THE MYSTERY OF FAITH

   

                       Therefore we proclaim the mystery of faith:

                                                          Christ has died,

                                                          Christ is risen,

                                                          Christ will come again.

                                                                                           from the Book of Common Prayer

One of the biggest struggles some Christians have is being able to differentiate between the teachings of Jesus and the teachings about Jesus.  This is an important distinction that Christians need to be very clear about if Christianity is to remain relevant.

There also appears to be a disturbing ambivalence amongst a number of ordained clergy and some theologians about this.   The ambivalence that I am talking about is in regard to whether or not it matters if the person in pew understands the difference between literal and metaphorical interpretations of scripture.

JONAH

Let's consider the story of Jonah for a moment.  Some will say it doesn't matter whether people in the pew know it as an allegorical story intended to help the people of Judah in the 6th century BCE understand God's acceptance of all people, especially those considered to be less pure Jewish in their midst at a time when there was a movement by some to purge the land of Judah and Judaism of anyone not considered to be 100% pure Jew. [Does this sound familiar?]  It's a warning to those who think they know God's will, who think they know better than God, who, in their foolish arrogance, try to correct God's thinking.

Some scholars are content with the notion that as long as they get the general message, there's no need to worry whether someone in the pew insists that Jonah was actually swallowed by a large fish (a whale by deduction) and lived for three days in its gastric juices with virtually no breathable air only to be spit out at the place he was destined by God to go to, Nineveh (Israel's hated and feared enemy). The story tells us that Jonah was chosen by God to prosephy to the hated people of Nineveh their impending doom for the unbelievable purpose of providing them the opportunity to repent and being saved.

This was the last thing Jonah wanted to happen, the last place on earth he wanted to go to, the last thing he wanted to be known for doing; so much so, that he was on the run and willing to die rather than to participate in what he considered a goofy, ill-thought plan, even if it was God's plan.

Jonah is a story about what happens when people lose faith and try to take matters into their own hands. God is faithful in and through all creation.  Everything acts in accord with God's faithfulness. The only choice Jonah gave himself in this story was to be the miserable wretch he was throughout the ego trip he was on.

The fish is a metaphor for Jonah's ego that arrives at the precise moment when Jonah, at the height of his arrogance, thinks he has offended God so much so that his stubbornness finally has defeated God's plan to offer Nineveh a chance to be spared by being thrown into the sea and drowned.  The stormy sea he asks these foreigner to throw him into is a metaphor for the turbulence of his self pity and Jonah finds himself swallowed by his own ego in whose own juices his is allowed to stew for awhile.  Jonah is stubborn, but his stubbornness is no match to God's patience, and in the end Jonah delivers God's message and Nineveh, much to Jonah's consternation, is spared.

Clergy and biblical scholars who are ambivalent about such matters do not comprehend that literal belief in the improbable distorts understanding of the possible. The story of Jonah is as relevant today as it was when it was written, unless someone is foolish enough to consign it to historical fact. The same is true when it comes to the teachings of Jesus and the teachings about Jesus.

AN IMPOSSIBLE QUESTION

For the most part the teachings of Jesus are straightforward and reflect teachings found in the Hebrew scriptures.  Jesus clearly used allegory and metaphor in his teachings. We know these as his parables.  What most do not know is that the Gospels also use metaphor in a real time manner when talking about Jesus as a means to portray the unitive incarnation of God and humankind in the person of Jesus as the Christ.

What Jesus brought new to the religious understanding of his time and place was the concept that every individual is a uniquely rendered child of God, like himself.  That Jesus understood he had an intimate, familial relationship with God as his father is central to what he taught and how he taught.

This beloved teaching of Jesus, however, left a void in the understanding of his followers as to how he came to this unique, radical relationship with God.  It raised deep theological questions that was expressed in Mary's question, "How can this be?"  Such questions would not be left alone.  They needed a tangible answer, no matter how improbable.

THE IMPROBABLE ANSWER

What Jesus's Judaic followers had available to them were the Hebrew Scriptures in which there was terminology and prophetic context that provided an explanation about Jesus's origin as God's Son. They were also surrounded and immersed in Greek culture that had a mythic mindset in which credibility was given to the notion of  divine parentage of someone like the messiah, a king, or the Roman emperor; language that found its way into our understanding of the Christ; as in, Christ the King.

What is important to remember is that in Jesus's teachings (the teachings we can be fairly certain were Jesus's) he invited his listeners to consider themselves as having the same relationship with God as his.  The prime example of this is found in the prayer he taught his disciples, The "Our Father" or  "The Lord's Prayer."

The synoptic gospels of the New Testament represent an amalgam of teachings; the teachings of Jesus and the teachings about Jesus. In answering the question how Jesus came to see himself as God's Son each of these three gospels treats it differently.  The earliest gospel, the Gospel of Mark treats it as a revelation that occurs during Jesus's baptism in the Jordan by John the Baptist.  In the Gospel of Matthew, it is Joseph who is given a dream in which the angel Gabriel explains Jesus's divine parentage to him and instructs Joseph how to deal with the situation..  The most detailed explanation is found in the Gospel of Luke in which Mary is visited in real time by Gabriel who provides Mary with a direct answer to her (and our) questions "How" and "Why."

The Gospel of John is a mystical work devoted to teachings about Jesus, replete with allegorical stories, such as the Wedding at Cana, and Nicodemus's meeting with Jesus during the darkness of night.  In John, it is John the Baptist who makes it clear who Jesus is as the foretold by prophets, after John goes to great lengths in establishing Jesus as Word (God's creative force) made flesh.  Throughout the Gospel of John impossible questions are posed to Jesus by those who approach him. In response, Jesus offers them improbable answers - the stuff of mystic myth; the aim of which is to get at truth, revealed in Pilate's final question to Jesus, "What is truth?" John's point being, "Pilate, your looking at it."  In essence, John's message to the Christian Church is that in contemplating Jesus as the Christ we find truth.

MYSTERY

Mystery is a word I am very cautious with.  Yet, mystery abounds.  Life, itself, is mysterious.  In many ways, we are wrapped in mystery, but we tend not to notice as we go about our daily lives.

Jesus's birth, resurrection, and ascension are considered a mystery on two levels. There is no factual frame of reference for the type of Jesus's birth, his resurrection, or his ascension as described in the gospels.  If these accounts are taken literally, they are mysterious in the sense of being incomprehensible, but if seen as mythic mystery they become an invitation to probe for hidden meanings like in the story of Jonah.

The purpose of mystery in theism is to offer us a lens by which to examine the abstruse. Mystery addresses topics or concepts difficult to explain without the aid of metaphor or allegory.  Mystery presented as allegory, metaphor, and myth allows us to digest or internalize the improbable answers to our impossible questions.

In this regard, mystery welcomes us into a greater reality, a reality in which all is inter-related as opposed to the mundane reality in which we find ourselves separated, if not isolated, from each other. Mystery opens us to the unitive power that is God.

Mystical work; such as,  "The Gospel of John," "The Cloud of Unknowing," "Revelations of Divine Love," Interior Castles," "The Dark Night of the Soul," and others are largely allegorical and suggest a path to knowing that transcends the realm of ideological belief and fact; a way of contemplating, a pathway to faith.

FAITH

Faith is, itself, a mysterious force that every human has.  As a species we would be immobilized without it.  In Christianity, faith is largely treated as synonymous with belief.  I do not treat them that way. They are connected but not synonymous. Belief is an intellectual function. Faith is a motivational function.

The Letter of James in the New Testament makes the case for this important distinction; that faith without works (that doesn't motivate) is dead. In other words just believing one has faith doesn't mean a thing if your not being motivated to do something by it, to participate in the creative activity of God in redeeming/restoring the world.

Every human possesses a deep repository of faith; a driving force that enables us intelligent beings to do things that the skeptical, self-serving side of our intelligence might prevent us from doing (Jonah being a prime example).

Losing faith is a serious condition, not only spiritually, it is also detrimental to our mental and physical well-being. Losing faith renders a person overtly skeptical about things in general and deprives such individuals of the ability to enjoy life.

If faith is not restored, self preservation and an obsession to control every aspect of life becomes evident. When the futility of this task becomes evident; that we control very little in what takes place in our lives, depression sets in and the focus on self preservation and controlling one's mundane life is no longer tenable.

Unless faith can be re- awakened controlling one's death becomes the only control switch left.  Faith is an essential element in human life.

