Despite my focus on the Christian church in these articles, all of the comments and observations I will make about Christianity will apply with equal validity to the conservative and fundamental aspects of all of our worlds mainline religions; especially our monotheistic religions that include Judaism and Islam.
Because many readers will undoubtedly find these articles challenging and perhaps disturbing, I want to state clearly that I am not anti-religion, nor am I anti-faith. I believe deeply in the formation of a compassionate, enlightened spirituality. I also believe that our conservative mainline imperialistic religions, including Christianity appear to be rapidly approaching the end of their 2500 year reign.
I am coming to believe that all dualistic, primitive ego generated black-and-white claims of religious certainty, made by any religion regarding their faith beliefs, is a form of ignorance; a danger that our emerging global culture can no longer safely accept or tolerate. Each issue of the next few Newsletters will include a brief discussion of seven reforms that I believe are urgently needed. I will include what I think will be some of the specific implications or changes that will be required by each of those reforms for Christianity and our other mainline religions to successfully survive in the 21st century. Some of these reforms will have significant impact on the shape of Christianity as we move into the future.
The primitive ego claim or belief that all truth is contained in the tenants of any single religion is the foundation of religious fundamentalism. Any individual, religious institution, or religious scripture that claims to possess absolute truth, or claims to be the only true path to God, is manifesting a self-indulgent and dangerous form of ignorance. Because such claims are the primary cause of conflict and violence in today's world, and threaten the very foundations of our human society; perhaps even our survival as a species, I am seeing a growing consciousness globally that claims of religious superiority are simply becoming too dangerous to any longer be ignored or tolerated by the rest of the civilized world.
Of course, there are individual pastors and laity in all denominations of our mainline religions who are working diligently and tirelessly to bring compassion and tolerance into the world. Sadly, I am concerned that it is a struggle they may never win. True compassion and unconditional love can only be built on a foundation of "emptiness of ego" called "not-knowing". Rigid faith beliefs that claim to represent "ultimate truth" are never compatible with true compassion. The good that these people accomplish appears unable to overcome the ignorance and evil created by the imperialistic faith beliefs of their church's conservative theology. I see this as true for all of the monotheistic religions.
Whenever our primitive ego insists that our faith beliefs are "right", and the faith beliefs of others are "wrong" when they disagree with us, the consequence of such behavior is the creation of judgmentalism, criticism, and emotional conflict. When our primitive ego insists that our religious beliefs represent absolute truth, there is no way we can avoid deeply offending those of other faiths who have their own deeply held beliefs. When people are offended by our religious imperialism, and our blatant criticism and judgmentalism of their religious beliefs, they understandably become angry with our arrogance and narcissism. When this kind of anger begins to grow in another religious culture, it can easily escalate into global violence.
As we have seen in the last several Newsletters, no matter how hard we try to ignore the reality, it is becoming painfully clear that the current black-and-white primitive ego thinking process, upon which virtually every mainline religion is constructed, appears to be incapable of helping humanity create a compassionate global culture. Because of the rigidity and religious imperialism of their faith beliefs, they are simply not capable of sustaining a non-judgmental compassion. Their primitive ego based need for "certainty of their unverifiable faith beliefs" creates an intolerance that causes them to lose contact with their hearts.
Although both make the claim, neither Islam nor Christianity has the "one true path" to God. The truth is, all paths to God are valid. Even though it seems to work for some countries in the Western world, democracy is not the only way to govern a country; especially when it is forced onto other countries militarily. When any government, including ours, or religion, including Christianity or Islam, attempts to force their ideologies or theologies onto others, they are reflecting the primitive ego assumption that they and they alone possess the truth.
Of course, this reality is easier to see and understand when we are talking about Islamic terrorism. It is always easier to see when it is someone else's issue. Regardless of who is generating the violence, our tolerance as a species for the violence created by religious or political institutions that insist that truth can only be found in their particular religion or political ideology is growing thin. Eventually, the civilized nations of the world are going to have to confront this kind of thinking.
