Searching for God # 32

But the more the church of the crucified Christ became the prevailing religion of society, and set about satisfying the personal and public needs of this society, the more it left the cross behind it, and gilded the cross with the expectations and ideas of salvation.

This quote from the previous post, begs to be unpacked.

In a culture dedicated to the assessment, discernment and execution of ‘programs’ to address the personal and public needs of the society, (in the case of this quote the U.S. society, but certainly, it applies to many other western ‘so-called Christian’ societies as well), the church has made a bargain with the devil, metaphorically speaking. It is to the satisfaction of those personal and public needs, all of which are demanding attention in both the public vernacular and in the public square…The terms both of identification of needs and then of attempts to meet them, are all constricted within the framework of the public’s literal, empirical perception of what is considered to be ‘social consciousness’ and social knowledge and social awareness. Both the private, for-profit corporations as well as the social service agencies of government and the non-profits based both their diagnostics and their remediations on what can be perceived literally, empirically

, and then delivered in the same mode.

Religion, as defined by Voltaire, from his Philosophical Dictionary (1764)

‘would be as simple as possible’…Would it not be that which taught much morality and very little dogma? that which intended to make men just without making them absurd? that which did not order one to believe in things that are impossible, contradictory, injurious to divinity, and pernicious to mankind, and which dared not menace with eternal punishment anyone possessing common sense? Would it not be that which did  not uphold its belief with executioners and did not inundate the earth with blood on account of unintelligible sophism?...which taught only the worship of one god, justice, tolerance and humanity. (Karen Armstong, The Case for God, p. 211)

Armstrong adds: The philosophers of the Enlightenment did not reject the idea of God. They rejected the cruel God of the orthodox who threatened mankind with eternal fire. They rejected mysterious doctrines that were abhorrent to reason. But their belief in a Supreme Being remained in tact. (Ibid)

Morality as a guide for personal exemplary behaviour, and social programs that addressed personal and public needs, are both concepts that find their genesis in empirical observation, using literal and often numerical diagnoses. Nothing ‘abhorrent to reason’ while retaining a belief in a Supreme Being, (some supernatural entity different from and separate from human beings, and nature?)

America ‘gilded the cross with the expectations and ideas of salvation’ to lift another phrase from the above quote. Somehow, human expectation of a ‘seat at the right hand of God’ in an eternity, captures the sentiment of a former parishioner: “I am only coming to church each Sunday as an insurance policy to assure me an afterlife in heaven!” Next to another parishioner’s comment, “Jesus was the best salesman the world has ever seen!” I am astounded at the degree to which the two themes of ‘salvation’ and ‘salesmanship’ have become embedded, perhaps (although I doubt) unconsciously, into the psyche of church attendees in both Canada and the United States. Slipped into a chorus of one-liners, we might add the Augustinian line, ‘There is no salvation outside the church.’  How pretentious and hollow that last line echoes in the 21^st century.

Salvation and personal and social needs, comprise one continuum of tension.

Deism and theism comprise another: the former that  a creator God does not intervene after creation in the lives of human; the latter that God indeed does intervene in the lives of humans.

This scribe leans towards the second of the two terms, theism, rather than deism.

As for the salvation feature in tension with the ‘personal and social needs, lies the concept of belief and the manner of humans attempting to relate to, and integrate with some God. The Christian tension between ‘grace’ and ‘good works’ is also in play in every pilgrimage envisioned by Christians. The former, a la Luther, is available only from God, the latter is ascribed to the activities of humans. And in any attempt to search for God, we encounter another tension between reason and mysticism, the former a catch-all for human intellect and cognition, while the latter believes in the possibility of some direct and intimate union with the divine or spiritual reality though such activities as meditation, prayer, rituals. Rationalists often ascribe the moniker ‘irrational’ to mysticism, whereas, another way of characterizing the concept is the term ‘super-naturalism.’

Another more recent continuum, this time perhaps a dichotomy, is the difference between extrinsic and intrinsic religion and theology. Psychological terms both, and referring to motivation: internal motivation comes from within while external motivation comes from outside sources. From a religious perspective, an intrinsic religion sees faith as an end in itself, while an extrinsic religion considers religion as a tool to achieve other ends such as social status. A person who espouses an intrinsic religion, ‘lives’ their religion, including the creeds and the teaching of their faith. A person who espouses an extrinsic religion ‘uses’ their religion.

Central to all of the tensions of opposites, however, is the question of ‘relationship’ and that is the crux of the matter: relationship to and with God, relationship to and with others, and relationship to and with the self. And pivotal to all relationships is another question from the secular world and vocabulary: world view.

Collinsdictionary.com defines world view: a person’s world view is the way they see and understand the world, especially regarding issues such as politics, philosophy, and religion, another word for Weltanschauung, a comprehensive conception or image of the universe and of humanity’s relation to it.

Implicit in one’s world view is how one ‘sees’ live and death, birth, formal relationships like marriage, divorce, and also one’s ‘place’ in the universe.

Talk about a mug’s breakfast of both terms and concepts, lenses and cognitions, perceptions and apperceptions, intuitions and observations, and we must not forget, good and bad, right and wrong, holy and unholy, sacred and secular. Perhaps we might have just slipped out a pivotal word: apperceptions, as different from perceptions.

Merriamwebster.com defines apperception: introspective self-consciousness; mental perception, especially the process of understanding something perceived in terms of previous experience.

From forbes.com, 2 September 2026, Mark travers: According to a 2021 study on silence phenomena, silence is not simply the absence of words but a state rich with apperception: the intertwining of presence, memory and imagination.

Etymology: French apperception, from apercevoir, from Middle French apperceivre, from a ( from Latin ad-)+perceive to perceive.

