Searching for God # 78

Therapy, as Hillman puts it, thus becomes yet another ideology—‘a salvation ideology’. (p.103 of We’ve had a hundred years of therapy etc.) But this flight into the unconscious has gone far beyond formal therapy into the general Western myth of what as individual is and –more importantly—what properly should interest an individual. The answer? Himself. Herself. Not society. Not civilization. The particular versus the whole. The narrowly examined life of the passive citizen versus that unexamined life of the twentieth century… (John Ralston Saul, The Unconscious Civilization, p. 49….from Searching for God # 76, January 29, 2026)

The intersection of the concept of religious, spiritual ‘salvation,’ whether as a ‘salvation ideology’ or a ‘theological conversion’ bears unpacking for several reasons.

In its privatizing of sin, and thereby the pursuit of salvation, redemption, forgiveness, and the promise of an eternal life in a Heaven, the church has essentially defined what it considers the definition and meaning of the word. In the churches’ vocabulary and mind-set, as well as its cognition and even its dogma, the word soteriology is defined by merriam-webster.com as theology dealing with salvation especially as effected by Jesus Christ. From AI, we read, the theological study of the doctrine of salvation, derived from the Greek word soteria (salvation) and logos (study, word). It examines how, why, and from what humanity is saved, acting as a central theme in many religions, particularly Christianity, which focuses on redemption through Jesus Christ.

The question of the salvation of an individual ‘soul’ or the salvation of humanity as a collective, however, hangs like low-hanging fruit on at least one tree in the orchard where politics and religion/theology intersect. One premise and presumption is that humanity can and will be saved as each individual person is saved. Another premise and presumption is that ‘the community’ as in the whole of humanity is and can be saved both in and through individual conversions as well as a shared, unified and committed movement in solidarity to a new and life-giving consciousness as well as unconsciousness.

For those within the church, at least some churches, who advocate for the preservation of the churches’ exclusive purview of individual salvation, such questions as LGBTQ+ not their legal rights, but rather their access to the offices, sacraments, liturgies and full acceptance in and by the churches can be and is often seen as a distracting ‘political’ issue. One of the well-known and well-worn epithets within Christian thinking and perceptions is the Biblical injunction to render unto Caesar to Caesar those things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. (Matthew 22:21. Mark 12:17). The separation of civil obligations like taxes and civil authority from religious duties comes out of an attempt by the Pharisees to trap Jesus as either an enemy of Rome or a traitor to his own people. One interpretation is that the state can claim the money but not the ‘person’ born in God’s image. According to AI, In the context of the Jesus Seminar’s focus on a ‘social prophet’ rather than an apocalyptic one, this statement often highlights that Jesus kingdom is not one of political power, but one focused on the ‘poor the demonized and the afflicted victims of empire.

Hmmmmmm? Social prophet v. apocalyptic one, focused on the ‘poor, the demonized and the afflicted victims of empire. Therein lies a contrast of images of Jesus as perceived and ascertained by the Seminar, which brings into clear focus the different, competing? perceptions of His mission. And this is not to advocate for the option that each is unequivocally mutually exclusive. Doubtless, the two images are neither contradictory nor mutually exclusive. Can the church (the institution generally, beyond denominational differences) see itself in the ‘both-and’ mission of ‘salving souls’ as well as ‘advocating for the poor, the demonized and the afflicted victims of empire’?

Are these two missions not in fact complementary, supportive of each other, and far from mutually exclusive? Indeed, one might, in a kind of sophomoric debate, wonder if the analogy of the ‘chicken-egg’ might be playfully relevant. Is one an a priori to the other? Is one a cause for the effect of the other? Are they to be considered more as synchronous, in that the work to advocate for those voiceless victims of empire is conducive to and dedicated to embodying the mission of salvation of both the victim and the advocate? Is there any inherent and integrous identity to the notion of salvation of both the Good Samaritan and the Jew taken for dead in the ditch in the parable of the Good Samaritan? Or have we once again, separated the Samaritan from the Jew in a paradoxical narrative of the enemy coming to the rescue of the hated Jew. Again, borrowing from the Jesus Seminar’s consideration of this parable, (from AI) the story acts as a critique of religious legalism, as represented by the priest and Levite who pass by the injured man, contrasting with compassion in action. And from me own experience in the lecture room with Joh Klopenborg, a member of the Jesus Seminar, ‘The dead Jew is an image of the Christ, rather than the Good Samaritan.’

