by Rev. Dr. Rod Romney
Mainline Christianity is not doing well these days. Most mainline denominations are losing members at rapidly increasing rates. The Roman Catholic Church has so far lost approximately 6 million members as a result of the sexual scandals plaguing its priests. My denomination, American Baptist, has suffered loss, division and fractures over the issue of homosexuality, the most recent being a division within the Pacific Northwest Region. All denominations are suffering numerical losses for different or various reasons.
The Bama Research Organization, which does demographic research on churches and church-goers, recently reported that the typical Protestant church in this country has 89 adults in attendance during an average weekend, and that this represents 60% of the Protestant churches in America. Slightly less than 2% of the churches in America have 1000 or more adults in attendance, and these tend to be more conservative in their theology as well as in their social and political views. In the smaller churches there is less emphasis on being born again, salvation by grace alone, or on God as the ruler of the universe. Bama Research suggests that one reason these churches remain small is because they are not playing by the theological rules and biblical boundaries that have been traditionally established.
While I personally find some of Bama's standards of measurement to portray a decidedly fundamentalist flavor, with a bias toward the large conservative church as having a most productive ministry, their conclusions tell us that religious and sociopolitical conservatives outnumber liberals by a three-to-one margin among church-going adults. But they fail to acknowledge that the small church in many ways can be even more effective in changing lives and meeting social needs than the big church that is concerned mainly with itself.
I am more concerned about an even larger group in our society today that is not mentioned, the "de-churched," those who have given up on the church because of its lack of relevancy and its belief that God only speaks in a big voice (thunder-claps) and acts grandly, if at all. The de-churched are, in my opinion, searching for a spirituality of liberation, a place where they can get to know something of the shape of their own souls (which is what we mean when we talk about spiritual direction) and have their longing for liberation translated into social service that would help others. These are the people, I believe, who would respond to the mystical approach of universal love.
Nora Gallagher, a well-known writer, recently wrote that she believes mainstream denominations deserve to lose members, because they don't reach out to people, especially the disenfranchised and disinherited ones. They pay no attention to the huge changes in culture that the country has gone through in the last twenty years; they ignore the influence of therapy and psychology, and worst of all, they treat faith, God, and people's longings for these, as if all three could be domesticated, controlled and fit into one box.
Probably no place in Christianity is more divisive today than in its various interpretations and uses of scriptures. Certainly this has been true in our treatment of women, particularly those who would aspire to ministerial roles, in the ways we view homosexual persons, and in our concept of God and the role of Jesus Christ. I am thankful for the courage of certain theologians (many of them women) who are challenging these old views.
Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker in their book, "Proverbs of Ashes," (Beacon Press) have challenged Christianity's alliance with violence, beginning with the doctrine of God so loving the world that he gave his only begotten son and then calling for Jesus' obedience and death on the cross to atone for the world's sins. This, they say, has created a theology that sanctions violence and a belief that God is appeased by cruelty, even if it takes place within the family. Of course, such thinking would support our war on Iraq, following the terrorist attack three years ago on Setember 11. Indeed President Bush said, in essence, that God sanctioned the violence of that war, even though that war has now proved to be totally lacking in logic or purpose. Such a view completely ignores the clear teaching of Jesus on peaceful non-violence and love.
Elaine Pagels in her recent book, "Beyond Belief," (Random House) has offered us a new way of looking at the gospels as she traces their historic formation and the reasons why the Gospel of John was selected to be included in the canon over the Gospel of Thomas. John supports the idea of a violent God who demands belief in Jesus Christ as the only way to salvation, whereas Thomas offered a view of a loving God who indwells all persons and creatures.
Wayne Teasdale in his book, "The Mystic Heart," (New World Library) has coined a word I like: interspiritual. It means that we honor the particulars of each faith, but we move spiritually to a new level beyond tolerance and a polite acceptance of our differences. We find a new level of mystical understanding and oneness. We unite bodies, minds and spirits together in order to do a new work in the world. He calls our present time the Interspiritual Age, which is a birth into a new awareness, into a new set of historical circumstances, marking major shifts in our human understanding. He lists the following as markers of this Interspiritual Age.