GOD IS FAITHFUL

When Christianity talks about the mystery of faith it is tied to an understanding of God's active participation in our welfare, in our very being.  Our faith mirrors God's faith.  The formal expression of this within liturgical worship is found in the Eucharistic prayer mentioned at the beginning of this post. It is positioned to be said at the unitive highpoint of this liturgy in which we figuratively jump into communion with Christ Jesus's, God's, continual redeeming act.

Christ presents Jesus as the Everyman (every person) in this prayer. Christ is the unitive metaphor of humankind and the active force that is God combined as symbolized in recalling the story of Jesus's suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension during the Eucharistic prayer.

The "sacrifice" of Jesus is, in essence our own, not merely for us, but more importantly with us.  It is, in very dramatic and graphic terms, the sacrifice, the offering up, of our individual, egotistical selves in the faith (the active involvement) of being interrelated to all creation, being part of everyone, being part of everything that has been, that is, and that will ever be, as belonging to that Being in which we live, move, and have our being.

ALL IS ONE IN CHRIST JESUS

We cannot separate ourselves from the Christ Jesus concept. Everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike are part of Christ Jesus. This is the meaning of Christ died for all (2 Cor. 5:14).  This is the mystery of the faith that motivates us to participate in redeeming, in restoring, our world and reconciling us to our true selves as uniquely rendered Children of God.

With Christ Jesus our egotistical selves are freely given up - "Not my will...".  With Christ Jesus we are brought to new life, a new perspective of who we are. With Christ Jesus we are engaged in God's ever being, with God's ever coming into our lives, again and again.

Christ Jesus is the manifested conjugation of the Verb that God is; past, present and ever-becoming. This is the Mystery of Faith.

Until next time, stay faithful.

SAVING CHRISTIANITY

This may seem like an odd topic for a post.  To some Christians this idea may strike them as offensive, to non-Christians it may be considered pointless.  I can imagine a large number of Christians who believe that Christianity is eternal and in no need of being saved and a large number of non-Christians who feel life and the world might be better without it.

As I have said in past posts (click here and here), religions as something we humans have created. Religions emerge from a void in our understanding which is expressed in the perennial question, "Why?"

For instance:  Why do we exist?  Why did something that happened happen?  Why is there evil?

The reality is we don't let such questions hang, we give them answers, and with those answers come derivative meanings applied to other existential crises that continue to invoke the perennial question and it's sequential questions,  how, what, and who.

That religions emerged from our collective attempts at understanding ourselves and the world in which we live over the eons is what makes us the religious animals we have evolved into, addicted to the pursuit of finding answers to impossible questions.

Evidence of this can be found in all theistic literature.  For example, in the Judeo-Christian scriptures we read of Abraham's and Sarah's questioning laugh at hearing Sarah would bear a child at her old age, of Moses' questioning who was sending him to free the Israelites, of Mary's question regarding how she would give birth as a virgin, and of Jesus' question on the cross regarding why he was forsaken.

New religions evolve from older religions as new existential questions arise.  As I have mentioned before, science is itself a religious exercise seeking to find answers to impossible questions in order to fill the void in understanding our reality.

IS CHRISTIANITY WORTH SAVING?

It is -

But if Christianity is going to survive, it needs to evolve. Some might ask what it is being saved from.

The answer to that question is simply saving it from itself, from its own meltdown.  Christianity is in a fractured state that is increasingly fractal in scope with new denominations popping up every time a group of Christians within a group of Christians disagree about something they can't or don't want to resolve.

Demagoguery is rampant on the ever twigging-out evangelical stage where personalities can loom larger than God for a moment. When they pass on or more likely become exposed as the fraudulent individuals they are, their followers either find another larger than life personality to cling to for awhile or join the unaffiliated Nones.  A few might trickle back into a mainline denomination.

The Church of Personality is a difficult fix.

In fact, the more twigged-out an evangelical type church becomes the less it becomes recognizable as Christian in a substantive sense.

The Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and mainline Protestant churches are in the best position to save Christianity. They have stood the test of time and have, for the most part, avoided The Church of Personality. Their ability to do so, however, is hindered by their traditions of form and structure and a shared reluctance to speak honestly to those sitting in their pews for fear of losing members. There are, however, some within these denominations who are being honest, but there is a need by all mainline churches to redefine themselves both in terms of substance and function in an effort to present an honest theology to their members and the world.

When  speaking of a change in theological substance, I'm not talking about creating new theologies, ex nihlo, but rather looking deeply into the theological traditions that already exist on which to build fresh theological perspectives; ones that seek common ground and a shared theological language when addressing  the issues of the day.

I believe such perspectives exist, but they are likely buried beneath a mound of doctrinal baggage that has accumulated over the centuries or has been sublimated by ecclesial form and structure.  The other challenge is that most people seated in a church pew are largely ill informed about Christianity in general, especially those who attend doctrinally biased, navel gazing Bible studies.

I think it is safe to say that most Christians do not possess a critical understanding of Christianity.  Most view the Holy Bible as words given by God rather than words about God. Most have been indoctrinated not to question it, to just to believe it even though they struggle with understanding it.

A critical understanding of Christianity is essential to its salvation.  People of the Book should avoid becoming people by the book, at all costs. This is particularly difficult for book-based religions. So let's examine the difference between "of" and "by" the book as it applies to Christianity.

PEOPLE OF THE BOOK

A good place to start is with using Richard Hooker's three-legged stool regarding ecclesial polity as a model.  Hooker's masterful work is a chore to get through and my intent here is not to attempt to explain it but simply use his metaphor to present my thoughts on this subject.

Scripture

Properly understood, scripture is a collection of varied writings and literary types. They were written in different time periods, some of which addressed issues of the day in which they were written or reflect past incidences that were part of a much older oral tradition. Scripture is also a repository of wisdom. All of these writings speak of the relationship between human kind and God and how that relationship shapes our relationships with one another.

The Holy Bible cannot be fully appreciated in the breadth of its scope as the "Word of God." Rather, it is best grasped as words about our these relationships as seen through a lens focused on a particular tribe of people, the Israelites.  Christian scriptures simply opens this lens on the world stage. As such, scripture acts a viewfinder, a lens for looking at our world and framing the questions we should ask rather than looking at it for the answers.

Tradition

Hooker's three pronged approach to ecclesial polity reminds us that tradition refines our inquiries in any theological discourse.  My interpretation of this approach is that while scripture is foundational to Christianity, tradition is the repository of Christianity's collective wisdom that results from a distillation of scripture and experience, guided by what Christians identify as the work of the Holy Spirit, the active Wisdom of God, in the endeavor to search the pathways through the problems faced throughout our history as a means of finding a pathway through a current situation. Tradition, in this sense, is not about form or structure.  Tradition is about function and substance.

Reason

Reason is essential in staying clear of becoming people by the book.  To begin with, reason needs to be placed in the sequential framework that reflects Jesus' circular understanding of process (the first coming last and the last becoming first). Using this as a model places scripture, the first amongst sources, secondary to reason as the needed awareness to access scripture and tradition in seeking solutions.

Reason is what we bring to the table, our God-evolved analytic and intuitive minds. Once we have properly identified the question (scripture), we can access the collective wisdom (tradition) to determine if there are functional or substantive solutions that apply, but in the final analysis, given all that has been discerned, it is up to our informed and wisdom-guided minds to decide; to add to the collective wisdom, to allow the Word to live in a new and meaningful ways, which may then reach beyond the reasoning logic of the time in ways we could not have predicted, that reveal the mind of God.

In this way Christians maintain the nomen of being "People of the Book."  People of the Book are engaged in the alchemy of turning questions into wise solutions.

PEOPLE BY THE BOOK

People by the Book don't like questions.  Their answers to any perceived problem is to go directly to the Book and get the answer even if the situation of the day has no relation to the situation addressed over two thousand years ago.

The concept of Biblical inerrancy has rendered the Holy Bible both inaccessible and unassailable. The result is a form of Bible idolatry or Bible blindness, treating the Bible as God's direct communique on how to solve any problem or seeing every human event as directly related to something (largely prohibited) in the Bible.

One can see examples of this, particularly in the United States, where bible passages are taken out of context and displayed on protest placards as the solution to uncritically examined situations, a sign of those who are People by the Book.

When faced with a perceived existential crises, there is a tendency for many people to seek definitive, quick fix solutions.  They are attracted to displays of power, either in the form of someone who promises to keep the "bad people" away or someone who appeals to the sense of God's power and righteous judgment, who will lay waste His creation; punishing the many unrighteous in order to save the righteous few as a means to make a new creative order.

This us not the fatherly God of Jesus's teachings.

This is the God of fascism.