The first time I heard those words was, and remains, an epiphany for me. I have watched, listened to and wondered about the culture of activism, rescuing and ‘salving’ of sinners, by those evangelists whose conviction and methods depict a degree of black-and-white absolutism both of the nature and definition of sin and evil and the assertion that each of us has a primary theological and spiritual obligation to seek salvation in and on their terms. Heroic, charismatic, highly persuasive and, for me, deeply disturbing are those mostly men who conduct their revival missions in such a dramatic, and even epic and melodramatic fashion as to, from my perspective, refuse to acknowledge their intimidation and fear-mongering of their audience. In fact, my little mind has, for decades conflated ‘political imperialism’ with fundamental evangelical revival meetings, in method, if not in content. As one Anglican Bishop put it, in reference to Reverend Iain Paisley after listening to him speak, ‘He was more frightening than the Fuhrer himself!’

Rousing, melodramatic rhetorical exhortations warning of the fires of Hell for sinners, (and we all know that we are all sinners in God’s eyes) and the promise of an eternal life in Heaven, especially for ears and psyches desperate for being understood, for being welcomed, and for being considered ‘healed’ has, maybe a peripheral and potential application for those living on the street, semi-conscious under the influence of illicit drugs or alcohol, homelessness, or even wandering the streets of a new country seeking a home and refuge. Such an approach ‘gets the attention’ of anyone in the vicinity.

The protracted, reflective more often, occasionally and exceptionally spontaneous, process of discerning one’s own relationship to and with God will almost inevitably include opportunities to ‘rescue’ and to be ‘rescued’ from various kinds of snares, many of which already have taken up residence in the psyche. Immediately comes to mind the phrase:

Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? (Matthew 7:3) And of course, we all respond, ‘Because that speck of sawdust is so much more visible and sinister and evil than any similar object in my own eye!’…when we are consciously and silently and surreptitiously ashamed even to be asked such a question. It is the fullness of the “hammer over the head” of some incident, some loss, some shameful action, some desperate and despicable decision, a moment lying in the wings of each of our lives, that brings such a metanoic moment to its own fullness. The question for each of us is not to live our lives cowering in fear and avoidance of such a moment but rather remaining both open to and accepting of its profound significance, psychically, spiritually, as well as ethically and morally. And for some of us, it may take more than a single ‘hammer’ to bring about the fullness of realization of who we really are, what we were meant to be here to do or for, and how we might shift both our priorities and values to better conform with the new consciousness.

It was Rainer Maria Rilke who is responsible for one of the more momentous of aphorisms: From The Economic Times, by ET Online, January 29, 2026, we read:

Life rarely moves in straight lines. It rises, falls, surprises us, and sometimes humbles us in ways we never expect. Few quotes capture this truth as beautifully as Rainer Maria Rilke’s powerful words:

The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.

This perspective is not fatalistic nor seriously depressing, malignant or abusive. Indeed, it may well be a point of view that transcends most religious faiths, most ethnic and geographic cultures, as well as most leadership curricula. We in the West have so disparaged vulnerability as to render it almost one of the cardinal sins. Here the ego is “KING”! Even religious faith denominations appear, to the unsuspicious, unquestioning and unskeptical eye and ear, to champion the single act of redemption, whereas life continues to both prescribe and deliver repeated examples of ‘hammers’ or moments of crisis, (Hillman calls them ‘in extremis’ moments) as a part of the ‘natural menu’ of life’s drama. And while each ‘hammer’ has the potential of evoking and provoking a change in our attitude, belief, and approach to our relationships with ourselves, others and God, such a shift is not always attainable.