The violence created by dualistic thinking of the primitive ego is found in all religious and political fundamentalisms and in the conservative literal interpretation of all religious scriptures. It is becoming clear that compassion cannot simply be a goal for each of us as individuals; it must quickly become the primary goal of each of our mainline religions. The founder of every mainline religion taught the importance of compassion and now the religions of the world must rapidly and voluntarily return to those roots.
Unless mainline religions of the world voluntarily undergo significant reform, the social and political institutions of the world will have no choice but to impose legal and economic sanctions to curtail the power and influence of all religion. It is obvious that religious imperialism is an evil that threatens our very existence as a species and it will eventually need to be dealt with. It is universally accepted that it is simply a matter of time before religious terrorists, whose mandate for violence comes directly from God, get their hands on weapons of mass destruction.
The consciousness of the modern world is increasingly recognizing that the path that religion is currently leading us down is simply too dangerous and unstable; our current global tolerance and indifference toward black-and-white primitive ego claims of absolute truth in our mainline churches "unverifiable religious faith beliefs" needs to end. A compassionate global culture plainly cannot be created on a foundation of conflict and violence.
The tolerance human culture has shown in the past toward religious intolerance is ending. To avoid outside secular economic and political restraints, institutional churches of all mainline religions are eventually going to have to voluntarily adopt, and then show that they are self-enforcing religious reforms.
The following seven reforms that I will offer in this and several future Newsletters are areas of reform that I believe will need to be addressed by all of our mainline religions and religious denominations. The order in which the reforms are presented in the next few newsletters does not indicate their relative importance. They are all inter-related and I believe they are all going to be required, in one form or another, for the mainline churches of the world to survive without outside interference, and provide humanity with effective moral and ethical guidelines that are going to be needed to manage the inevitable changes that are coming in the 21st century.
Reform #1)
Mainline religions in the 21st century will need to teach that true spirituality and authentic spiritual growth are always about enlightenment, growth in self-awareness, and compassion; that compassion and rigid unverifiable faith beliefs are not compatible.
The stated goal of all mainline religions, especially Christianity, is the ability to manifest compassion. Thus, the only true measure of a 21st century religion's spiritual growth effectiveness will have little to do with religious beliefs or unity of thought; it will be based primarily on the sustained ability of its members to manifest concrete acts of loving-kindness.
It seems to me that the right of any religious institution to publicly ridicule or criticize the religious beliefs of another religious faith by insisting that it alone is the "one true path to God" is a narcissistic form of ignorance simply too dangerous and irresponsible to be allowed to continue.
Implications of Reform #1
A healthy and viable church in the 21st century will need to teach that;
- an authentic spirituality is empathic and sensitive to the needs of others.
- authentic spirituality is based on an emptiness of ego referred to as an attitude of "not knowing".
- an authentic spirituality is rarely individually or institutionally self-focused or self-serving.
- authentic spiritual growth is the result of intentional spiritual practices that are focused on the development of a deep self-consciousness and self-knowledge; in other words, a focus on the beam in one's own eye.
- an authentic spirituality is about the transformation of self, never about changing others.
Reform #2)
Mainline religions in the 21st century will need to practice and teach a matured middlepath consciousness; an enlightened observing ego thinking process that struggles to eliminate primitive ego black-and-white dualism by searching for the truth in all positions.
Middlepath spirituality, or a middlepath consciousness, simply means finding the gray, middle ground between the black and white extremes of any issue. Articulating the dualistic outer extremes of any issue is always helpful as a way to define the limits of an issue. However, there are always aspects of truth on both sides of an issue that need to be embraced and acknowledged. Paraphrasing the well-known author and philosopher Wendell Berry 'the extremes of any issue are helpful in that they define the territory, but one cannot live on the outer boundaries, one can only live in the territory between them.'
The middlepath is not a place or a literal path; it is an attitude; a way of being. It is an enlightened place of peace, non-judgmental oneness and unity, silence, listening, openness, a "not knowing" or "emptiness of ego", non-violent, conflict free, compassion, community, and unconditional love. One can encounter God, the Initiating Consciousness of the Creator only on the middlepath.