This form of nihilistic righteousness has been slowly eroding the function and substance of Christianity since its inception.   Unfortunately, it hasn't been until recently that some within Christianity are seeing the effects of its own meltdown.

Perhaps a better question is whether Christianity can be saved.

Yes!

SO...  HOW?

In a word, honesty.  It is only in being honest that Christianity will have any relevancy, any ability to heal our war torn world.

Truthfulness is in rare supply because it has been associated over the centuries as meaning right belief.

This needs to be undone quickly. There is a desperate need for people to be able to differentiate between belief and faith and facts and truths.

For instance, we need to understand that what one believes has no actual impact on what is apart from one's own reaction to those personal beliefs. As Christians we are prompted to walk by faith, not by sight (not by our ideological beliefs).

We simply, as a species, must have this capacity in order to survive, and here is where theistic religion can be helpful, if it strives to be honest.  In the case of Christianity, this must start by engaging in a critical examination of its most foundational teachings about Jesus's birth, life, death, resurrection and differentiating them from what is likely to be Jesus's actual teachings.

No theistic religion can afford to persist in insisting that improbable events serve as answers to impossible questions.

To this end every religion must embrace the concept of myth as an essential element within their theologies. I realize this notion flies in the face of most monotheistic religions who take issue with the concept of mythology, especially as applicable to their particular branch of monotheism.

All theistic religions have their "personalities" that became larger than any other humans, who are viewed as synonymous with God or reverenced as God's right hand envoy. This is understandable. It is hard to relate to an imageless divinity that is so pervasive and yet intimate with us. We imbue God with an avatar-like, human personality we can readily relate to.

Imbuing such personalities with divine traits or imbuing God with human traits is the stuff that myths are made of.

No single person can or should be placed above any other human being in this regard; including Jesus, Mary, Mohammed, Moses, Elijah, or Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha). All of them have been subjected to a mythological makeover in order to personify God or give God a personality we can relate to.

Only God is holy (other) and no single person compares, none. Collectively, however, we reflect the creative activity that is God, we are all, each and every person a uniquely rendered incarnation of God and we need to start wrapping our brains around that concept and the concept  that God is a verb, not a noun, not a thing. God purely IS and is always Being or Becoming.

In this respect Judaism has a head start, because Judaism has had to be honest about its existence and it's faith beyond any belief in order to survive. Its insistence on prohibiting the making of an image to represent God underscores that we, the collective we, are the only image needed to understand God. Being able to wrap our minds around that would give us a totally new understanding of our world and who we humans are.

No other religion has encountered repeated existential crises and survived as has Judaism.  In the process it has had to ask a lot of questions that were shaped by the Hebrew scriptures and the experiences they encountered throughout their history.  These question and debates between their scholars resulted in texts that reflect the cumulative wisdom in texts such as the Talmud and Midrash.

Christianity must adopt such a questioning and discerning process. We must ingest and digest the teachings of Jesus who raised the value of every individual human being to that of being a uniquely rendered child of God (a deeper sense of being made in the image of God) as opposed to being mired and tied to the teachings about Jesus being God's only begotten Son (originally, I suspect, a somewhat subversive teaching  meant to poke the imperial cult of the Roman emperor being that and which then became codified as a central tenant of orthodox Christianity during the Council of Nicea in 325 CE).

In addition, Christianity must change its theological emphasis from the next world in order to save this world, to redeem and restore it to the intended glory of its creator, as must all theistic religions do in their theologies.  What happens after this life must simply be left in God's hands.

Christianity must focus on bringing what Jesus called the Kingdom of God, the peaceable kingdom, to fruition in tangible ways. Doing so is the only means by which Christianity will have any relevancy; any ability to save itself, any ability to help save the world we currently live in.


Until next time, stay faithful.


P.S. In my next posts I will begin examining the evolution of Christianity, starting with, "The Mystery of Faith."

A TALE OF TWO CHURCHES

In Part I of my posts on "WHY I GO TO CHURCH," I mentioned attending two church services on Sundays.  The reality is I attend two different Episcopal churches on any given Sunday. The first is the Episcopal church my family attends, Christ Episcopal Church in Yankton, South Dakota and the second church I attend is thirteen hundred miles away in New York City, Trinity Wall Street, which offers videos of all of its worship services and much more.

CHRIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH



I've already talked about how we came to be members of this small congregation.  Christ Church as we call it, has about one hundred members.  If forty of them show up on any given  service, it's a good day.  Christ Church, like many Episcopal churches in this country is a historical church.  It is the first church to be established in the Dakota Territory back in 1861 and has been conducting regular worship service in its current edifice since 1882.   Check out its website: http://christepiscopalchurchyankton.com/

The church building has been well cared for and its historical and original architecture well maintained. It is particularly known for its unique, eclectic stained glass windows.  The structure was made from locally queried chalkstone which was then covered with locally made red bricks.  The interior has a ceiling of dark pine or walnut wood, the floors of light oak.  All the furniture, pews, and woodwork were locally made from pine by a local craftsman.

The church was designed in a traditional Anglican cruciform structure, including a wooden reredos separating the choir from the church's nave.  The church can seat one hundred fifty people.  All the wood and soft colors provide the church with a particularly warm and inviting ambience.

This church also possesses a aural beauty.  It's original pipe organ was an Odell organ that was replaced in 1959 with a five rank Moeller pipe organ.  The original seventeen ornate façade pipes of the Odell organ still embellish the organ chamber.  The organ's console was recently upgraded to a solid state, fiber optic system, that has resulted in a much better use of the organ's five ranks. The organ has both warm and majestic tonal qualities that render it suitable for Anglican hymnody and liturgical music.

The Church also was gifted with a 1920's Steinway Piano four years ago that has been kept in excellent playing condition and I try to play it at some point in every Eucharist service.

I've taken time to describe this church in order to give you a sense that this is a very beautiful place to worship, pray, and to meditate in.  It's an honor and privilege to be this congregation's organist and music director.  The challenge of such a beautiful place, however, is to not get too caught up in the physical or aural beauty or its historical significance which is easy to do.

This church has a sense of itself that comes with being around for so long.  This can be a strength, but it can also be a weakness if that sense turns into a club mentality.   Like many Episcopal congregations, Christ Church is a mix composed of old moneyed families, well-educated professionals  of various types who are active in the community and the state along with poorer families. Our diocese is over fifty percent Native American who represent some of the poorest people in our state and in our nation, and our congregation reflects this to a lesser degree than the diocese as a whole.

After joining this congregation, I became aware that I was, in many ways, more Anglican in my liturgical and musical tastes than they were.  In fact, I was somewhat dismayed and disappointed that they obviously did not know their church's own musical heritage or all that interested in getting to know it.  Their tastes in hymnody were very Midwestern protestant.  I have been able to slowly change this since being their organist for the past sixteen years.

After a nasty kerfuffle over placement of the Steinway piano, related to a demonstrative intransigence on the part of those who refused to remove several "historical" and largely unused pews to accommodate its greater functionality in worship services and which intransigence was the obvious result of what happens when worship of a church's beauty and its past gets in the way of the church's function and purpose in the present, we left the church.  I won't go into the details, but the result was when we returned, others left.  It was a messy time and churches can be messy places.  Hopefully, those who left will rethink their leaving also and come back.

As a result of all that bother, I believe our little congregation has become a more open and inviting place. We have become more contemplative; having a Centering Prayer group that meets weekly, a weekly meditation group that studies and practices Buddhists meditation, and an early Sunday morning service called Serenity which uses meditation and contemplative prayer, along with lectio divina, a monastic contemplative practice to discern the meaning of a passage from scripture.

We practice open communion, in which everyone present is invited to partake.  We have practioners of healing touch who are available once a month during one of our Eucharistic services to pray for and over people who approach them.  We are an inclusive congregation in an area where churches tend to be far more conservative, even some Episcopal churches.  We are in many ways a true community church. People who attend our Centering Prayer, meditation groups, and Serenity services are members of other churches who don't have what we offer or who clearly identify as being "Nones."

This little congregation has a big heart that struggles to keep its head above water and from going under financially or going by the wayside as a result of aging out. We have a very active sense of lay ministry in our church in addition to our non-stipend deacon and our priest who decided to go part time in order to help the congregation financially.

In many ways Christ Church represents the challenges most rural communities are facing, dwindling congregations and financial resources, along with clergy shortages. These challenges, however, afford churches opportunities that they did not see before.  In order for any church to survive it needs to have an informed laity involved in active ministry, and this little congregation gets that.