The Jesuit, John Powell, an intellectual, heavy smoker and proud deliverer of academic lectures to his Jesuit brothers, tried everything to stop smoking. Finally, as he tells the story, he knelt at his bed, desperately asking God to help him cease the killer habit. Next day, amazingly and surprisingly, his requirement for nicotine evaporated. That evening, again on his knees, he begged God, “Thank you for the grace you offered to help me stop smoking. Is there more grace that you have for me?” And in his inner voice, he heard God’s ‘voice,’ “When you get to the point where you were at with your attempt to quit smoking, then and only then will there be the grace you seek and are asking for!” (Words are approximate from memory)

Each of us is never separated either from ourselves and our inner, spiritual, psychic life, nor from the responsibility and accountability for the way the world is operating, especially as ‘it’ treats its most voiceless, powerless and indigent members. And, coming to the place where our convictions and our courage as well as our faith pilgrimage converge, it seems most probable that in such moments, we will find the ‘strength’ and the courage and the determination to ‘non-violently confront evil with force.’

With unreserved thanks to Leo Tolstoy, and John Powell, Reverend Messers. Tutu, Gogh, Andrews, Moseley, Dunn, Harries, Klopenborg, O’Driscoll, Scott, Winterrowd, Womack; Reverend Mothers Medcof, Burns-Lecra, Murphy, Hathaway, Toth; as well as Jung, Hillman, Woodman, Wiebe, Wearn, O’Toole, McKim, Parham, Mandela, Ghandi, and many others whose lives have touched mine in ways they will never know.

Searching for God #77

 From The National Catholic Reporter

byJustin McLellan Vatican Correspondent jmclellan@ncronline.org Vatican City...January 28, 2026

The Vatican's doctrine chief warned that blogs and online commentators increasingly claim a theological authority they do not possess, narrowing the church's ability to holistically engage faith and reality. 

Opening the plenary assembly of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith on Jan. 27, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, dicastery prefect, said theologians risk "losing the breath of our perspective" when their work becomes narrowly focused on isolated topics.

"But the issue is even more serious since today, on any blog, anyone — even without having studied much theology — can express his or her opinion and condemn others as if speaking ex cathedra," or with infallibility, he said. 

Fernández framed the problem as a failure to recognize the limits of human knowledge.

"The more science and technology advance, the more we must keep alive the awareness of our limits and our need for God, so as not to fall into a terrible deception," he said. "Indeed, the very same one that led to the excesses of the Inquisition, the world wars, the Shoah, and the massacres in Gaza: all of which rely on fallacious arguments for their justification."

Fernández, who has often been a target of Catholic blogs since his appointment as prefect in 2023, urged dicastery members to acknowledge those limits, invoke God's guidance in illuminating them and remain open to the perspectives of others.

------------------------------------

"The more science and technology advance, the more we must keep alive the awareness of our limits and our need for God, so as not to fall into a terrible deception," he said. "Indeed, the very same one that led to the excesses of the Inquisition, the world wars, the Shoah, and the massacres in Gaza: all of which rely on fallacious arguments for their justification."

Fear of bloggers like this one, is analogous to fearing a mosquito on the shoulder. We can agree that a little knowledge is a very dangerous thing. And this scribe is, has been and will continue to remind both myself and the reader that my thoughts, opinions, observations and even suggestions come as ‘speculative, tentative, reflective, and I can only hope, provocative. Repeatedly the church’s rejection of many of the discoveries of science have left the church having to acknowledge that its resistance was either ill-founded, in-error, or completely fear-driven. God’s omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence cannot and will not be threatened by his ‘children’s’ probing, questioning, speculating, and even imagining. Nor can or will God’s unconditional love be abrogated by any ramblings on a personal, thoughtful, reflective and humble, soul-searching blog.

Indeed, it is precisely the church’s claim to infallibility, as the one and only voice credentialed and qualified to utter the details of the mind of God that is so troublesome.

Here are a few words from now deceased Bishop Desmond Tutu from a piece in The Roys Report, entitled, Desmond Tutu, Archbishop, Activist and Apartheid Foe, is Dead at 90, by Adele Banks and B. Denise Hawkins, December 26, 2021:

‘All, all are God’s children and none, none is ever to be dismissed as rubbish,; he said in 1999 to the ‘God and Us’ class he taught as a visiting professor at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology. ‘And that’s why you have to be so passionate to injustice of any kind.’…. ‘What kind of God could endure the sight of God’s own children screaming in eternal pain?’ Tutu wrote in his book, ‘Made for Goodness.’ ‘If we believe in the good God, we must believe that we are all made to inhabit heaven. We are made for goodness.’ In a 2013 interview when the Desmond Tutu Center at Butler University and Christian Theological Seminary was announced, Tutu blamed God for his views on controversial issues. ‘I don’t think, ‘What do I want to do today? I want to speak up on gay rights,; he said. ‘No. It’s God catching me by the neck. I wish I could keep quiet about the plight of Palestinians. I can’t! The God who was there and showed that we should become free is the God described in the Scriptures as the same yesterday, today and forever…..If you are doing God’s work, it’s his job. He will jolly well have to look after you. And no one is indispensable.

