Mystical Seeker

How does being nice relate to how we resist the powers that oppress us? What would being nice entail? The dominant forces in the Empire, those who deny social justice, and those who oppress, might not consider it very "nice" when we resist them, even nonviolently, even peacefully. Is nonviolence the same as being nice?

We could do worse than have a world full of people following Jesus's ethics. That being said, my own belief is that Jesus's teachings were not just ethical, but also social, political, and theological, and I think that all of those different aspects of his teachings were wrapped up together in the Kingdom of God. To be a follower of Jesus means, in my view, to take seriously all of those teachings. I believe that Jesus preached and lived the inbreaking Kingdom of God by challenging the earthly Kingdom of Rome. It isn't just about being nice. It is about living out God's kingdom on earth. It is about bringing about social justice, it is about challenging religious orthodoxy when it oppresses us, and it is about understanding that loving God means loving one's neighbor and creating a peaceful, just world. My two cents worth, anyway.

Joseph Spong wrote in Why Christianity Must Change or Die that steeples are an architectual expression of reaching heavenward, and so he objects to steeples as representing an outdated world view that placed heaven and God physically above the world in the sky, instead of immanent within the world. I have no idea if this is Michael Durall's objection or not. I was a participant for many years in the Quaker tradition, and I know that the Quaker meetinghouses I visited had no stained glass or organs, and during meetings for worship I generally sat in chairs rather than pews. But those sorts of things were largely a manifestation of Quaker simplicity. If you aren't a Quaker, I really don't see any problem with stained glass or organs. I do think that churches can be ostentatious and grandiose in their design some times, but I also think that art can uplift the soul. As for potlucks, I really don't see why that would cause any problem.

I have to admit that I am not particularly concerned about how conservative Christians would brand me or my denomination if there were a realignment. One major reason why I am sympathetic towards the idea of a realignment is so that I can go my own way in peace without having to justify my presence in a denomination to its conservative elements. Conservatives are going to brand me regardless of whether I am in their denomination or outside it. I would rather that they branded me from another denomination than from within my own. If they aren't a part of my denomination, then I really don't have to listen to them, I don't have to subject myself to their attacks against my right to be in the same denomination as theirs, I don't have to justify my presence in the denomination to them, and, quite frankly, their intolerant attacks against me and those like me just become irrelevant. It makes all the difference in the world to me whether such attacks come from within or from the outside.

I think you make an important point about the importance of not simply replacing one dogma with another. It is inevitable that there will be differences of theological opinion among progressive Christians. The question then remains as to how you bring people together, given those differences, and how you decide which differences matter and which ones don't. I actually happen to agree with Spong thatt here is no physical intervention by God (if that is indeed what he believes). But I do have other differences with Spong's conception of God. Spong rejects what he calls "theism", instead believing in a Tillich-like God who is the Ground of Being. What this means exactly in Spong's case isn't entirely clear to me. He seems to deny being a pantheist, but when push comes to shove he also seems to be denying all conceptions of transcendence in the Divine nature, and he is instead equating God with some truer, deeper reality of the existing world, which sounds an awful lot like what pantheists believe (I remember once having a pantheist telling me that God represents a truer, deeper reality of the world--the analogy he gave was that God is like the ocean, and we are like the waves.) I, on, the other hand, am a panentheist, and not a pantheist, and while I agree with Spong's criticisms of theologies that stress transcendence over immanence (the idea of God "out there" intervening in the world here), I do believe in a God who is both the sum of the world and also something more. I accept transcendence without accepting omnipotence, and Spong seems to be equating the true, which I believe is a fallacy. I'm not sure how much my differences with Spong really matter, since I do agree with much of his criticisms of traditional, orthodoxy Christianity. Ironically, Spong's prayers to an impersonal "Ground of Being" and my prayers to a personal panentheistic God may prove to be similar in practice, since both Spong and I reject the idea of divine intervention. On the other hand, while I agree much more with Borg's theology (Borg has explicitly described himself as a panentheist), Borg does believe in the efficacy of intercessionary prayer (through some sort of mysterious process that doesn't seem to involve God, as far as I can tell), which I do not. So in a theoretical sense, I am closer to Borg than to Spong, but in a practical sense, it appears that I am closer to Spong than I am to Borg. For me, this is a crucial element of my theology; I think that not believing in divine intervention or in the power of prayer to effect change results in a fundamentally different outlook on how one views God, and the religious life, and as such it brings forth a unique spirituality. On the other hand, to me it is also important to believe in a personal God, and that also colors the way my religion unfolds. All of which suggests that I will always remain, to use a term of Spong's, a "believer in exile", unable to really find a church that will exactly work for me.

