World Religions Final Part Three

Ethics 
Can we claim which paths are rabbit trails or authentic? This seems to be the primary concern of the mega-church. A quick test is to look at the measure of love of God, neighbor or self. But how could we really with any integrity? It would be like a climber speaking with authority about paths on the other side of the mountain that he has never been on. The climber may read about these paths in books or have talked to another climber on that particular side. This then, would prove to the climber that all paths seem to be heading to the same place. But any serious climber knows that only those who have climbed the path can speak with authority about where it leads and how it gets there. Once again, to say that there are "other mountains" is a poly-mountain idea and I'm only talking in a mono-mountain context. Nor is it good to assume that all are going up. Taoism seems to state that we should be content with where we are an interact naturally and non-utilitarian with our contexts and those we find in it. The Abrahamic faiths are the ones that seem most concerned about getting to the top and pondering what’s up there. The point being, we should listen to one another and hear what they have to say about their journey.

If people of other faiths want to swap faithful stories of their path and journey up the mountain, then great! In fact, I get a better handle on my faith when I hear these stories. If people of other faiths with whom we are in dialog decide to convert to our path as a result of this sharing, fine! However, conversion is not the ultimate purpose here of interfaith dialogue, sharing the joy and wisdom gleaned from our climbing experience is.

All We Have Is Metaphor 
Religions are like art, poetry, not science. It is after spiritual truths and seeking the best way to live, one that is in tune with a wider and more transcendent reality. I don’t know what to call this, so throughout this paper I have called it God, even though I recognize that other religions don’t have this concept. All we really have is metaphor to describe this experience. Hell, that’s all we have to describe anything! The word apple isn’t the essence of the little red/green/gold thing that grows on trees.

I'm reminded on a Joseph Campbell story about a tribe in Australia whose social order was maintained with the aid of bullroarers which are long flat boards with a couple of slits cut in them and a rope tied at one end. They are swung around over one's head and the low humming sound is other worldly. When the gods were angry the men of the tribe would sound the bullroarers in the woods at night. No one in the tribe knew this of course. The males of the tribe would explain why the gods were angry and what behavior had to change. In the initiation rite of young men into manhood in the tribe is very violent and bloody. Its culmination is the revelation to the boy by the chief priest of "We make the noises."

I believe we do. The noises we make are us trying to attach meaning to the experience of living. Most noises are self-generated and self-interpreted in this model and it seems to be about control. I have no interest in this. My future ministry will be about trying to get behind the buzz of the bullroars and experience the true sounds of the world. Sometimes God is in the thunderstorm, or earthquake, but often God is in the nothing. Just a still small voice in the wilderness. My ministry will be trying to get behind the feedback and attach some meaning to the shared existence of the community I will serve based on the tradition we come out of, namely Christianity. I also naturally tend to look at the similarities between not only my denomination and act ecumenically, but also bring in interfaith dialog. I base this on the shear fact that I share this existence on this planet and it could have been otherwise.

We are made of stardust and tied to the universe. Life on earth is very linked and interconnected. Authoritative claims take away this connection and the church has been a large part of this. So this leads me to think that there's something behind it all... some higher order behind the chaos. I call this something God. Which leads me to a different take on the incarnation: What if we are the incarnated universe trying to figure itself out?

So with that in mind we're called to wrestle and figure it out not make super vague claims like "Jesus is the answer PERIOD" like the mega-church would say. Nor say "There is no god, objective empiricism is the only way to go" like the stalwart atheists do. We are not objective, and while we may have some access to the facts, our brains can’t connect them all as we are very limited. There is an emotional and spiritual side that must be accounted for and atheists often miss this or don’t put enough emphasis on it.

We humans are making noises to try to understand the infinite. We are putting up boundaries on something that cannot be bound and what we place there should only be looked through into the grand divine. I too will look for wisdom where I find it whether in Taoist, Buddhist, Islamic, or one of the other of the world’s great religions. The way I see it, Jesus taught from somewhere between 1 and 3 years. The records we have are spotty at best and completely spun or even fabricated toward a particular editorial slant at worst. Jesus didn’t and couldn’t have taught a comprehensive view and this becomes apparent when Christianity is compared to the vast teachings of the Buddha’s 40 year career.