Now, and this nexus of forces, intersecting within each of us, as well as within the ecclesial institutions, is some process whereby an action in our experience occurs within a world view, is perceived by the senses and cognition, and then reflected upon in and through apperception, and, if we were to follow the Jesuit model, it would then be followed by an action. How self-contained is this model! And yet, the containment is attempting to integrate all aspects of the individual, hopefully including both the conscious and unconscious aspects of that individual. Two things jump out, from my experience:

First the action (experience) is perceived, and then also perceived by others differently, thereby generating a cloud of ambiguity in which much contemporary noise and confusion abound. What actually did happen? And for a culture to become enmeshed in the nuances and the ‘weeds’ of the action, is to cloud the process of even seeking its meaning, while providing cover for ‘instant judgements’ many of which prove fallacious later. Insert stereotypes of various characters, the clown, the gangster, the puppet, the wimp, the warrior, the innocent, the ’thinker’ and the executive/entrepreneur from the participants in the action as well as from the observers/potential reflectors. At that moment, we are neither perceiving nor apperceiving…we are merely reacting, knee-jerk-style, as if an opinion is all that is needed to participate in the moment.

Or course, among the epithets and the verbiage that ensues, we discover names of what are called emotions, another instant and impulsive ‘reaction’ that can and usually will morph into a variety of other ‘emotions’ if we permit their release. Sadness and pity usually accompany a serious accident, rage and anger a different kind of accident, while compassion and empathy a serious illness, loss, death or tragedy. Whether these ‘actions/incidents’ are personal and private or public, we each have a film or a file of incidents both similar and different from which we draw to compare, to assess, to discern, and to detach….another of our stereotyped responses to whatever might cause us the most discomfort. Rarely, if ever, in my experience, both inside and outside the walls of cathedrals and sanctuaries, sacristies and committee rooms within the church hierarchy, have I listened to interjections of more reflection than, ‘from my experience, I know this’….which it a completely reasonable place to start the discussion on any subject within an faith community.

Human pain and hurt, not of the medical or legal variety, but of the emotional or psychological variety, are the most common  tones of such discussions. And, on reflection, the manner in and by which each of us ‘sees,’ ‘reckons with,’ ‘succumbs to,’ ‘combats,’ and or ‘overcomes’ deep and profound pain is at the heart of the religious experience. An example of such ‘perceptions and apperceptions is found in Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s, On Grief and Grieving, based on her interviews with patients suffering from a serious illness, and not from those experiencing bereavement. Listing stages of one’s emotion, irrespective of whether within a serious diagnosis, or following the death of a loved one, however, is itself besot with risk. Vacillations of minor and extreme degrees of emotion, mental clarity, emotional stability, degrees of seeking or avoiding socializing, even attitudes of pushing forward or perhaps abandoning hope are all potential and are not amenable to some template of sociology.

Similarly, there is no one ‘path,’ and certainly not a linearity of rational and predictable stages of ‘development’ in and to any single individual’s path in search of the ineffable, the ephemeral, the beyond-the-natural, all of which adjectives and phrases attempt the impossible to depict God. None of the words in these spaces is intended as a prescription or a diagnosis for an individual determined to seek out God.

What there might be are glimpses of some lenses pointed to the culture, as well as other lenses directed to what have been decades of a personal search for the ever-escaping and ever-receding image of the divine. Never satisfied with ‘pat’ and ‘paint-by-number’ answers to questions of consequence such as the meaning and purpose of life, our relation to and with the planet, our relation to and with each other, and, especially in this century, our relations with the public square that seem to have found a new way of being both revolutionary and revolting, consider this scribe a skeptic, a searcher, and a wanderer.

Pastoral care, however and by whom such a discipline might be defined, does offer the potential to put into practice some of the basic theological, religious, spiritual and established conventional practices that raise the level of ‘attention’ to the other above what passes for ‘concern’ on the social and political and academic levels, as well as on the medical and legal theatres.

Persons in serious illness of course, need a variety of ‘presences’ from others, different from cheerleading, and pity. They need and deserve a presence that ‘hears and sees and grasps’ their most intimate emotions, thoughts and apprehensions. And that ‘discernment’ is very different from a ‘case study’ that might be accomplished by a social worker. Such a discernment remains open to and patiently waits for some sign of trusting disclosure that evokes first empathy and then silent reflection on the part of the pastoral visitor. What is the meaning of that facial expression? What did that sigh attempt to say? What might those tears be trying to express? With the mention of that name, did s/he refer to a dear relative who is no longer ‘in’ his or her life? Is that loss compounding the illness? And while, here on paper, the last few lines might read like a jack-hammer of questions, they are not intended as questions to be asked of the patient/client. They are reflective questions of the pastoral visitor to him or herself, as a commitment to enter into the personal space of the patient/client, both unobtrusively and supportively, confidentially and confidently,  as if that space is conceived as potentially ‘sacred’ for both. And, remembering Saint Benedict’s rules, one must never ‘do’ the work of another…translated as ‘one’s spiritual work. That is to say weeping even profusely, atoning, forgiving, remembering and reframing, letting go, and grieving are so absolutely personal and private, that to merely identify what might be attempting to take place is challenge enough for the pastoral visitor. And to have the patience, the patience, and even more patience to sit quietly without in any way attempting to ‘make it all better’ or ‘make it go away’ as is the most common and ready human response to the pain of another about whom we care, like learning to stop before learning the stem-christie turn on the ski hill for the very first time.

The public phrase, ‘active listening’ is a first step in the process. And it is only a first step, but one that, for the sake of the solidarity of both the society and the sanity of the millions attempting to survive in this diabolic cauldron, it might be a step we might all consider.