Searching for God # 59

 There was a glib and facile aspect to one of the comments in the last post. I advocated a twinning of each cathedral, mosque and synagogue with a similar religious organization in the developing world. Of course, at the root of that mere suggestion lies a mine field which demands disclosure, open discovery, serious reflection by all major Abrahamic faiths and then a new and very different approach to ‘foreign aid’…without the competitive feature of digging and diving for converts.

I recall interviewing a refugee from the Second World War whose home was in Holland. As an orphan, he and his siblings scavenged the ground for the watches and jewellery and cash that might have remained with the dead bodies that had been shot down in the conflict. When his father could no longer care for them, they were placed in a Salvation Army foster care facility. They received the food and lodging, and were expected to attend both religious education classes and Sunday worship services. In an offhand comment, the man now well into his fifties, noted, “I may have followed their physical requirements but I never adopted their theology. And they never knew the difference.”

Ecclesial organizations, almost without exception, have historically been an arm of a state seeking to colonize a new piece of geography, where already many indigenous people have resided for perhaps centuries. The state considered the bargain worth their financial commitment, for the purposes of empire building as well as trade potential. The churches ‘bought in’ for the purpose of expanding their own metaphoric empire. Sociologists, economists and demographers depend on, even demand, to portray the world in terms of their numbers. And since everyone knows ‘bigger is better’ (typed both sarcastically and condescendingly), the greater number of converts a church can boast of the more likely are others to join the ‘success.’

In a small town on the western side of the Continental Divide where I served as vicar, I was asked by the Roman Catholic priest, ‘How many children are in your Sunday School?’ My answer, ‘Around 12-15.’ ‘Oh, that’s ridiculous! Call me when you reach the 400 hundred that are in mine!’ came his highly competitive response. Even this morning, papers in the UK are trumpeting the demise of he Church of England as priest from that church are flocking to join the Roman Catholic church. Hard, unbending, unapologetic, and dogmatic theology, restricting women from ordination, defying the LGBTQ+ community, prohibiting same-sex marriage are among the hard lines of the Roman Catholic church, at a time when absolute answers to everything seem the sine qua non of both a healthy spirituality and a credible world view. I could not be more emphatically opposed to the dependence on absolutes, in religion as well as in world view. Even physics, biology, mathematics and especially philosophy have some guiding equations many of which require re-framing upon the discovery of new and relevant information. We are, all of us, working somewhat with blinkers, with hubris and with a degree of certainty about many things, for which there is no full justification. Our imagination has not forged through all of the man frontiers of new knowledge yet to be discovered. And a similar approach to God can only hold us in tension with our beliefs, convictions, prejudices, biases and blindnesses.

How might each of the major Abrahamic faith groups possibly come to a place where they might consider, collaboratively and without competition, the perspective of considering how together they might partially fit the gigantic gap in basic human needs facing those 250,000,000 mentioned in the last post? “Do not do unto others what you would not want them to do to you” seems a clear and shining beacon both theologically and pragmatically.

Turing a blind eye to desperation, even when that desperation is ‘foreign’ and spread among multitudes of different faiths, cultures, languages, traditions and, in distant corners of the world, is, by definition something we would all never want others to ‘do’ to us. The foundational aspect of ‘love’ is alleged to be highly respected and valued in all of the Abrahamic faiths, and in a world desperately drowning in seemingly interminable conflict, insouciance, and the triumph of nationalism, literalism, empiricism, and racism, not to mention religious bigotry of so many forms and faces, it seems more than a little relevant, cogent and even compelling for the faith communities to take a look at how each has reacted to the other two. To openly and contritely beg forgiveness for past wounds inflicted, primarily, if we are all being as honest as possible, in a competitive zero-sum-game, whereby, if I win you must lose.

The ecclesial model ought not to be amenable or adjustable to fit the corporate or the military model of both thought and organizational structure and modus operandi. Hatred between and among religious communities, it is safe to say has been a prominent, if not dominating, feature of their relations over the centuries. Even within each faith community, a global project undertaken by all Abrahamic faith communities would serve as a platinum model for relations within each faith, and within each family in each faith. Personally, I would have to make considerable adjustments to opening up to even some of the dogmatic positions of the Roman Catholic faith, although there are many aspects of that faith that I admire. Simlarily, I would have to wrestle with the ‘faith-state’ conjunction envisaged and practiced by the Muslin faith. Again, however, there are many aspects of the Muslim faith worth more intense study, and incorporating.

Similarly, with both Buddhism and Hinduism, I would definitely need more study, instruction and reflection in order to become comfortable with trying to integrate their primary principles into my own theology and spiritual life.