What I do know is that religion can make all the dogmas and doctrines it wants, the divine won't be contained. It's knocking over fences, crossing property lines. I am compelled to follow.

World Religions Final Part Two

Views of God 
What I now see this dispute boiling down to is a fundamental disagreement on the nature of God. There are at least two different concepts for thinking about God, and both are found in the Bible and the Christian tradition. The first conceptualizes God as a supernatural being “out there” and separate from the world. This being created the world a long time ago and who may from time to time intervene within it, but largely is absent. This doesn’t keep God from demanding conformity and adherence to the Law passed down in the holy writ. In important sense this God is far and distant from our shores, is unchanging and can be fully known and experienced directly but only if the belief is correct and mediated by some hierarchy or holy writ or tradition. This is the God of Supernatural Theism. It is widespread within the Christian tradition and found also in Judaism and Islam, and could it be the majority thought of those who think about God (both believers and non). Some accept the existence of such a being, and some reject it but it is the notion of God as a supernatural being “out there” that is being accepted or rejected. I think that this first notion of God is nice, and served us well but belief in this style of God must be done away with as it cannot serve and only brings harm. It is Biblical yes, but not all of the Bible presents this vision of God. This idea of God is what I hear when conservatives speak. Deconverts from the faith, atheists and agnostics, who I’ve talked to state this model as the type of God they don’t believe in… and neither to I.

The second concept of God in the Christian tradition is quite different. God is the encompassing’ Spirit: we and everything’ that is be in God. God is not “out there” separate from the universe but rather; God is a nonmaterial layer or level or dimension of reality all around us. God is more than the universe yet the universe is in God. This is the concept of God called “panentheism.” God’s self-revelation is given and received in an earthly, worldly, human way. God is never directly present to us in self-revelation, and no one ever had a direct, personal relationship with God. God comes to us and we can know God only indirectly. It is in this indirect way that we come to know and enter into a personal relationship with God. God’s being is so different from our humanity, yet God is in us and through us, so all that we see and all that we are all parts of God yet God is bigger than the sum of all. We also know that people yearn to see God’s face and have some irrefutable evidence, like Moses and even the disciples of Christ, but “No one can see My face and live” God says to Moses and Jesus says “If you have seen me, you have seen my Father.”

Panentheism implies that God is not just close, but in and through everything. We are a part of God, yet God is still separate. God is with us and daily bears our burdens and yet is transcendent. God is with us and in us, in our midst when we pray alone with the doors shut or when two or more are gathered. There is no line between sacred and secular just like at the end of the Gospel of Mark where the curtain is torn in the temple, signifying a God which can’t be boxed, can’t be contained, and in and through all of creation. Therefore I affirm the omnipresence of God, but not the omnipotence of God. I think omnipotence of God was a bad move made in the 14th century by medieval theologians. This raises all sorts of pointless questions like “Can God create a rock so big God can’t lift it?” Instead, I prefer to view God as “omnipotentiality.” This view can be found in Exodus 3:14, right when Moses asks God for God’s name and gets the reply of “YHWH.” This has many possible meanings and for me, they are all true. YHWH could mean “I AM HE WHO IS", “HE WHO CAUSES TO BE,”"I AM WHO AM" or "I AM WHAT I AM" or “I will be what I will become.”

In Exodus 31, Moses asks to see the face of God. God tells Moses to crawl into a cave and God will put ‘his’ hand over the opening and Moses will be able to “See my behind.” This is a literal translation of the Hebrew. A deeper translation would be, “you will see where I was.” Not even Moses could see God in the present. This is a God we get only glimpses of. These highly personal encounters are still filled with mystery and, although we may experience God’s love, justice, spirit, or forgiveness directly, we should never take it for the totality of God.

Communities of God 
Community is a big deal in both Testaments and in all of the world religions we studied this semester. Religions seek to answer the question “how then shall we live?” and each comes up with a different answer as they also define a different problem that spawns that question. Christianity sees that humans have fallen out of relationship with God and need to change it while Buddhism sees the problem as suffering caused by desire from grasping at a world that isn’t there. Taoists see people who are out of tune with their own natures and Islam sees humanity as not being in submission with the will of God. All of these are plausible answers, and depending on how one’s community views life and the problems associated with it, they will use different language to articulate this. I note how each religion never comes out and states that the fundamental problem with the world is that everyone is not like us. It is nowhere in the founding documents or speeches of various religious movements. Islam comes the closest with talk of putting infidels to the sword but they have grace with the “people of the book.” There is a difference between missional and imperial. But what happens when people don’t adopt your faith? What happens when religions come into conflict?