I think Christ Church is developing a renewed sense of self that is based on the teachings and ministry of Jesus in the light of other traditions.  It's developing a sense of inner beauty that comes with being contemplative, open-minded, and open-hearted.  It is the place where I take my responsibility and culpability in being a Christian seriously in my service to this congregation as it's minister of music and a member of its worship team.

TRINITY WALL STREET



 

I mentioned in my earlier posts that being an organist has led me out of and into churches.  Trinity Wall Street in New York City is one of those churches.  The reason I and my family became acquainted with Trinity Wall Street is because Christ Episcopal Church was in the process of upgrading its organ and I was tasked with looking into several options regarding this process.  One of the options was replacing or supplementing the current pipe organ with a digitally voiced organ or a digital voicing component to enhance the current pipe organ we have.

In the process of doing some research on-line about digitally voiced church organs, I ran across the fact that Trinity has such an organ as a result of  the event of 9/11in which the debris that fell from the twins towers covered Trinity, which is located nearby. The tremendous amount of dust rendered Trinity's Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ unusable and necessitated a quick replacement which came in the form of their current digital organ built by Marshall Ogletree Associates, Inc. 

Since we were headed to New York to visit our youngest daughter, my wife and I decided to go to Trinity to check out the organ.  I knew of Trinity, but had never visited it until a warm summer day in 2012.   I believe we attended their 9:00 AM service.  We arrived early and the choir made up of the men of their choir was rehearsing shortly after we arrived.  Being in Trinity reminded us of being the cathedrals we visited in England.

I had my misgivings about digital organs because there is a certain feel or sound-feeling one gets from real pipe organs, but I also have a digital keyboard at my home that I love and I have played digital organs before and know that this is an area that is getting better and better at voice sampling and reproducing actual pipe organ voices. I wasn't disappointed with Trinity's organ, but that wasn't what caught my attention. 

What caught my attention was the warmth of the people, the mix of people, the friendliness and a sense of welcome that pervaded the place.  At the time, Trinity was the focus of protests against Wall Street and the church made it known that they were not behind the perceived corruption that was being protested, but Trinity has its own properties and was deeded land by the English monarchy in 1696 and owns some very prime real estate in the area.

Regardless of the protestors, the service that we participated in was not only beautiful, but moving.  We had the pleasure of hearing one of the best preachers I've heard that Sunday, their pastoral care priest, Dr. Mark Buzetti-Jones, and since that time I have listened to other wonderful preachers and priests who serve this unique congregation. 

There is a sense of inclusion at Trinity that I have not felt elsewhere.  It's a place of color, of all colors, Black, White, Yellow, Brown, you name it is there.  There are straight people and gay people, old people, young people, rich people, not so rich people, middle class people, and poor people.  People living in lush apartments and people living on the street.  It's a church on the move; literally.  People come in an out of the church during the service and the service continues amidst any distractions.   

Above all it is a church, a congregation with a sense of purpose and a sense of responsibility and culpability about being Christian.  It takes being Christian seriously and it speaks truth to power in a way that other congregations don't.  It's not afraid to openly talk in a homily or sermon about the issues of the day and goes far beyond preaching to study those issues in ongoing seminars, inviting experts in various fields to come to their church and present what they have to offer, to better inform their congregation and anyone interested.  Many of these sessions are videoed and archived on their website, https://www.trinitywallstreet.org/. 

I fell in love with Trinity, and when I found out that their services are videoed, I became a regular viewer.  My daughters fell in love with Trinity also.  They may not be regular church goers, but when our oldest daughter visits our youngest, Trinity is on the agenda as a place to go.  Their music ministry is outstanding and deeply awe-inspiring, from choral selections to organ preludes, postludes, and improvisations. The beauty of worship is clearly evident in this place.

Undoubtedly, Trinity is a church with the financial means to carry out a number of ministries.  It doesn't deny that.  It is a giving church in so many ways, locally, nationally, and internationally.  It feeds the hungry with weekly meals and is constructing housing in its neighborhood to help address the homeless population in the New York. It is quite obvious that beside their extensive ordained clergy resources, there is a very active and involved lay ministry.

I look forward to watching the videos of the weekly services every Sunday, after attending Christ Episcopal.  When one is an organist or worship leader during a Sunday morning service, one doesn't fully worship in the way one does when sitting in a pew.

I like the way that Trinity does not edit their videos.   They are well done, but they show the service as is; with any hiccup or mistake that might occur.  It makes it all so real and family-like for me because being an organist I understand hiccups.

* * * * * * * * * *



Trinity reminds me of Christ Episcopal Church.   They are a family, just as Christ Church is.  I'm not naïve about churches.  Like a family there is always a certain amount of tension and drama in the works.  People walking out, slamming doors and people coming back in.  I should know.  I'm one of them.

Like families, you don't get to choose who's a member, but you do have a responsibility to love those who are part of your family even when there are times you can't stand to be in the same room with each other. Then there are those moments when you fully get why you're part of this messy family; that you are needed and that you need the other members of the family.  Churches are very much like that if they are truly loving places.

I wanted to present this post as way of giving some of my readers a little more background on where I'm coming from.  I think this may be important in discussing the concept of religious singularity.  What I've said here, I have no doubt that people in other churches and in other theistic religions can attest to; the sense of family that is derived from their places of worship.

Since I am a Christian, I will talk about my religious experiences and my thoughts about Christian practices in a way that will hopefully resonate with those of other theistic religions.

I believe there is a thread of commonality that is universal to all theistic religions, but is often ignored in order to preserve a sense of identity.  My purpose in talking about religious singularity is not remove anyone's religious identity, but rather show a way of speaking a common language without forfeiting identity.

Until next time, stay faithful

WHY I GO TO CHURCH - Part II

In my previous post, I discussed my sense of culpability and responsibility as a Christian as major reasons for attending church. This may need further explanation. As I mentioned in my post on the "Unaffiliated Nones," I could easily see myself becoming unaffiliated, and find myself, periodically, on the fringe of being one.  The simple fact is it would be easy to become unaffiliated, to go it alone.  At least theoretically, it would be easy.

LEAVING A CHURCH

I get why people leave their churches. Most leave because staying frequently feels like fighting a losing battle.  In some Christian denominations that is understandable, but Christianity is much larger than one's local church, one's denomination or brand of Christianity.

For instance, when I left the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, I did so from, amongst other things, a recognition that I wasn't the Lutheran I thought I was.  I recognized that I could not change what I saw as wrong in their practice of "closed" or "close" communion, for instance, which functionally prohibits other baptized Christians from taking communion in their congregations much the same way Roman Catholic churches do.  This pietistic practice offended my sensibility of what I believed was Jesus' intent and purpose during the Last Supper.

It was one of many things I could neither change nor accept within that denomination.  To stay any longer would have resulted in my feeling miserable and inwardly hypocritical.  Do not misunderstand me.  I do not hate or dislike Lutherans or the Missouri Synod brand of Lutheranism.  I have many friends in that church. In fact being raised and having attempted to enter into its ordained ministry taught me a great deal about myself and the church. I also began to understand that there are paths of understanding that are just as valid if not more so than being a Lutheran or even being a Christian.

While in the Missouri Synod, I studied eastern religions and read works by Thich Nhat Hanh.  To be honest when I did this I sometimes felt like a closet heretic.  It was rather exciting, in the sense one gets from enjoying forbidden fruit.  It was also liberating, but I had to keep it to myself.  Sharing what I learned from what I was reading would have been met with disdain from some in my church and risked being put on a prayer chain by others.  Nevertheless, I am grateful for what Lutheranism gave me.

In some way, I felt guided to leave. It would take their rejection of me as their lead organist and choir director to make me realize I needed to move on. I needed a shove to get me out of the door.  The reality was there wasn't room for me or my young family to grow there.  I couldn't change what happened and I couldn't change them.  I realized that I did not need to try, but could change what church my family attended, one that resonated with us, one that had room to grow in, and for a while we floated on the tranquil waters of a local United Methodist church where I served as their organist. We remained technically unaffiliated until we decided to become members of another denomination.  The truth is I could have become Methodist, but we missed a more liturgical worship setting, which we found in the Episcopal Church.

FINDING A CHURCH

Becoming an Episcopalian was like breathing fresh air. After awhile, being a Missouri Synod Lutheran seemed like nothing more then a preparatory course for becoming Episcopalian.  Without knowing it, I was raised on the liturgy found in the Episcopal Church's Book of Common Prayer, which was almost adopted verbatim by the Missouri Synod with regard to its Holy Communion liturgy, including most of its collects (prayers). It was an easy transition and an easy fit.  We didn't jump in right away.  It took some time. 

