All that we currently understand being a Christian to be has been conditioned by our being modern.
I wonder if I’m underemphasizing the ways that modernity twisted and deformed the Christian message.
All of our “Christian” institutions – seminaries, radio stations, denominations, Bible studies, and so on – are in fact modern inventions. Within the world of the church, almost every influence is a modern one.
I feel that we are potentially on the verge of a genuine spiritual awakening. The spiritual resurgence that I see brewing is unconventional and even irreverent at times, largely developing outside the boundaries of our institutional religion.
There is a story about a guy who had two objects hanging from his rear-view mirror: a Christian crucifix and a Native American dream catcher. My guess is that this driver respects Christianity but finds something lacking in the modern version that we have presented him with. Native American spirituality, represented by the dream catcher, is more connected to creation. It’s more holistic, more mystical; it fulfils what he feels is missing in modern Christianity.
I’m scared. The kinds of things I’m thinking will surely be considered heresy. How many Christians do I know who could accept that there is a difference between “our version of Christianity” and any other version of Christianity that could possibly be “right”? Even harder to accept might be the idea that while the modern version was right (by “right,” of course, I mean appropriate, not perfect) for five hundred years (just as the medieval version had been appropriate for a thousand years), the modern version might not be right for the next leg of the journey. Wow, that sounds relativistic.
But maybe I’m still not going far enough. Maybe talking about our version of Christianity being appropriate to modernity is a cop-out. I can’t get the thought out of my mind that our modern version of Christianity may have been so shaped by modernity’s pressures as to be severely deformed, distorted. But we can’t even see it.
Lord, can I trust you beyond my own theological understanding? Can I acknowledge you even in the midst of what feels a lot like doubt?
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2 comments:
Reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend the other night regarding what we called the "evolutionary" nature of God . . . that our understanding of God unfolds very, very slowly over time and at no point in the journey are we quite convinced that the evolution is complete.
i've been thinking a lot about madame jeanne-marie bouvier de la motte guyon lately. the poor dear was branded a heretic back in the 1600's simply because she had found a new, deeper way of relating to God. her mysticism scared king louis simply because it challenged his authority-his "divine" authority i might add.
it kind of makes me think of today. perhaps we will be branded "heretics" for all this, but why? because we're challenging the "divine authority" of the modern church? because in our own mystical ways we may have reached an intimacy within our community and with God that scares people?
after leaving our group on thursday night i got in a long, emotional conversation with my father. at one point he admitted that part of the reason he had left the episcopal church many years ago was because he began to see our priest in a very humanistic way. my father said it was quite disturbing to see these human tendencies come out. the conversation later shifted to why i left the episcopal church (before my parents did) when i was still young. most of it was due to my confirmation class where anytime i asked a question i was shot down by our priest-it almost made him angry. my father admitted that he didn't know why our priest would be so stern and harsh with me, but that for him to admit that he didn't have all the answers to our class may have injured some of the other believer's faith.
i thought about this for awhile. we argued back and forth as to whether it is better for a priest/pastor to simply lie so that the congregation can believe that there is an ultimate reality, that we should always aspire to be one day like our priest- or is it better for them to admit their doubts and questions. in the end, we had to agree to disagree.
"God does not resolve". this is something i've been thinking about a lot lately thanks to some reading material from ken. i think its what most people want-for God and our faith to resolve someday. that one day we will be like our priest.
"real". this is the other thing i've been pretty focused on. i think many people still within what we call the "modern" church are struggling with this simple word. what we do when we dialogue at wellspring and thursday nights is very real. the fact that none of us transition in and out of different facades is real. we admit who we are openly and honestly. how completely heretical, right?
oh, and by the way, i'm still waiting on a course at HBU to teach about ms. guyon. wouldn't that be intersting?
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