This blogger identifies with many, if not all, of the positions taken by Archbishop Tutu as echoes of God's voice among us.

If Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, as part of his job as dicastery prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, wishes or even demands that a halo of religious purity, perfection and absolutism by hung around the words of the church, any church, as the only words, ideas, principles, and dogma with which God concurs, there is a world out there of ‘others’ who might have some trouble with that vision. It is not that such a vision, hope and even belief is necessarily evil; doubtless, it is conceived and held in the greatest sincerity, integrity and sacredness. That such a metaphoric halo could be created as a moat both to protect the inner-truths and beliefs from invasion and to elevate those inner-truths and beliefs above all others seems beyond the need, requirements or demands of God. The church’s position on LGBTQ+ persons, for example, has a had time qualifying as “God’s incontrovertible view, in the mind, heart and soul of millions of others, including this scribe. Similarly, the church’s adamantine position on a woman’s right to choose also struggles to represent an unconditionally loving, caring, compassionate and holy God. The status, role and both respect and dignity of women as full participants in the Mass, the Penitential, the Last Rights, the Funeral Requiem as priests, Bishops, Archbishops and even Pope remains outside the legitimacy, tolerance and even the imagination of the Decastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. That too remains in question as to whether such a hardline position is congruent with the mind, and the will of God.

And then there is the matter of Saint Augustine’s perception, and strongly held view by the church, that sin is perpetrated in and through human sexuality, that  has for centuries held millions hostage to an ecclesial stance  that forcibly removed them from sharing in the liturgies, and the various activities in the sanctuary of the church. For smaller minds, like mine, some of us are unable to reconcile this view with the indisputable view, perception and belief that sexuality is one of, if not the most natural human act, and we struggle to grasp why God would even wish to put constrictions and judgements on its availability, accessibility and profound and life-giving gift.

Celibate clergy, too, as is the church’s requirement, is doubtless part of the root cause of so many sexual abuse cases within the institution. These celibate men cannot be considered ‘closer to God’ or even ‘more holy and sacrificial’ than clergy who have chosen to marry, whether their marriages are to members of the opposite gender, or of the same gender.

It is not in dispute, however, that there appears to be a surge in the number of catechumens seeking baptism and full membership in the Roman Catholic church in several locations, especially noted in France. The ‘structure and discipline’ apparently appeals to many in the Gen Z demographic, and one has to wonder if the spectre of Sharia Law from Islam, whereby church and state are considered joined as one place where the faith can be and must be practiced is not another of the multiple motivations for this surge.

The basic patriarchal institutional foundation, and the church’s adamantine intention to continue to operate in this ancient and long-ago outlived organizational model, prompts some of us to ask how this rigidity is justified as God’s will and plan for the people of the world.

While the various ‘arguments’ posed here that question the church’s theology, ethics, morality and justification are ‘merely misguided protestantisms,’ perhaps for many, there remains, however, the question for all faith communities.  In a time when the public order is crumbling, the cause of human rights is being ignored, the protection of the environment is left unattended, and  militarism and military production in the face of serious wars continues to spike unimpeded by governments, is it not far more important for all faith communities to unite in solidarity to oppose the abuse of power in all of its many iterations, to take up the cause of the refugee, the migrant, the dispossessed, the starving, the homeless and the millions suffering from diseases, some self-inflicted in what to them seems like hopeless and uncaring world, while some may be biologically induced.

There is a mountain of injustices to which everyone is witness. God weeps as there is such division among and between the various faith communities when there could be at least energized concurrence and a commitment to join together to begin to work together to alleviate these injustices. We have been reminded that the poor will always be with us. We have not, however, had to envisage a world in which some 250,000,000 are exiting on the edge of death. (Figure from David Millband, Chair of the Internation Rescue Committee).

