Inclusive theology and notions of God....please!

 

“My scientist friends have come up with things like ‘principles of uncertainty’ and dark holes. They’re willing to live inside imagined hypotheses and theories. But many religious folks insist on answers that are always true. We love closure, resolution, and clarity., while thinking that we are people of ‘faith.’ How strange that the very word ‘faith’ has come to mean its exact opposite.” (Father Richard Rohr)

 I found this quote on the social media page of a former supervisor of my ‘time’ attempting to serve in an Episcopal mission in the United States. We had nothing in common in our highly conflicted relationship for the brief time I was ‘under his supervision’. And, now, some twenty-two years later, I find this quote to illumine the psychological, intellectual, spiritual, theological and epistemological chasm that existed all those years ago.

The intersection of the imagination in the realms of science and theology, rather than constituting a dividing line, serves as a path into the fullness of both realms. Scientists ‘living inside imagined hypotheses and theories’ when compared to ‘religious folks insisting on answers that are always true’ are not divisible into realms of empiricism (truth) and myth (hypotheses and theories). This false division results from constricted adherence to a language and an epistemology, an attitude and a perspective that requires one field be elevated over another, for the purpose of serving the ‘love (of) closure, resolution, clarity’ a penchant that has partial relevance to human existence, but, is and can only be considered a ‘partial’ and an incomplete and a magnetic attraction for those who chose it, call it faith and then dismiss science as antithetical to faith.

Any theology that bifurcates the universe into God (truth, closure, resolution, clarity) and ‘principles of uncertainty and dark holes’ serves as an insult not only to God but also to the concept of a relationship between humans and God. And, frankly and sadly, it is the determination to segregate God (truth, closure, resolution, clarity) from ‘science’ (principles of uncertainty, and dark holes) that demonstrates a depth of insecurity in search of ‘security’ that betrays the very theology it pretends to uphold. Scientists, themselves, acknowledge that they are working every day to ‘discover’ on the edge of previously ascertained principles and theories, not only the limits of those concepts but the light even those limits cast on mysteries waiting to be ‘scratched’ with whatever insights seem to begin that process. They, especially those fully engaged in the discipline of “awe and wonder” that keeps them focused on their research, their speculation, their inferences and their blind alleys, are the first to acknowledge that they are walking into the unknown, and their attraction to the mystery is both motivating and also humbling. To demean ‘principles of uncertainty and dark holes’ as compared with the ’truth’ as faith in God, is to manifest a kind of reductionism that not only cripples the pursuit of a relationship with God, but endangers all those who might succumb to such a crippled and rigid and life-defying false security that God is outside of, separated from, distinct from and antithetical to those very ‘principles of uncertainty and black holes.’ There is an assumption of ‘power’ over in the heart of the observation that renders uncertainty the antithesis of God and truth. And that “power” implicit in the clinging to the absolutes and the closure and resolution and   clarity of faith strips faith itself from much of its own fullness.

Worshipping God, in a Christian community, however, has been so compromised, even squeezed, in this quote, and in the theologies being perpetrated on thousands, if not millions, of people, in the name of what those prosletyzers consider their “God” of the New Testament, that the absoluteness of their ‘faith’ compartmentalizes their application of that faith into tightly closed, secure and impenetrable boxes of “good” and “evil” in a way we have come to know as Manicheanism. The absoluteness of the conviction that abortion is evil is only one of the more prominent applications of this ‘theology’. Doubtless, that conviction carries a certainty, a closure and a resolution, in the minds and the hearts of those who adhere to its ethical and moral purity as a part of their faith’s ‘truth’.

There are so many obvious and nefarious implications of this bifurcation of the secular and the sacred that one wonders how the issue can or will be resolved. “I know” is a phrase that has been provocative of thought from many able minds and hearts. And knowing, and how we know, as a study commonly known as epistemology, has featured prominently in the thinking and the writing of scholars and theologians for centuries. Knowledge and personal conviction, too, have been in tension for a very long time. And naturally those two notions intersect in human consideration of all topics, concepts, notions and, of course, one’s relationship with/to God. Faith, complete trust or confidence in someone or something, and a strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof’ (Wikipedia), and “the assurance that the things revealed and promised in the Word (Bible) are true, even though unseen, and gives the believer a conviction that what he expects in faith, will come to pass” is generally considered to have affective, cognitive and practical aspects.

Naturally, from an affective and cognitive perspective, ‘truth’ brings a clarity, a closure, and a resolution to one’s emotional anxieties about one’s relation to/with God that is comforting, supportive and reassuring. From a cognitive perspective, truth has the searing quality of certainty, confidence and foundational support that has the power to guide, energize and even to control individual lives. Practically, such truth also begs one to ‘offer’ its benefits to others, as consummation of its very own promises. Images of calmed seas, cured lepers, sighted blindness, forgiven harlots, feeding of many with very little, virgin birth, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension…these are all parts of the various narratives that undergird the truth of the Christian theology. And while they compel the whole of human attention, and for many, offer hope and healing in a very dangerous and threatening world, they, together and separately, depend on the limits to the human imagination and heart and perception for their existence, however, we might envision that to be.

 Defining the notions of certainty, closure, clarity and resolution as faith, also risks a degree of righteousness, superiority, and condescension, even hubris that, for this scribe, calcifies and oxydizes the pure and vibrating metal of faith. It is the mystery, the unknown and the uncertainty that offer a more grounded and effective window and opportunity for seeking God, with the full conviction that whatever appears to be “true” will be incomplete, uncertain, speculative and ultimately mysterious.

