labor and work, of human productivity, will change in an age dependent on intelligent technology to produce the vast bulk of goods and services, the concept of wealth must also change or abject human poverty will increase on a massive scale.  Monetary wealth, in my opinion, has been narrowing over several decades as nations are slowly trending towards a more social benefits model of wealth to ensures the flow of wealth while preserving the entrepreneurial spirit of self interest by connecting personal wealth to social benefit.

The United States has lagged in this endeavor largely because it is monetarily very wealthy and clings to the notion of using money to make more money.  Increasingly individual self interest is subordinated to corporate self interest and the money market tends to foster selfish interest by market manipulatives who are more focused on acquiring personal wealth through the use of other people's money and equating such manipulation as being productive when in reality it is nothing more than a selfish enterprise that benefits no one other than the manipulative because it does not generate wealth as social benefit as a means to preserve self interest, innovation, and a free market.

Concern about AI is valid from an economic perspective. While the benefit of AI will undoubtedly increase production and eventually lower cost, it could create an economic crisis that is already upon us.  This is not an appeal to stop AI  from being developed.  For one thing, I doubt that it could be stopped, but rather to begin paving the way for a new social paradigm that protects individual worth, happiness, and self interest.  Augmented intelligence will likely become an incarnated reality as human life and functioning will be enhanced by such technologies.

As such, religion as a whole, will experience a theological shift as well.  In my opinion, it will and must move towards religious singularity.

Until next time,stay faithful.