Many Christians, like the mega-church, seek to save people from the fires of hell and feel they do so out of love. However, many of their actions are imperial, which is the very notion I view Jesus as fighting against. Jesus fought against the imperial actions of the Roman Empire as well as a more localized system which dehumanized its own members, namely the Temple System. What I view Jesus teaching primarily, is that there is no such thing as a personal relationship with God without a personal relationship with our fellow human beings.

The driving force behind Christian colonialism is John 14:6. This verse is interpreted as: "I am the (only) way, the (only) truth, and the (only) life, no one (absolutely no one) comes to the Father/God, except through me (by believing specific beliefs that are Christian ).” I liked what we learned in class, that through a panentheistic and Trinitarian view, this verse becomes:
"God is the way, the truth and the life, no one gets to God except through God."

Jesus isn't calling for these sheep to change shepherds; he is trying to get us to recognize that the human family is one flock, with one shepherd. What he is NOT saying is "different strokes for different folks" nor is he saying "anyone can worship the god of one's choice, it's all good, no matter what." Which faiths? They aren't identified. We may surmise that faiths that truly follow the one Shepherd actively promote the love of God, neighbor, and self as Jesus did. Jesus also states that people shouldn't worry about what path others are on. He demonstrates time and time again throughout the Gospels for his disciples to concentrate on walking their own path and offering hospitality to those they meet on along the way. The Good Samaritan parable is the core here image here with answering the question of “who is my neighbor?” with a big and surprising “EVERYONE!”

So given this, it is naive for a practitioner of any faith to claim that theirs is the only "true" path. Religions do this to garner power over those too fearful to think in this way. Now there is a difference between best path for a person to take, so long as this claim is on an individual level or at the very most a tribal level. Becoming deeply rooted in the tradition of the tribe, one is then able to act in a more universal way, as they have a strong sense of identity and are not threatened by other beliefs outside their experience. It is also my hope that these people investigate other religions and not just for the sake of putting their own faith above it or gathering apologetic fodder. There's no shame in this and in fact it leads to a better understanding of our fellow persons. My childhood priest was a Jesuit and stated that one of the best ways you can know your faith is to encounter another. We can see how our faith takes a unique approach to problems and how these intersect, conflict with, or can even be informed by another faith.

World Religions Final

this paper was written this year but explores two old posts on the blog. the first being 

Can there be one way to God? and the second To Clarify the Mountain here is my updated take on it, posted over three days. please check back!

World Religions Final

 I am writing this paper on how I will use what I learned in the world religions class in my future ministry. I will have to get creative here as I have always planned on using world religions in my future ministry, specifically Buddhism. The purpose of this paper is to explore how my views of world religions have changed. This paper will be a conversation with my past-self, based on two blog posts I wrote at the beginning of seminary.

The blog post was written on 12/11/07 after reading about how Christianity is the best religion and how ONLY Christianity has the truth. It was written by the pastor of a mega-church my sister was attending. My sister asked me for my thoughts and I responded. It is a rather long post, so I will just hit the highlights in this paper and then see how I relate to it today, after taking my world religion’s class. I will then conclude by how I intend to use world religions in my future ministry.

The Mountain Metaphor 
The mega-church attacked the “mountain metaphor.” The metaphor states that major world religions are like hikers climbing up different sides of a mountain. Each tradition has discovered a unique route for reaching the top. In the case of Christianity and others, they have found a new route off of another (Judaism) established way up the mountain. Now while these hikers are climbing, they cannot necessarily see one another. Individuals within the climbing parties may not even be aware that others are ascending the mountain as they may think they are making the ascent alone. Yet when they reach the top, the climbers are surprised to find one another. Each party has reached the same goal by a different route. I added the caveat to the metaphor that each path adds its own boundaries which define the path, thus taking a deontological ethical view of the groups and stating that all unethical routes cannot reach the top.