We had a Lutheran friend who had joined this church before us.  We started attending their Lenten Services, something we were use to in the Lutheran Church, but which wasn't being offered in the Methodist Church.  I was intrigued because the Lenten Services were said services.  During these services an English gentleman, who came to this part of the world to be a headmaster at  Native American school for girls, was giving the homily in which he talked about the Holy Land, Palestine he called it, as he was serving in the British Army at the time.  The simplicity and intentionality of those services appealed to me.  I was worshiping without having to do something.  I didn't realize how much I missed just sitting in a pew and taking things in. 

What ended getting us there were simple invitations.  People in the pew behind us, saying, "Think about joining us," and one dear lady who grabbed my arm on the way out of the church door whispering in my ear, "Come."  That's all, just come.  The simplicity and directness spoke to my heart and that is when we started going to this little Episcopal church.

Richard Hooker

The other attraction in becoming an Episcopalian, for me, was learning about Richard Hooker's paradigm for Anglicanism's theological structure: Scripture, Tradition, and Reason.

Although Hooker placed scripture above all else, he understood the need for correcting the inevitable wrongs that would occur in church polity through the guidance by the Holy Spirit and reason.   Reason was the air that stirred my spirit.  That we have a say in the religion we are a part of was church-shattering to say the least for me.  This concept gave me the freedom to think openly, and at the same time, it also made me feel responsible for my thoughts.

Blaming God for any stupid acts done by Christians was no longer an option.  Whether Hooker intended it or not, he made Christians responsible and culpable for what Christianity does and he carefully (a particular necessity in the 16th century) guides Christians to use reason to find solutions within the parameters of scripture and tradition.

Let me be very clear, I don't go to church to be a pew critic or to be its resident skeptic.  In addition, I don't go to church to earn myself a place in heaven, and I don't go to church to become more Bible-smart.

THE REASONS I GO

Rather I go to church because of a deep connection with the source of all being that I feel there, a connection which is beyond any belief or skepticism residing within me.  I recognize that source as the Self beyond self, God.

I go to church to be inspired in a number of ways: through prayer, through the liturgy, the readings, the homilies, and the sacraments.

I go to commune, along with my fellow human beings, in a "thin place" where we take a mere sliver of time to encounter a deeper sense of the Self we all are part of.

I go to Church to care, to join my heart, my spiritual center, with other hearts in communion with the heart of all that is.

I go to church to embrace and be embraced by a deep sense of being loved and to be loving.

I go to church to heal (through my music) and be healed by the beauty of worship.

I go to church to forgive a broken world and offer it absolution in the simple act of eating bread and drinking wine as the broken body and poured out blood of Christ; to be one with Christ who forgives all.

I go to church to let go: to accept what is and to strengthen my faith to meet what will be without the drama of insisting anything has to fit my scheme of things.

I go to church to remind myself of the inner peace that is available to all.

* * * * * * * *



To be honest, I don't always think of why I go to church every time I'm in church.  Rather I can say these things truthfully by stepping back and looking at what it is that motivates me to go to church at any given moment. Some reasons may be more prevalent at times than others.   I also realize what motivates me may not motivate others.  Others may well come up with different reasons that motivate them.

Like all major theistic religions, Christianity is vast in scope and has many different types of homes, places of worship, under its umbrella.

Churches should be there for everybody, but reality is that some aren't. I know the little church I attend is and most Episcopal churches are.  I also know there are other churches of various denominations that are open and welcoming to anyone who enters their doors regardless of who they are or where they're at in their life's journey; churches willing to share their most holy moments without reservation. That's the way it should be; that's the way of Christ, and that's why I go to church.

Until next time, stay faithful.

WHY I GO TO CHURCH - Part I

As any faithful reader of my posts know, I have written over forty posts on the topic of religion. In doing so, I have discussed my own theistic religion, Christianity.  I have relegated myself to the domain of being an agnostic Christian.  I have done so in order to take a critical look at my own affiliation with Christianity, to examine what I believe, to examine belief itself, and what it means to be faithful.  To some, an agnostic Christian may sound like a contradiction in terms, but I maintain that it is not and will attempt to explain my agnostic approach to Christianity as a route open to Christians in their life of faith.

So I'm going to turn a corner, so to speak, and talk about why I regularly attend two church services on Sundays.  As I mentioned in my last post, I'm an Episcopalian.  I was not always an Episcopalian. The Episcopal Church became my family's church of choice.

THE TALE OF A RELIGIOUS SLUT

I /we, my wife and I, started out as Lutherans and not just any old Lutheran, but members of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod - a rather conservative and somewhat evangelical minded type of Lutheran.  My wife and I were raised, baptized, confirmed, and married in the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod. Our children were baptized in that church also.  Upon leaving the Lutheran Church, we spent a couple of years attending a United Methodist Church, but we never joined.  What led us out of the Lutheran Church and into the Methodist Church is the fact that I'm an organist.  In the end we decided to join the little Episcopal Church in our community where I wasn't an organist for almost four years.  I am now.

Let me just say that being a church musician has its challenges and is, in part, why I left churches and why I returned.  I should also say that I had intended in my younger days to enter into the Lutheran ministry, which was not a good fit.  I didn't admit to that until after I left the Missouri Synod.  Even then I continued to wonder if I had a calling  to ordained ministry.

When we joined the Episcopal Church I entertained the idea of entering into Holy Orders with the goal of eventually becoming an ordained priest.  To that end I finished my college education at a Roman Catholic Benedictine college with a degree in Religious Studies and Philosophy. In telling a friend of my religious journey, she looked at me and said, "Norm, you know you're nothing but a religious slut."  Well... I can't deny that.  I've been around the religious block, so to speak, and I have come to embrace the meaning of her colorful expression. 

UNORDAINABLE

Through the discernment process for entering holy orders in the Episcopal Church,  I figured out that ordination is not something I should pursue.  Interestingly, at the end of that process, a whole new field of work opened for me, being an advocate for the rights of the mentally ill which became my ministry and my passion until I retired last year. In many ways that experience deepened my perspective of what it means to be human and has demonstrated time and time again the effectiveness of listening closely to find the person residing in the identified patient or, to broaden that concept, to find the person identified as the problem; people frequently unheard because of a label given to them or because of a perception about them.

To be honest, I probably have more reasons for not attending a church than attending one. I could spend several posts getting into that, but I attend church because of deep sense within me that I am part of something or something is a part of me that is much larger than me, much larger than my beliefs, that I am part of something or something is part of me that I cannot perceive or conceive of, but that perceives and has conceived me and everything I know in the experience called my life. 

CULPABLY RESPONSIBLE

I attend church because I have a responsibility to the theistic religion that has given me my sense of being.  I have a responsibility as a human being to that sense of being-ness.  I also have a sense of culpability in what my religion gets wrong and a responsibility to help it get whatever is wrong with it right. I recognize the inescapable religious nature in being human; that religion is largely what we humans have made it to be, and trying to walk away from something that is innate in us is form of blindness and a willful attempt at being sophisticatedly ignorant.

To say that Christianity frustrates me from time to time, would be an understatement.  There are those claiming to be Christian who do not seem to have anything in common with what I feel and sense as a Christian to the extent that it has made me doubt whether I am a Christian.  It has made me wish, sometimes, that I never was, but I cannot deny the fact that I am.

 In what I thought would be my final exit from the church, from Christianity, and from theism, I wrote the following poem addressed to God, who I felt wasn't there:

* * * * *   

A PSALM

       

                                                     You've been my discomfort

                                                     And my distress;

                                                     Seemingly absent 

                                                     When I'm a mess.

                                                

                                                     Are You there?

                                                     Are You anywhere?

                                                     Are You a phenomenon,

                                                     Or were You created just for fun?

                                                     Why all the hoops?

                                                     Why all the loops?

                                                     Are You fair?

                                                     Do You care?

                                                     And what, exactly, does it do if I believe in You?

                                                     Will it give me a hereafter?  Is that all?

                                                     What about the here?  What about the now?

                                                     Doesn't it have value?  It should somehow.

                                                     What's wrong with this life that it can't be fixed?

                                                     Why suffering and pain?  Why war?

                                                     Do they make us love You more?

                                                     It's all so ineffective.  It just doesn't do the trick.

Norm Wright

September 5, 2011

* * * * *

I'm sharing this poem, a modern day psalm of complaint, because at the time I was really angry  To be blunt, I was royally pissed off at the church I attended, at Christianity as a whole, and at God.  I wrote it and then forgot that I wrote it only to discover it in the notebook I scribbled it in, last year and in reading it again, it brought back just how angry, upset, and feeling abandoned I was at the time.