Implications of Reform #2
Religions in the 21st century will need to;
- understand and teach that labels or beliefs that create a sense of "otherness" will always lead to conflict, pain, and suffering.
- middlepath spirituality is learning to live with "what is", not what our egos think reality "should" be, to experience reality directly without needing to change it,.
- recognize the when there is an aspect of reality that is unjust or creates pain and needs to change, that change happens best when the old ways simply no longer make any sense, and that all change happens only when we are willing to become the change that is required.
- that a middlepath consciousness means knowing that there are no objective absolute truths in this finite human world, only subjective relative truths. When we embrace a middlepath spirituality, we are choosing to live without certainty as mature adults; to live with the gray of paradox and uncertainty.
- to understand that the middlepath is an attitude, not a place. That the middlepath is where we encounter God.
- teach the middlepath skills and matured behaviors required for the formation of peaceful human community; including active listening, empathy, finding the truth in the other persons point of view, and a willingness to set one's ego aside and embrace not-knowing, an emptiness of ego.
- the middlepath is a place of humility.
- that middlepath spirituality means that we do not "do" compassion, we "become" compassion, and that compassion, unity, and unconditional love are found "only" on the middlepath.
- teach the importance of embracing the inclusiveness and diversity of systemic thinking; the concept that all of creation is connected and inter-dependent; that nothing in creation stands alone or can survive alone.
- encourage independent thinking and open inquiry and dialog on all religious beliefs.
- teach that no human construct, including religious scriptures, are inerrant.
- teach that no human beings, including the Pope or other theocratic religious leaders, are inerrant, infallible, or have a direct phone line to God.
In the next issue of the Stonyhill Newsletter I will continue to explore the Future of the Christian Church in the 21st Century in part 2 of this article.
(This article will be concluded in Part 3 in the next issue of the Stonyhill Newsletter.)
PERSONAL THOUGHTS
The future of Christianity and our other imperialistic mainline religions is doubtful. They are the primary source of the intolerance, conflict, and violence we are experiencing in the world today. Their claims of "ultimate truth" based on a theology created by a superstitious, pre-modern culture that died several thousand years ago, and their total disregard or rejection of 300 years of modern biblical scholarship that undeniably dismantles all claims of scriptural inerrancy, are an embarrassment to my 21st century consciousness.
I am no longer willing to remain silent and suffer the embarrassment I feel when intolerant, conservative and fundamental Christians presume to speak for me. Their intolerance and lack of compassion for those they label as sub-human, and their black-and-white unwillingness to embrace modern scientific knowledge or three hundred years of modern biblical scholarship represent a form of ignorance that I can no longer tolerate or accept.
Christians are supposed to, at a minimum, stand for justice, compassion, and concrete acts of loving-kindness toward others. The secretive lust for power of the "Christian" theocracy that the current administration in Washington is attempting create should be an offensive insult and a major embarrassment to any authentic Christian with ethical or moral integrity.
President Bush, a president who openly admits that God speaks directly to him as a Christian, just vetoed a bill that would have stopped all forms of "military" or "intelligence" torture of all prisoners of war held by the American government. Human torture in the name of patriotism is rejected by virtually all civilized people and civilized nations of the world, and is the very antithesis of Christian morality.
Not only does this veto send an embarrassing and dangerous message of imperialism and disregard for human life to other foreign countries, even Gen. David Petraeus, his top military general in charge of the Iraq war, said publicly that torture is almost never effective and the results of its use are never trust worthy; it is not needed or necessary. President Bush may be president of our country for another nine months, but "Christian" he is not. True Christians do not torture other human beings.
I will continue this discussion on the future of the Mainline religions in the 21st century in the next issue of the Stonyhill Newsletter.
SPIRITUAL PRACTICE
We are all guilty of prejudice and intolerance. Both of these concepts are excellent subjects for meditation if our goal is to grow in self-awareness and discover the beam in our own eye.
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