The mega-church claimed that this was religious relativism and that not all paths were seeking the top nor defining the top in any way that could be widely agreed upon so, they concluded, it obviously meant that there are different mountains. It is the Christian mountain that is of the most importance as the other mountains were false or didn’t reach as high. I argued back on the basis of relativism is a scientific fact, but now I see the metaphor differently. I still view relativism as an important factor but that was not the basis I should have argued on. I should have argued on the basis of what the mountain represents. In my understanding, the mountain symbolizes earth. All of the different faiths are all on the same mountain and they must learn to get along or the mountain will quickly become an unhappy place. There is an assumption that there is only one mountain since if things were not going well, people could simply find another mountain to be on; one free of the group that troubles them. I would love to find a mountain free of religious fundamentalists; however, this is not the case. Seeing as all the hikers are on the same mountain it presupposes that there is only one context in that the metaphor can operate. We can’t go to another planet; we are forced to figure out how to peacefully coexist with other faiths.

The mega-church countered that the roads are on different mountains as they lead in fundamentally different directions and end on completely different summits. They went so far as to state the summits are different (false) gods. I found it ironic that a Christian church would try this route as this argument by its very nature is polytheistic. There is no accounting for anthropological and theological evolution and history. The argument doesn't take into effect agnostic or “atheistic” faiths like Buddhism or Taoism which do indeed have many deities, but no overarching “creator” of the ultimate. The church also didn’t take into account the gods that came before the Jewish God was ever thought of. By that same argument, we then would still be on the losing side of the argument as our Christian God is actually the Jewish God in three parts which somehow equal one.

I asked in the post as to whether God would allow for different routes, each with its own integrity. A Buddhist may find a way to the top through withdrawal from the world, while a Christian may find it through immersion into the world on behalf of justice. Wouldn't God be in both places if God is everywhere and created everything? The church stated no, there can be only one right way, and that way is the “narrow way” of Jesus. I countered that the routes up the mountain engage different terrain, with different obstacles and challenges, different vistas, and different places of rest. This fact illustrates that God's plan for the world is larger than our human minds can comprehend. Despite significant differences of approach to God, we are all included in God's love, which exceeds beyond our wildest imagination.

My view then and now accounts that God would only speak to people in a language that they would understand, using images pulled from their natural context. In that sense, God is relative. It would make no sense if Jesus came and talked about germ theory or the placebo effect while he was healing people as it would make no sense to them. He, taking the view that Jesus is indeed divine somehow, would have to talk about disease-as-demonic-possession as that is how people in the context understood disease. Maybe he did talk about germ theory and such but because the eye-witnesses had no idea what he was talking about and so it didn’t make it to the Gospels but that is my speculation.

Pure Religion

There is no such thing as a “categorically pure” religion. It is simply a myth and a potentially dangerous one.

Many streams of my own faith state that they are either the first and true church (Roman Catholics and all the various Orthodox claim this) or a return to the true faith of Christ (which is everyone else). Jesus’ faith was based on a Jewish worldview at a time of oppression. Jesus’ followers went global after his death and what resulted was their own interpretation of who Jesus was coming into conflict with Greco-Roman philosophies (hence the strong Aristotelian and Platonic emphasis) or North African faiths and philosophies (Origen, Augustine, Tertullian, and ecstatic prayer/worship practices). So Christianity wasn’t pure from the on-set! Paul’s letters really expose the diversity of Christian thought and practice as he wrote so much about how one can be Gentile and uncircumcised over against those who disagreed (aka the Super Apostles), and against the Gnostics. So it is my basic assumption that religions adapt, change, and cross-pollinate.

We see this in all major religions, divergent belief systems as the faiths grow and change and meet new contexts.

This changing and adaptation is nature and should be embraced. What doesn’t change in nature soon goes extinct. There are some notable exceptions like the horseshoe crab and alligators and crocodiles that haven’t really changed since they were hanging out with the dinosaurs, but for the most part everything is influx and adapting to new situations. Thus all religions reflect a lived reality. The best and most popular religions are ones that are both pragmatic and metaphoric. These religions seem to give people words for their experience of the world, and the ritual and theology that follow these stories work in the believer’s every day context.