CAUGHT RUNNING

But the truth is I wasn't abandoned at all.  The truth is I was trying to run away only to be caught.  I was angry because I thought history was repeating itself and I felt foolish that I hadn't learned my lesson from the first time I left a church, the Lutheran Church I had spent my whole life in.  I was upset because I let people get under my skin again and irritate the heck out of me.  I was hurt by what people said and I said some hurtful, but honest things back in letter meant only for my church's vestry, but was published in less then 8 hours after hitting the send button.


"E-mail, thou art a heartless bitch." to paraphrase the character, Sheldon Cooper, on "The Big Bang Theory."

The truth was while angry with some people, who I wasn't all that concerned about upsetting, I hurt people I didn't intend to hurt. The reality was the particular incident that sent me out the door of a church wasn't like the first time I left a church, where people, even my closest friends, didn't bother to say anything to me or try to convince me to stay.  Unlike that experience, this experience was different. The people I probably hurt the most were those who cared most and who wrote me almost instantly upon hearing of my departure.  They didn't plead for me to come back, but they expressed their care and, at a deeper, unspoken level, their faith that things would be okay for them and for me and my family.  They spoke without judgment or judging anyone.  It was vastly different from the previous time we left the church that had been part of our entire lives. 

GRACE IS A LADY

Then one day a gracious lady from the church came to our door.  She had been drafted to be a replacement for me as an organist one Sunday.  She hadn't played organ for some time and didn't want to play, but she didn't speak just for herself, she spoke for others in the congregation. Her gracious words and the fact that she took the time to talk to me and my wife personally touched my heart, and I realized that I was being selfish and ungrateful for what I had to offer in the light of what was being offered me in all the concern and the well wishes of those who called, wrote to me, and undoubtedly prayed for me and my family. 

The reason I returned was mostly because I had a responsibility to use what was given to me, music.  I'm not all that trained as an organist or a musician.  One could say it came naturally, but I wouldn't say that.   It came out of love for the music of the church which spoke to me as a small child, a language I acquired and that I speak fluently and fluidly. The music of the church pours out of me when I sit at the organ console or a piano in on-the-spot improvisations. That's not bragging.  It's just what happens and is why I play.  I don't have to think about it. It's like speaking English. In fact, I guess I could say music is my second language.

I'm not particular fond of the word "gift," as if I'm special in any regard.  I think of gift as actually more akin to what motivates me in the service of others.  It is in that sense that I feel responsible to be in church to give voice to what motivates me to serve others.  In that sense, everyone is gifted; everyone has something that motivates them or ought to motivate them in the service of others as a response to the life they have.

A DEEP RIVER

The poem I wrote also belies the depth of the faith that courses through my being.  One can't say the things that I said in that poem without recognizing that it was addressing something, even if I was in denial of or trying to deny what or who I was addressing.  In retrospect, I can see where I was trying to push a part of me away.


That I titled it "Psalm" also belies an affinity with the Holy Bible even if one could describe it as a troubled relationship. I recognize in the poem the perennial frustration that is present in being religiously aware, the weariness that comes with caring about something at a deep, personal level.


MEA CULPA?

I can hear the minds of some saying, "So you attend church because you feel guilty.  Right?" 


No. 


I don't feel guilty about what I did or necessarily what I do, unless it involves something I willfully did to hurt someone.  My sense of culpability and responsibility in being a Christian does not proceed from guilt.  Most of what people feel guilty about is waste of time if they don't do something about it.  I don't deny that guilt is a motivator for doing some things, but its is a very poor reason for going to church - and I know some will argue that; as in, "Isn't church about recognizing our sinful nature and need for repentance?"  There is that aspect of going to church for some, but it's not the reason I feel responsible to attend.  It is not associated with my feeling of culpability in being a Christian.

My sense of culpability in being a Christian is related to my sense of responsibility that comes with being one; in that, if wrongs are done in God and Jesus' name, I have a responsibility to help correct them.  Christianity does not have a very good track record, in my opinion, and it seems it's becoming increasingly tarnished by radical Christian-ism (otherwise known as Bible-thumping fundamentalism) which is fomenting hate in the name of God and in Jesus' name.  

Most religions don't have good track records because the history of humanity does not have a good track record, but I'm limited in what I can speak to.  I'm not a Muslim.  I'm not a Hindu.  I'm not an Atheist.  I'm not a Buddhist.  I'm not Jewish.  Each and every other religion has their own track records that their followers ought to address.  I'm a Christian, even though some could and would argue that I am not, and some have said I'm not. I do not view Christianity as a gift from God.  Rather I see the mess that's been made of it over the centuries as a responsibility I and the whole of Christianity has to put right, as best we can; guided by the sense of God we possess and the teachings of Jesus we proclaim.


WHAT DO I GET OUT OF THIS?


I can also sense some thinking, "What about God? What about Jesus?  Do you get anything out of going to church?"


The simple answer to the last question is yes, but the reality is that for me to talk about what is in it for me personally is complicated and nothing about this blog is about simple answers. I believe religion to be as complex as anything we humans do.  That it gets written off by some as fantasy or by others as God's saving grace to humanity is, in both cases, a form of denial of the collective culpability and responsibility for the religions that we humans shaped and have been shaped by over the centuries; the former as a display of sophisticated ignorance and the latter as a display of God-blinded-ness.


As far as God and Jesus go, I have already written extensively on these topics.  Since this post is the turning of a page, so to speak, I will be talking about God and Jesus in a different light than I have in the past.  I will be using the term God, but advise any reader to review what I've said about God, Jesus, and the Bible in my past posts.  I'm not having a change of mind, but rather taking a new approach to what I've said in explaining why I feel religion, as a whole, is important to human existence and the role I feel my religion, Christianity, has in facilitating religious singularity.


Until next time, HAPPY THANKSGIVING and stay faithful.

   

    











THE UNAFFILIATED "NONES"

As I have mentioned in past posts and what is vastly being reported by religious polls of various kinds is that the number of those who describe themselves as unaffiliated is growing.  The estimate is that there are 1.1 billion people who have either left or who say they are not members of any theistic religious organization.  I constantly find articles written by those who have left their churches and mosques because they have become disenchanted with organized theism, particularly what they describe as the hypocrisy and hate-mongering that has emerged from these supposedly peace-teaching theistic religions.

This switch from being affiliated to unaffiliated is particularly noted amongst Christian evangelicals of  a more ardent fundamentalist brand.  The unaffiliated have become known as the "nones," a group largely composed of millennials ranging in age from 18 to 35 years.

Included in the nones are those claiming to be agnostics, atheists, those who believe in a deity but not associated with an organized religion,  humanists of a non-affiliated type, those who practice or believe in some form of spiritualism.  In other words, it is rather difficult to put your finger on exactly what it is the nones believe or what they are looking for.

This opens the door to speculation, a regular human pastime of mine. So allow me to engage in some speculation.  First let me say that at I have found myself, at times, on the verge of becoming a none and may well be on the fringe of being one.  I've literally walked out of churches with the momentary intent of never returning only to find myself doing so, but that is a topic for another post.  So why are people leaving organized religion?

THE EVANGELICAL EXODUS

One of the easiest aspects of this exodus too track is those leaving evangelical churches and those currently leaving or threatening to leave The Church of the Latter Day Saints, the Mormons (LDS).

Starting  with the exodus of  millennial evangelicals of a more fundamentalist type, I've read that many leaving their churches say they loved at one time is that they possessed or were possessed by an intense ideological belief system that proved itself to be hypocritical.  One of those beliefs that shaped their worldview was something they probably learned during their Sunday School experience, that God loves everyone and that one should always be good to others.

Evangelical Sunday Schools, as I am sure is true with Mormon Sunday Schools, is that they are really good at getting that point across and millennials saw and felt that love as very young children. Things, however, start changing once they started going through adolescence and entering into adulthood.  The God they fell in love with as a child starts to have a different personality once they start reaching the age where their church feels its time to curb the growing tendency to sin, otherwise known as sex.  Hell rather than heaven becomes increasingly unavoidable.

There seems to be a moral tax to pay to get the love that was so freely given to them as a small child, when forgiveness was readily available because one didn't know better and was just learning.  Being loved increasingly became conditioned on being right with God.  Becoming more aware, more intelligent became increasingly viewed as a challenge to faith as these church's ideologies increasingly became more restrictive as to give the "narrow path" to salvation a road map.

Then there is the ultimate encounter with life in the "real world." And by "real world" I mean the world that is not so black and white, where things are more of a gray mixture of not perfect and not intolerably imperfect human beings.  Millennials, if anything, impress me as trying to be more truthful about themselves as they search for what that means.  They are less attracted to pretense and have a more open attitude towards others, especially the people they get to know.