1) The emergence of ecological awareness and sensitivity to the natural, organic world, with an acknowledgment of the basic fragility of the earth.
2) A growing sense of the rights of other species.
3) A recognition of the interdependence of all domains of life and reality.
4) The ideal of abandoning a militant nationalism as a result of this intangible sense of our essential interdependence.
5) A deep evolving experience of community between and among the religions through their individual members.
6) A growing receptivity to the inner treasures of the world's religions.
7) An openness to the cosmos, with the realization that the relationship between humans and the earth is part of the larger community of the universe.
Each of these shifts represent dramatic changes and will define the culture and thought of the new millennium. I would offer one more marker to his list: A clear and compelling conviction that we are called to a work of peace and justice in this world.
Teasdale offers a simple and clear distinction between religion and spirituality.
"Being religious connotes belonging to and practicing a religious tradition. Being spiritual suggests a personal commitment to a process of inner development that engages in our totality. Religion, of course, is one way many people are spiritual. Often when authentic faith embodies an individual's spirituality, the religious and the spiritual will coincide. Still, not every religious person is spiritual (although they ought to be!), and not every spiritual person is religious." (op. cit., p. 17)
Perhaps the most notable distinction between religion and spirituality is that religious people depend on institutions for their direction, and thereby often shape their lives by conforming to external standards and precepts. Persons on the spiritual quest rely more on the depths of their own being, both their weaknesses as well as their strengths, to plumb the depths of ultimate being. They believe God is found primarily in the heart and only secondarily in routines of worship. Religious people commit themselves to routines of liturgy, whereas spiritual persons are committed first and foremost to inner development. Religious people believe church attendance is necessary, whereas spiritual people believe church attendance is only important if it contributes to inner development. Religious people concentrate on arrival as the point of consummation (salvation), while spiritual people concentrate less on arrival and more on the journey, principally the journey of the soul toward enlightenment and wisdom. It oversimplifies the problem to say religion is external and spirituality internal, but that is partially true.
Can we bring religion and spirituality together? Do we even want to? I believe we can and we should, because religion provides something that spirituality does not necessarily offer, and that is community. Being with and worshipping with persons who are like-minded and mutually supportive is every bit as important as solitude and inner development. True spirituality, along with religion at its best, is always involved in matters of social justice and service. We can always do more together than we can do alone. This is true socially and politically, well as spiritually. Moreover, religion needs the emphasis on the inner life that spirituality provides.
Is interspirituality the new religion of the third millennium? A number of thinkers and writers, including those I have mentioned, seem to think it is. This idea is creating a planet-wide enlightened culture and a continuing community among religions that is substantial, vital and creative. I agree that interspirituality (as distinguished from interfaith) appears strongly as the road ahead, so I would like to spend a few moments outlining what I think that road would look like.
Interspirituality would not eliminate the world's rich diversity of religious expression, nor should it attempt to create a new religion. It might create a new form of spiritual culture, however, simply by making available the many forms of spirituality that have arisen from different religious traditions. For example, Christians who have studied Buddhist thought and practiced Buddhist meditation have felt their Christian experience and their relationship to Jesus Christ enhanced by this dimension. We would have the opportunity to enrich one another.
Interspirituality would conduct its search for the inner life across all traditions, in recognition of the fact that there is an essential spiritual interdependence of all religious traditions, largely because we all share in one system of life and being. "Interspirituality would not be a one-way street," says Wayne Teasdale, "but an inter-mystical intersection, where insights cross back and forth, intermingle and find new habitats." (op.cit. p. 27)
Interspirituality would recognize what the Dalai Lama calls our universal responsibility to the global community of the earth, a responsibility we all share both individually and collectively. Interspirituality would invite us to blend and balance the three patterns that characterize nearly all religions: the way of the head, the hand and the heart. Intellectual excellence is important, so is social justice and activism. But the sharing of the heart is probably the most significant of the three, for it allows genuine compassion and caring to emerge, thus drawing people closer regardless of differences in culture or religious expression.