I have not been a fan of Huston Smith since he started criticizing process theology in some of his writings.

It is worth pointing out that Paul probably didn't write the letter of Ephesians. Although it is not considered as dubious as the pastoral epistles of Titus, 1 Timothy, and 2 Timothy, it is definitely in the "doubtful" category. It is possible that the anti-egalitarian ideas expressed in Ephesias represented a backlash against some of the more egalitarian ideas that were prevalent in earlier Christianity, including what is found in some of Paul's bona fide epistles. It is worth noting that Paul wrote in Romans 16:7 of Junia, a woman, as a highly regarded apostle. Some conservatives have tried to work around that embarassing passage by interpreting it to mean that she was merely known by the apostles. I suppose just goes to show how ingrained sexism can be in certain segments of Christianity.

The difference between scientific paradigms and theological paradigms is that the scientific method isn't used in matters of theology. Theological dogma is not subjected to repeated scientific trials, using empirical methods, and published in peer reviewed journals. Evolution is true to the best of our knowledge because the scientific method discovered it to be true. Furthermore, there is no real debate between bona fide scientists on the validity of evolution; scientific revolutions really take place as a result of the voluntary decision by scientists to accept the new paradigm (a la Thomas Kuhn.) Some other scientific theories, by contrast, really are debated and controversial, and remain so until, and only until, one side voluntarily accepts the other paradigm as valid. Creationists make a false claim about evolutionists "imposing" their beliefs, when in fact there is no such imposition taking place. This isn't the same as what I see having taken place in Christianity. Note that I am distinguishing here between theological dogma and religious studies scholarships, which is or at least can be scientific. So when a scholar estimates the date of the writing of Mark to be 70 AD or so, there is at least some science that lies behind that. That is different from declaring the Trinity to be true. There is no application of the scientific method to the Nicene Creed. Whether or not one thinks that the doctrines of the trilogy make logical sense is one thing, but there isn't any real correlation between that and, for example, evolution. Ultimately, the doctrines of what became "orthodox" Christianity were imposed on Christianity as a whole by one faction. Whether or not the new orthodoxy solved problems depends on who you talked to. But the winning side got to decide what was true and what wasn't.

I think that was very well stated, and it summarizes my own views very closely. What could be more inspirational than to have a human example of someone who pointed the way to the Kingdom of God? If others feel the need to believe in miracle stories, the virgin birth, the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus, or in his literal resurrection, then more power to them. But for me and many others, the power of the religion is not in literalizing myths but in the way that Jesus epitomized the religious life as it should be led. By following not just his teachings, but his example, one can see a way to live in communion with God--and taking away his divinity doesn't make his teachings less true or his life less inspirational. It is my belief that the early Christians, including Paul, did not believe in a physical resurrection as a literal historical event, but rather they experienced Jesus post-crucifixion as a visionary and mystical presence (the evolution of how the resurrection was viewed can be traced by moving through the various and contradictory post-resurrection accounts, starting with Paul's bona fide epistles, to Mark, to Matthew, to Luke, and finally to John), and yet they found power and inspiration in his life and death. The construction of various literalizations of the myths around Jesus is not something that many of us in this postmodern world can do anymore. Instead, we are able to find a new kind of faith that moves beyond the old dogmas, dogmas that simply don't make sense to us.