Evangelical and Mormon millennials are no different in this regard.  As they mature, they find that they are not "perfect" but that their imperfections, which are considered intolerable to the God preached about in their churches are not all that intolerable in their own lives.  It is no wonder then that the straw that is threatening to break the camel's back in fundamental evangelicalism and in the LDS is their stance against LBGTQ individuals.

While the older members of fundamentalist evangelicals are probably entrenched in their long-held beliefs, many millennials in their groups have come to personally know LBGTQ individuals who are open about their sexuality.  They have friends or family members who identify as such. They know that being LBGTQ does not make a person bad or good, but is part of what makes that person who that person is, and they are torn between a God who loved everyone because everyone is God's child and that same God who can hate a once loved child simply because he or she is admittedly gay;  a God who is presented as requiring those who love Him to hate those who he hates, those they have come to know and care about.

It is ironic that this issue, more than any other, is what seems to be driving millennial evangelicals and Mormons from the pews of their churches.  The rhetoric of hate leveled against people they know and love exposes what many see as a deep deception about God that they end up throwing God out as the metaphorical hypocrite representing those believers who are willing to destroy their own families and neighbors because they're more worried about having a fantasy afterlife than living this life more fully by being less judgmental and more compassionate and loving.

I sense a similar exodus amongst Muslims, but I feel this is not getting the attention that the Christian evangelical exodus is receiving.  What is driving younger Muslims from their mosques is the rhetoric of hate also.  Muslim intellectuals are also struggling with what they see as deep deceptions regarding Allah and the teachings of the Prophet and their personal experiences with the "real world" that they see being torn apart not only by geopolitical warfare, but also theopolitical warfare.

As a whole, I see this meltdown of monotheism happening worldwide, and it is largely the result of ancient ideologies that addressed little understood issues of an ancient era to foster hate and violence today for no other reason than the Bible said so.  This lack of intelligence and unreasonableness is, in my opinion, the greatest detriment to the God-concept and organized theistic religion.

AGNOSTICS

I have identified myself as an agnostic, but one who remains affiliated with a mainline church, The Episcopal Church of the United States.  Up to this point I have avoided naming the denomination to which I and my family joined some twenty years ago, simply because I don't want people to think that whatever heresy one might hear splashed across my posts as being taught in the Episcopal Church. Why I love the Episcopal Church is that there is a lot room in that church to exercise an open, questioning mind.

I am a self-professed agnostic not because I have no beliefs, but rather that I admit to not knowing whether what I believe is at all certain and I try to keep an open mind, a discerning mind, and a somewhat skeptical mind in order to distill and examine that elusive topic, truth.

The reality is there are probably a good number of agnostics sitting in church pews and attending synagogues and mosques.  I have no doubt that there are a smattering of atheists as well amongst the affiliated. That fact doesn't make us hypocrites, rather it is an attestation that there is more to corporate worship than having to check your mind at the door in order to give credence to the ideologies found there.

A number of the nones have identified themselves as agnostic presumably meaning one of several options:  they don't know if there is a God; they believe in the possibility of a God but don't think God is all that involved in what we humans do, the issue of God and religion is not something that interests them, or they have embrace a skepticism about all things religious.

I read somewhere that some Christian clergymen said  they'd rather deal with an atheist than an agnostic.  Presumably this is because they can argue the certainty of their opposing beliefs better with an entrenched atheist than they can with an agnostic.  The reason is obvious.. It is hard to argue with an open mind, one that can accept the other's belief as valid, but open to debate and questioning.

Overall, I see agnosticism on the rise, in part, as a response or stance against the certitude expressed by institutions and individuals who espouse strong ideological, moral beliefs that are based on nothing more than writings over a thousand years old, some of  which are considered irrelevant, if not an affront to the life experiences of  people today.

ATHEISTS

A number of atheists are, in fact, forming groups.  As I have noted in other posts, I consider atheism a form of theism. Although I believe a number of unaffiliated are atheist, I also think that number, if known, would likely include individuals affiliated with atheist groups, comparable in nature, to any organised theistic religion.  As such, I do not consider atheists to be anti-religion as they are anti-conceptualists who deny the existence of out-there-other commonly known as God.  The fact is some atheists are organizing and forming what I and some of them consider a religious community or religion similar to conceptually God-based theistic religions in form but not in substance.

I consider atheism a valid religion.  I find myself agreeing with many of their observations about the wrongful influence some fundamentalist, God-based theists have in their overt zeal to define the world strictly from their ideological perspectives.  While I too don't believe in the God most atheists don't believe in, I find the God-concept also valid and reserve space for an out-there-other that, paradoxically, is felt as an inside, intraconnected Self-observing-self or the sense of Being in which we live and move and have our being (Paul, the apostle).

If I were to offer a criticism of atheism it would be that some atheists are selling many God-based religions short; that there is a human richness that is residing in the God-based concepts of theism which are important to the human understanding of who we are, why we are, and what to do next in order to help the world.  I feel this this is an area where atheists and God based theists can find some common ground and can help each other in providing for a more humane world.

SPIRITUALITY

Spirituality is difficult to define. A number of "nones" identify themselves as spiritual but not religious.  Of course my definition of religion includes every form of spirituality.   Spirituality is frequently presented as a type of pantheism or panentheism that sees nature or the cosmos as having a spiritual connection to all living things or that all that exists has a spiritually interconnection with each other.

Spirituality is linked to the human spirit as the perceiving, creative property of being human, a property that permits us to change our world  or one's personal situation by appealing to the forces driving nature, the power inherent in being.

Spirituality is capable of embracing an inclusivity that understands the community of being   Those claiming to be spiritual often see no need to "belong" to a spiritual group (although such groups exist) or have membership in an identified religious denomination.  God is defined or better understood as being undefined in whatever the spiritually oriented person feels God to be. The unaffiliated person claiming to be spiritual may identify culturally as being influenced by Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism,  Native American religion, Wicca, or any number of theistic identities, but not belonging to any. Many see their spirituality expressed in being themselves a free spirit.

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At the beginning of this post, I asked what the "nones" are looking for?  The answer to that question is not so much what they are looking for as much as it is what are they trying to avoid or get away from.  I think those who are leaving monotheistic religions are doing so because the God-concept of these ancient religions is twisted in an endeavor to keep current the idea of unchangeable God of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Holy Bible and the Koran, who is both a God of love and peace and a God of hatred and vengeance.   A God-concept that holds even a smidgen of these contrasting views appears  nonsensical.  This is a God who cannot be trusted, much less believable when it comes to saving the world   I also know that monotheists of various kinds have answers to this apparent incongruity.

Religions of the Book are hard-pressed to find a universal expression of the compassion, love, and peace that is often contradicted by passages found in the very books they hold sacred. It's too easy to come up with a list of  "ifs," "ands," or "buts" that argues against being open-minded, open-hearted, and inclusive.  We have all sorts of demonstrations on just how difficult this is.

I recently listened to sermon by Dr.  William Lupfer, rector of Trinity Wall Street in New York, explain not only the difficulty churches and society as a whole have with being inclusive, but also how dangerous it is, how risky it can become and yet how committed he and Trinity is to being just that, inclusive, with its inherent dangers and risks.  Trinity is a rare, beautiful place that sits in the physical center of secular religion, Wall Street.  It knows whereof it speaks, and it is engaged in the struggle to be that haven of peace and inclusiveness that is desperately needed everywhere.
 

I feel that those who are leaving their places of worship and embracing atheism or agnosticism do so because holding to ideological beliefs that are conflicting and trying to reconcile and make them work isn't working for them. Progressive, open-hearted, and open-minded churches, synagogues, and mosques like Trinity Wall Street are few and hard to find, and those that are struggle with having to redefine the scriptures they use as the base of their theistic ideologies.

I cannot judge or criticise those identified as "nones."  Some nones were born into loving homes where such ideological beliefs found in organized theistic religions were not important.  Others left organized religion for any number of reasons.  Whatever the reason or the background for being a "none,"  being true to oneself and respectful of where others are in their lives at any given moment is what ultimately counts in making our world a better place to live.

In my next post, I will talk about why I'm still affiliated.

Until then, stay faithful.

 


 

THEISTIC RELIGION

Is there any relevance to theistic religion?

If one were strictly listen to a number of renowned intellectuals who decry the ignorance of those who claim to be theists, one might feel ashamed for having any beliefs that include the existence of an unknown, out-there-other that got everything we know as the universe going, including ourselves and that actually gives a damn about what's going on, including one's own small and, relatively speaking, insignificant life.