Interspirituality already exists and has for centuries. Some from every religion have been able to recognize what Martin Buber, the Jewish philospher, saw as the purpose of life: meeting others on a level of depth and understanding. We are not seeking to replace one religion or religions with a new religion. It is not an "instead of" venture, where we replace old traditions with a new one, but rather where we work for "an addition to" what already exists.
Some viewpoints, however, may have to be sacrificed. For example, if Christians continue to believe in a narrow, legalistic interpretation of Jesus as the only path that leads to God, then interspirituality fails. We start with the Hindu aphorism that the paths are many, but the goal is the same. We are not arguing for a common path. We are aware the paths may be different. But we are agreeing that the goal we seek is essentially the same. There are many rivers but only one well.
For interspirituality to succeed it must be based on a mystical approach to faith, one that is non-dogmatic, universally loving and dedicated to peace and non-violence. We Christians have much to learn from other religions, and we also have much to give to the world. That learning and giving will not happen unless we find more than just polite, occasional ways to be together. We need places of interfaith learning, interfaith prayer and worship, occasions where interfaith wisdom and social strategies can be formulated and offered to the world in which we live.
Last summer a group of one hundred persons from different faith traditions met for a week on Orcas Island of interspiritual exploration under the leadership of a rabbi, a Moslem cleric, and a Baptist preacher (me). It proved to be so popular, people had to be turned away, and it turned out to be such a powerful and dynamic experience that we are committed to trying it again next summer. We did not meet to convert one another, we met to learn from one another and to experience the oneness of our traditions.
There are people within the Christian tradition who hunger for groups who can expand their thinking to include all religions. Many of them fit into that huge category of people I call the de-churched. The regular church, with its dogmas, rituals, and restrictions no longer appeals to their deep inner need for "something more." I suspect there are people like that in every religious tradition. They love their particular religion and are tied to it through a long history of involvement, nor are they planning to leave it. But they want something more, something wider, something more inclusive. They look upon the various religious traditions and somehow see the prayer attributed to Jesus from the Gospel of John as applying not just to the church but to every religious tradition, "That they may all be one." Once you capture that vision, there is no turning back.
The mystical experience will move us in the following ways:
v From the cognitive (head) to the emotional (heart),
v From the analytical (mind) to the experiential (soul),
v From outer form to inner substance,
v From the somber to the joyous,
v From the limited to the limitless,
v From fear to love,
v From a particular love to a love that is universal.
v From a narrow view of God to a God who loves all creation without reservation or restriction.
About a year ago, thanks to the generosity of a friend, I was invited to share a ride in a hot air balloon. It was not something I would have chosen for myself, and I confess that I approached the experience with a feeling of mild anxiety. ("Okay, you haven't heard of a hot air balloon going down, but there's always a chance. And then there's always the Hindenberg disaster to remember.") But my friend reminded me it would be a good experience to be in a situation where someone other than myself was generating the hot air.
What I found in that hour and a half in the sky, drifting quietly and gently across the green countryside from Snohomish to the foothills of the Cascades, was an incredible sense of peace and beauty. The world was not so far away but what I could count the horses in the corrals, and yet far enough away that I could see from Mount Baker to Mount Rainier, from Puget Sound to the Skykomish River, from the skyline of Seattle to the prison walls at Monroe. I felt an incredible love for everything, and I remember wondering if this is what we experience when we die and finally leave these bodies. We are above it all and yet wonderfully and wildly part of everything. That is a perfect example of the mystical experience, but it also revealed its dangers. Like any other tradition, mysticism has the power to remove us from concerns for the world, in which we have been assigned to live, to a place where we no longer feel part of it.
What I would like to do during my time with you is to invite you, not just to the kind of mystical experience which lifts you above the earth, but also to one that will offer a loving vision for the earth and all its inhabitants? Although I am a strong advocate of the interfaith experience, I am still a Christian. I also believe that the mystical experience can help heal the ruptures in the Christian body today, bring new life into structures that are moldering, and also find one another across the boundaries of our various religious traditions and cultures? What is the future of this movement? Maybe it means we need to establish new rules and new terms to define ourselves and each other.
Perhaps as we awaken to the true nature of our individual being, where we discover who we are and what we came here to do, we can carry this message into our churches and help create a new future for humanity in this present age.