And, working together, formally, does not require that each of us shed serious beliefs, attitudes, perceptions. Rather, the very commitment to co-operate in the planning, funding, executing and delivering of ‘foreign aid’ as a global project of all three Abrahamic faiths would be so surprising and even shocking that it might actual help to thaw the several layers of ice and dampen the fires that both divide.

Is there another question to pose here?

Is there a common, and often ignored aspect of human beings, the unconscious, that all faith communities might begin to pay attention to? The pragmatics, of literal scriptural interpretation, as well as the pragmatics of literal, empirical perception and understanding of the world, it says here, might very well be a common eye-shade, mind-closing door, and ear-plug as well as faith-inhibitor to a wider, deeper, more mysterious and more imaginative perception of and relation with the divine.

Is it imaginable that the divine, God, Allah, G-d, Brahamin, the Great Creator, whatever name we might ascribe is intimately familiar with, comfortable with and readily open to joining us not only in our pragmatic and extrinsic world but also in our unconscious? Religious expression has for many taken a permanent turn toward the literal, the empirical, the measureable and the provable, consistent with the secular world.

And without throwing the baby out with the bathwater, is it not imaginable for us, all three Abrahamic faith communities to consider if and how our shared unconscious might already have impacted our respective faiths, and may also offer new vistas for shared exploration?

One of the more serious hurdles that need to be acknowledged, if we are ever going to give due to the unconscious, as an integral part of our lives, is that our conversations, as well as our academic programs, and especially our public news media are focused on the plethora of dark and despicable acts that are ‘front-page’ daily. If we consider that our unconscious is the seat of sin, as represented by the litanies of horrendous news stories, then it will be very difficult, if not virtually impossible to shed that ‘perception’. Nevertheless, our unconscious is not only a place where evil is seeded and formulated. It is also a psychic reality that gives us our dreams, and our striking and memorable pictures, voices and archetypes. And perhaps, just perhaps, those voices, archetypes and pictures might come into our deepest and most serious moments of crisis, crying out for recognition.

If we merely ascribe them to the source of evil, some form of Satan or other, we might very well miss their important insight for the rest of our lives. These voices, be they gods, goddesses, myths, archetypes, know no religious faith community, no dogmatic belief, no church-sanctioned morality, and do not operate as ‘critical parents’ or medical doctors or legal prosecutors in our lives. They inhabit a psychic space with or without our acknowledgement, and with or without our even considering opening the door to their ‘voice.’

Rather than continuously compete as if each (our) religious faith were the ‘only and right and superior one,’ perhaps we might consider tentatively, speculatively and openly walking into the spaces that for millions remain silenced in a tomb of denial, avoidance, and fear our individual unconscious. And what if, just for the sake of imagining, we might actually all learn more about the God, Allah, G-d or Brahmin whom/that we were so convinced we already knew absolutely?

Universally God, however we conceive, name and worship that divinity, deity, is considered to be a force for enhancing the lives of human beings. If we look closely at the centuries of religious experience as documented by all faith communities, without ever omitting references to the amazing creation in which we all live, how can we possibly deny that much of the blood-shed, the alienation, separation and isolation that millions have suffered has been under the umbrella of some kind of religious persecution for some form of what has been considered evil belief, act, word or attitude.

And such enmity is among us still. Can we take a fresh look for God from each of our respective ‘perches’ in tradition, history, theology and empathy.

One of the most hateful and destructive utterances anyone has heard came from the mouth of one ‘Elon Musk’. His utterance, “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy!” Between individuals, empathy is the highest, if not the most difficult, value to embody effectively, even though it is superficially considered and in many cases, performative in apologies for wrongs committed without actually incarnating the humility to render the apology authentic. Between states, organizations, corporations, universities it has so severely compromised as to render the Musk statement almost credible.

However, searching for respect, dignity, collaboration, compromise, and a shared vision of the world’s serious, existential and growing threats, with an eye, ear, mind and heart of compassion, empathy, and pragmatic realism is necessary. School playground peer monitors illustrate a single baby step in the right direction. Teaching children to discern propaganda from truth, as is done in Denmark schools and providing reasonable accommodation for  convicted criminals in Finland, as part of the overall rehabilitation goal is another baby step toward civility and human sanity and respect, dignity and care.

While the approach of human rights tends to be empty of empathy, and relies on the legalities, it is another baby step in a common, civil, decency-oriented direction.

Fair trade, reducing military arms, preventing carbon dioxide and methane emission, universal education for all boys and girls access to quality health care, work with dignity, and valuing the human person ahead of the economic formulas…these are all reasonable, imaginable and sustainable global ambitions. And the faith communities have an opportunity as well as an obligation to serve as creatively and assertively and collaboratively as feasible.

And soon!