This reflection is an introduction to a series of reflections that will explore non-violent and non-dominion reasons for being deeply, yet humbly christian, in 2023. I believe that this exploration is both relevant and important. Many christians today are necessarily deconstructing ideologies central to christian life. In times of old, it was these very ideologies that explained why christian life mattered. However, as these ideologies crack and crumble, the old reasons for christian life no longer work. Let me explain…
Bibliology
If the bible—albeit sacred and inspired—is not written by the very hand of God thereby resulting in a perfect text, then the bible is in need of a reconstructed authority because most of us were taught to submit to the bible as the infallible and inerrant word of God.
Theology Proper
If God is Infinite Love holding everything together and moving everything forward, then theology proper—systematic thought on God—is in need of a reconstructed system because most of us were taught to submit to a God who is somehow everlasting kindness toward some and violently wrathful toward most.
Ecclesiology
If Jesus’ table is truly common and open to all, then life together—ecclesiology—is in need of a reconstructed table because most of us were taught to submit to an ideology in which a person must believe just the right things to belong or else suffer eternal and physical torment in a place called “hell.”
Why Be Religious?
If the bible isn’t inerrant, God is love, and Jesus’ table is open to every person, why should anyone identify as a Christian today, in 2023? That’s exactly what this series of reflections intend to explore. But before tackling that question in forthcoming reflections, I’d like to transcend the particularity of christianity to share about why I think religion itself is important.
Ligaments
The word “religion” is derived from the Latin, religio, which is derived from the Latin, religare. Religare is comprised of two words, re, meaning “back” and ligare, meaning “to bind.” Religare—to bind back together. We humans could use some of that, couldn’t we?
It’s interesting to note that the English word “ligament” derives from the Latin word religare. I love that. Religion as ligaments. In other words, religion as a way of being held—individually and corporately—together.
Awhile ago I was talking to my neighbor and we were bemoaning the state of our world and I asked her what she thought the solution was and she said to me with absolute conviction, “The end of religion!” I asked some questions and came to better understand. She was trying to communicate that we need less religious ideology that fosters difference and nurtures violence in the world. And to that I say, “Amen!” We need an end to religious violence and dominion, for certainly, that does not rouse human flourishing. In place of religious violence and dominion, I’d like to suggest that many—not all, but many—can benefit from healthy ligaments—good religion—that’s uniquely capable of holding our lives and world together, in love.
Religious Good
In 1984, Father Thomas Keating invited a broad range of spiritual teachers from virtually all of the world’s great wisdom traditions—christian, jewish, buddhist, hindu, indigenous, islamic—to gather at St. Benedict’s Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado. This came to be called, “The Snowmass Conference.”
The words used by those who gathered to explain their time together were:
Intimate,
Trusting,
Transformative,
Inspirational.
Isn’t that beautiful? If only diverse religious people could meet together with openness and honesty to experience intimate, trusting, transformative, and inspirational conversations—as opposed to tribal violence—we could all be so much further into the land of goodness and love, the city of God.
One key goal for the leaders’ time at the Snowmass Conference was—rather than argue about how they’re different—to investigate various points of agreement, for which they found eight:
The world religions bear witness to the experience of Ultimate Reality, to which they give various names.
Ultimate Reality cannot be limited by any name or concept.
Ultimate Reality is the ground of infinite potentiality and actualization.
Faith is opening, accepting, and responding to Ultimate Reality. Faith in this sense precedes every belief system.
The potential for human wholeness—or in other frames of reference, enlightenment, salvation, transcendence, transformation, blessedness—is present in every human being.
Ultimate Reality may be experienced not only through religious practices, but also through nature, art, human relationship, and service to others.
As long as the human condition is experienced as separate from Ultimate Reality, it is subject to ignorance and illusion, weakness and suffering.
Disciplined practice is essential to the spiritual life; yet spiritual attainment is not the result of one’s own efforts but the result of the experience of oneness with Ultimate Reality.
Aren’t these points of agreement incredible? As vastly different as each religious system is, a fundamental similarity and deep goodness exists at the soul-level of these religious perspectives. Perhaps that's why NPR recently highlighted a professor in Clinical Psychology from Columbia University named Lisa Miller who—through clinical studies—found that spirituality is good for our mental health.
Being
In this day and age it is altogether easy to deconstruct everything, to mock everything, and to live a life of intense skepticism. For many, it has become vogue to exist within a perspective of anti-being. But I don’t think that anti-being—deconstruction, mockery, and skepticism—leads to human flourishing. With this in mind, it’s my sincere hope that this series of reflections encourages an intentional movement toward being:
Being, engaged in the wisdom of a sacred text using reason and dialogue.
Being, aware of our connection to the Infinite in whom we move and breathe.
Being, shaped by Jesus’ common table, around which we are invited to belong and grow.
Being, held together—like ligaments—by deep, yet humble, christian life.