In fact, early Christians disagreed often among themselves about the nature of Jesus and the nature of God. There was no "shared" theology on these issues. On the contrary, the internecine squabbles were quite serious, and they lasted for a long time. Marcionites, Ebionites, Docetists, Gnostics--the list goes on and one. Some believed that Jesus was fully human but not divine. Some believed that Jesus was fully divine but not human. The nature of God was also disputed. You see considerable evidence of these squabbles in the New Testament epistles, which were often written with the intention of promoting a position on various matters, thus indicating that such differences were there from the beginning (for example, 1 John was critical of docetism). Once a victory was declared, the winning side got to declare itself "orthodox" and all the others as heretics, and of course those scriptures that supported their position were eventually included into the canon, while others were not. Two excellent and well-researched resources on this subject are Bart Ehrman's book, "Lost Christianities" and L. Michael White's book "From Jesus to Christianity".

Interesting question. I'm not sure how to answer that myself. For me, some elements of orthodox Christian dogma really do grind against my ears. Having grown up in a fundamentalist church, I feel like I've been there, done that, and I'm tired of feeling like a lone voice against a tide of beliefs that fundamentally run counter to my understanding of the world. Do I expect to be in a community where everyone sees things exactly like I do? Of course not. But it would be nice to at least be in a community where the disagreements that do exist lives within a context of a paradigm that I am comfortable with. I feel like Spong, Borg, and others have gone a long way towards pointing us to a new paradigm that I could accept. I sometimes feel like liberal Christianity is caught between paradigms, unfortunately. To get back to the example of Unitarian Universalism--if you want to be challenged by being exposed to beliefs different than your own, that is probably a good place for that, since it revels in its diversity. Again, to me, it isn't necessarily the idea of exposure different beliefs or practices, so much as it is to be part of a process of free and liberating spirituality, that is open and non-dogmatic, grounded in Christian traditions without adhering slavishly to it or taking its myths (like the virgin birth or resurrection) literally. Some practices hold little appeal for me--my Quaker background, for example, have reinforced my aversion towards rituals like communion or baptism, but I could probably live with them even if they aren't my thing. But it is the literalization of myths that I have the biggest problem with. I want to be part of a religion that is both spiritual and sensible. Mobilizing for social action is a good thing, in my view. By their fruits shall you know them, and those are good fruits. If a community mobilizes for social action, it is doing God's work in some small way, in my view, even without the great spirituality. I think there is room for relgious communities that are about community and social action. I have no problem with such communities. I would just like to be part of something more. I feel a religious thirst that isn't being properly quenched.

I have nothing against the UU denomination per se. It does seem to satisfy what some people are looking for, and for those individuals, I think it's fine that they have found a home. And it is possible that some congregations are more spiritually focused than others are, or even that some are more Christian than others (some research on the UU Christian Fellowship indicates that there are some churches with a Christian focus.) But I personally never been fully satisfied when I've attended UU services. It just doesn't quite meet what I am looking for.

A book on Islam that I would highly recommend is "No god but God" by Reza Aslan.

I believe that it is certainly possible to get people to be challenged and to follow a spiritual path without giving them a dogma that they can't accept. And it isn't simply a case of either following Jesus or having no religion at all; if that were true, the world wouldn't have so many non-Christian religions out there. I can't speak for David, who is now (as I understand it) gone from this forum, but in response to his own quest I offered my own take on it; and what I sought was something that had the spirituality of mainline Christianity (which I see lacking in UU churches) while eschewing the more traditional premodernist dogma and its associated creeds. Far from being a mere academic exercise, my own desire was indeed to pursue a spiritually based religious community, but one grounded in a new paradigm. If I wanted to participate in a more dryly academic response to religious impulses, I could always attend a UU church. I was looking for something different.

Perhaps the next question is why creeds are even necessary. Not all denominations have creeds--for example, Quakers don't (and one of the reasons I was attracted to Quakerism many years ago was the fact that it is a creedless faith.)