The human capacity for, indeed appetite and need for, the speculative, the uncertain, the mysterious and the uncertainty, as an integral and essential part of the search for God, offer a very different and challenging and engaging and life-giving path that differs significantly from the path of Rohr and his acolytes. Nevertheless, there are millions of “certainty merchants” among those who are peddling the Christian faith, in a nation and in the Western world, whose impacts are seriously corroding not only personal lives, but the very nations themselves. These ‘certainty merchants’ are effectively peddling security, confidence and what is presumed and assumed to be healthy parenting by, in and through a Father God. The source of all love, compassion, empathy, as God is so envisioned, is also a pathway to an effective reduction of disciples to ‘children’ in another of the several obvious mis-reads of gospel text. Matthew 18:3, reads: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” The word “change” has been appropriated into a theology of conversion that requires a reversal away from sin, and an acceptance of the ‘saving grace of God’s forgiveness for sin. Not only is the tone of the verse parental and condescending, it is also easily and readily twisted to fit the fundamentalist agenda. There are other ways of reading this particulate notion. The notion of child-like wonder, awe, surprise and even ecstacy as not merely an emotional experience, but also an intellectual, and expansive experience of new insight, new vision, new collaboration and even a new creation seems, at least to this scribe far more in tune with the tenor and the spirit and the exaltation that are implicit and pervasive throughout much of what one reads and reflects upon in the sense of living a ‘full and abundant life’.

The same separation, constriction, elevation and superiority that lies at the heart of the Rohr quote above, and in the endorsement of that quote by a former supervisor, also lies at the core of the tragedy that besets far too many church theologies and their ministries in the last decades in North America.

When I was a young teen, I was invited to debate, in a fundamentalist, evangelical church the issue framed in these words:

Resolved that the Christian is obliged to remain separate from the secular culture.

I, unsurprisingly from the perspective of decades later, was assigned the negative side of this resolution. Also unsurprisingly, I did not win the debate. However, the basic concept of ‘divide and conquer’ has taken root in my consciousness, as firstly a strategy and technique of British monarchs, and secondly, the deployment tactic/strategy of unsecure and divisive and even subversive men and women whose responsibilities included the leadership of others, including those serving as clergy and mentors of lay people inside the church. Similarly, dividing academic ‘subject’ fields has always seemed to be another indication of the desire, indeed the obsession of defining the parameters of specialization, including the rules and regulations attendant on each specific “file”. Christians, or adherents of any religious organization that segregate themselves off from the rest of humanity are depriving themselves as well as the rest of us, of their potential to contribute to the resolution of those urgent shared needs to which we all need to contribute. Also, English scholars who segregate their research, investigation and interpretation of works of literature, for example, from the cultural rhythms and melodies in which the authors wrote, are blinding their scholarship from significant and resonating influences, including the author’s biography, which, too, cannot be segregated from the cultural ethos in which s/he lived.

God, an image to, for, about and from/to which/whom we ascribe various traits, aspects, powers, significance, need not be and perhaps cannot be encapsulated in a “human image” or in a scientific image (like the definition of energy as either or both waves and/or particles). The process of anthropomorphizing God, attributing human attributes, while perhaps easily rendered conventional and tolerable and even convincing from a cognitive and affective perspective, necessarily negates an objective/physical/astronomical/astrophysical/biological perspective, all of which cannot be considered “outside” the scope of any self-respecting deity. Indeed, it is our human obsession with reductions for the purpose of ‘understanding’ and the perception of ‘control’ that has embedded itself in so many of our discussions, research projects, and especially our theologies.

Dividing for the purpose of ‘comprehension’ pays homage to a limited cognitive capacity, without fully embracing all of the other “intelligences” like ‘emotional’ or ‘social’ or ‘political’ or even ‘scientific’. Similarly, in our management of social, cultural and political issues, our obsession to divide has outstripped its legitimacy in the workplace, again, as usual, from the perspective of attempting to protect one gender from the ‘abuse’ of the other. This “hard and fast rule” that co-workers of opposite genders must not enter into romantic relationships renders the feminine as “victim” by definition, without having to investigate, reflect upon, evaluate and consider any other hypothesis, for example, that both parties as mature adults, may well have explored the legitimacy and the appropriateness of their prospective relationship and do not need the critical parenting “officialdom” to punish their relationship.

Another instance, inside the Christian church, in which the God/good/ethics/morality/theological honest issue is compromised, if not in fact dismissed, certainly devalued, is the issue of the “Shadow” side of the church’s life. It is only by facing openly, and without shame, and with the open anticipation of new insights, new learnings, and new awakenings that the formal exploration of the dark side of the church’s life, including all of those stories that would, by the theology of exclusion, segregation and denial, keep hidden from public view.

Humans, individually and collectively, need not be entrapped by some “theological” or “ethical” or “moral” straight-jacket in the name of God, or in the observance of discipleship of that God that constricts either the framing theology or those whose inclinations draw them to examine, reflect, pray and even practice their ‘faith’. Indeed, it is precisely the obsession of many Christian theologies, like that of Rohr and others, that both distinguishes and also “extinguishes” those of faith from everyone else.

That proposition is sustainable neither as theology, nor as sociology nor as community, nor as a path to either world peace or saving the planet from burning up.