It's a stretch, isn't it?

But it's a stretch we humans have been doing since the dawn of our species.  I have talked about the emergence of theism in  past posts (See Religion and Religious Intuition) so I won't bother with that here.

If my definition of religion is broad, so too is my definition of theism.  Any ideological belief that addresses the issue of an out-there-other is included in my definition of theistic religion.  As such, the term, "God" would only be considered an indicator of theism, not it's full definition. Atheists, in their belief that there is no God, are, by their ideological denial of a out-there-other, theists.

Those who believe in spiritualism, a higher power, or who have their doubts about such things are theists because they have an interest in that field.  In other words, there are relatively few, within the parameter of this definition, who would not be considered theists of some sort.  This is not said to offend those who deny a belief in a god or a higher power, but rather to emphasize the fact that denial of a belief is necessarily premised on the belief being denied.  In fact, it would appear that believing something is much easier than not believing something, since to deny a premise requires its acknowledgement, it's existence, and then, through a rational process, work out why such a premise is false.  It's a matter of math.  It's far easier to add than to take away.

Theism appears engrained in us at some level. I recently heard Richard Dawkins admit on a TV program to singing Christmas carols during the Christmas season even though he is an ardent atheist. I believe he admitted to being a cultural Christian, which I was glad to hear him say because it was honest and took nothing away from his being an atheist.

OMNIPRESENCE

The point being is that theism is everywhere.  It is engrained in us culturally and socially, if not genetically.  To not believe something others believe in requires an exercised reason.  It seems to me that people are, for the most part, ready to believe something or believe in something without much reasoning. Sincere skepticism requires far more thought than a ready credibility.

 Beliefs can be altered over time.  They can evolve into near fact or they become memetic, almost genetic.   As I have alluded to in a past post, theistic religion is culturally engrained into every society that even where ardent secular governments actively attempt to systemically eradicate its presence through harassment or persecution they ultimately fail in such endeavors.  Historically speaking, persecutions of a theistc religion have resulted in strengthening that religion. 

ENDURANCE

With the emergence of secular religion during the Enlightenment, reason was presented as an antidote to faith.  Ironically, both secularists and most theists have wrongfully equated faith with belief.  An easy mistake to make since our understanding of faith and belief, both in secular and theistic religion, is based on its association with the Greek word pistis, which is used to connote both, depending on contextual usage.

During the enlightenment  brilliant men saw theism as a block to the light of pure reason.  As such, there were those who actively sought to end the out-there-other concept of God and replace it by epitomizing human reasons which was sometimes depicted as a metaphorical goddess representing wisdom or reason.

Ironically, the Enlightenment sparked a theistic revival in western Europe and the newly formed United States.  Yet the notion that theistic religion was an opiate used by powerful churches and the royalty to garner power and hold the vast majority of people enthralled, would reach its height during and after the First World war, when communism and other national socialisms actively took control of everything. In Russia, churches were simply closed and religious practices stopped. Theists were actively persecuted.

After more than  seventy years of suppression, Russian Orthodoxy sprung to life with the abolition of the Soviet Union.  Systemic persecution of a belief system, no matter how far fetched it may be, that poses no direct threat to others will attract adherents. Something that requires suppression reveals the power of whatever is being suppressed.  Someone killed for being faithful to their beliefs makes those beliefs very powerful.

A TWIST OF TERMS

This understanding has gained some relevance today. Terms like martyrdom and persecution have become catch phrases by those who feel that their theologies are being encroached upon by godless secularism.  The appeal to the notion of martyrdom has enjoyed a comeback by Islamic terrorists who have given its meaning a new twist, someone who is willing to blow themselves up to kill and create havoc on others.

In the United States the recent Supreme Court's decision to permit same-sex marriage has led some fundamentalists Christians to declare that they feel Christians are being persecuted. The response of some of them is to advocate the execution of all homosexuals.   There is no small amount of irony in in martyrs who martyr others or in the persecuted who advocate the martyrdom and persecution of others.

POWER

As mentioned in my last post, religion is about power:  the appeal to power, the generation of power, and use of power.   In theism the generation of power is not derived from people, per se, but is or was understood as bestowed by an out-there-other, derived from spiritual discipline, or derived from acts of kindness.  Power in theism in more about the force of influence than the force of aggression, but that wasn't always the case.

There has been a slow transition, in my opinion, from power bestowed for aggressive purposes in ages before the Axial period to understanding the power of shaping ideas since that time. To be truthful this has not be a smooth transition.  Power as control is still alive in theism, but as there is an increasing divide between secular and theistic religion, the use of power for aggressive purposes is diminishing as power exercised for aggressive purposes is mostly a matter of secular religion.

DIFFERNTIATING PARADIM

That organized theism of churches, mosques, and temples exercise power in the sense that power is appealed to, generated, and used in the same manner as in the secular religious world is simply the fact that theistic institutions that do so are functioning as secularists rather than theists.  There has always been a struggle between these two religious views regarding the right appeal, generation and use of power.   To borrow from Christian theology some two thousand years ago, there is the concept of being in the world but not of the world.  This is largely in reference to use of power or how to see power.  The notion of being in the world, but not of the world is to see power differently.  Christianity, for the most part, has never been able to fully put into practice this central tenant, but its existence demonstrates the differentiating paradigm of religion at work which helped create the idea of secular and theistic world view. 

Theocracies

Theocracies have nothing to do with theism.  Their appeal to power is based on a time when the differentiation between what is secular and theistic did not exist.  The Holy Bible is a good example of this.  While Christian churches, for example, are quick to say after any reading of scripture in a liturgically orientated worship service, "The word of the Lord," quite often what they read is more a historical account of the secular practices or mindset of a bygone era in which the secularism clearly exhibited (the reasoned and rational approach to some problem that required a strategy of some kind) is attributed to a miraculous intervention by God.  If you read these accounts closely, there are other explanations for the so-called miraculous, especially when it comes to military conquests or  some type of strategic engagement. 

Theocracies are largely anachronistic.  Their appeal to some religious fundamentalists and zealots is a cover for what is truly being sought, secular power, the power over others that is not derived from the other, but rather usurped as being bestowed by God.  This is no longer a tenable position for a theist to take. 

GETTING BACK TO BASICS

I find it interesting that Pope Francis, the head of what is both a secular and theistic religious institution, at a recent meeting with Italian bishops condemned the secular use of power rampant in the Italian church.  His appeal to a power that is not fearful of poverty or dealing with the oppressed and the suppressed, at getting down and dirty in the work of changing the hearts and minds of the faithful in his own church is attempt to restore a theistic understanding of the role of power which is in keeping with the central teachings of Christianity; a power that is meant to influence and change the hearts of people, to be more compassionate, more caring, to see oneself in the other.

The ultimate use of power in theism, of any kind or type of theism, is to not only treat the other as one's self but to see the other as one's self. 


THE PROPHETIC VOICE

Theistic religion maintains the prophetic voice - the Self that observes the self.  Whether one believes in the out-there-other, or who believes in the interconnectedness of all living things, or sees one's self and the world being part of something greater than the sum of all things past, present, and yet to come, there is a sense of belonging that transcends mere belief and ideology.  Theism addresses the personal questions of who am I and why am I on a personal and universal level.  This is largely an intuition - a sensed feeling that almost every person has at some level or another.  That it may have a scientific explanation or a philosophical one does not minimize its importance.  It makes us the caring and compassionate beings we can be or become.  It drives us to vigilance in what we do and how behave.  It points out to us the ignored obvious that is so often the hallmark of secular religion in its frequent overt reasoning and rationalizing way.

THE ART OF LIVING

Most importantly, theism opens us to the art of living, to the visual arts, to the literary arts, to music, dance, to culinary arts, to the creative activities that deepen meaning and give us joy and moments to ponder our own humanity.

Worship should always be an artful event and art is always an act of worship. 

When I enter an art museum, I enter into a temple.  On a recent visit to Modern Museum of Art in New York City, I could not help but observe the people standing in awed silence before Van Gogh's Starry Night.  It was if there was incense and candles light burning somewhere, so heavy was the sense and scent of awe being exhibited by those and myself standing in front of this inspiring work of art.   

Both secularism and theism is needed in our world.  I do not see them as being diametrically opposed, but that each needs the other to form the grist of progress on a personal and social level.  Each informs the other in necessary ways. 

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In my next post, I will provide some thoughts on the topic of the "nones" - that group of unaffiliated theists whose numbers are growing and what this movement away from traditional theism possibly means.

Until then, stay faithful.