It seems that the common unifying commitment of Christians is not that different from the common humanity shared by most faith communities, if not all. And if this is not a time of such cancerous influences about which everyone can agree, and if this is not a time to put aside the differences that separate and divide people of good will, and of authentic faith, then what will it take?

Dismiss this ‘dangerous blogger’ if you will. I will neither desist or discontinue to ponder, to reflect, to question and to provoke others to examine my own faith and perhaps others to examine their own as well.

Searching for God # 76

 The matter of a faith and its impact on one’s life, has some many cognitive lenses through which to ‘biopsy’ human decisions. And human decisions, both individual and collective, taken together, form a metaphoric river of collective consciousness and unconsciousness that flows in and through each of us and in which we ourselves ‘flow’ or swim or are buffeted by the various currents, rocks, embankments and seasons. Our intimate participation in that shared collective river is inescapable.

We read psychological depictions of ‘getting into the flow’ a phrase ascribed to highly tuned and trained, dedicated and committed athletes, Olympic athletes, for example. And there are also religious depictions of a similar, although likely different flow. In her introduction to the Benedictine Way of Saint Benedict, Seeking God, Esther de Wall writes:

But first of all we have to tackle what can both ruin our private life and become a corrosive in our relationship with others, namely self-will. It is our self-centredness that St. Benedict means by self-will and it is important to that when he says ‘renounce your will’ this does not mean our free-will. That is one of our greatest gifts. He wants us to free ourselves from the possessive self, concerned with self-interest, which so grasps and clutches that it gets in the way of any free and open relationship with God. So it is the use we make of our will which is the point at issue…..(And in summary, she writes) Knowing my own limitations I have no right to destroy other people for theirs. (p. 45-6-7)

In his insightful work, Peace of Mind, Joshua Liebmann writes, in a section entitled ‘Acceptance of Self’:

Most men have a dual interpretation of themselves—two pictures of their two selves in separate rooms. In one room are hung all of the portraits of their virtues, done in bright, splashing colors but with not shadows and no balance. In the other room hangs the canvas of self-condemnation-a kind of grotesque Dorian Gray caricature—painted equally as unrealistically with dark and morbid greens blacks and no light or relief. Instead of keeping these two pictures isolated from one another, we must look at them together and gradually blend them into one. In our exalted moods we are afraid to admit our guilt, hatred, and shame as elements of our personality; and in our depressed moods we are afraid to credit ourselves with the goodness and the achievement which really are ours. We must begin to now to draw a new portrait and accept and know ourselves for what we are. We are relative, and not absolute, creatures; everything we do is tinged with imperfection. So often people try to become rivals of God and make demands of themselves which only God could make of Himself—rigid demands of absolute perfection. There is a little  tyrant and a touch of the critic and martyr in all of us. There are moments when we want to dominate, to tear down and make others suffer. These traits, however, can be and must be subordinated to the total goodness of the personality. (p. 41)

The last statement begs some unpacking, based as it is, on the premise that we are all created in the image of God, and continue to encounter those voices of the tyrant, the critic and the martyr from within. Perhaps Tolstoy’s little epithet might be helpful, not as another ingredient in a self-help menu, but rather as a light of wisdom. From Tolstoy’s collection entitled, Three Methods of Reform (1900), Everyone thinks of changing the world but no one thinks of changing himself.

Although Saint Benedict had no intentions or illusions of ‘changing the world’ his idea seems quite congruent with Tolstoy’s. And at its core, the search for   seems to have as its parameters, the transformation of one through the transformation of the other. Saving the world, and saving the sinner, are neither antithetical nor mutually exclusive. In his 1846 lecture and later book of the same title, ‘Existentialism is a humanism,’ Jean-Paul Sartre expresses the idea that whatever we wish (or decide) for ourselves, we also wish for the world. (Paraphrasing AI)…Sartre explains that because there is no pre-defined human nature or God to determine our purpose, every individual is entirely free to define their own essence through their actions. (Existence precedes essence). The idea of making a choice, for Sartre, was not about choosing only for oneself but rather choosing to create an image of what one believes a human ought to be, essentially creating a set of values for the whole world. Personal subjective choices have universal significance.

If we bring Jung into our discussion, we find that, while we are constantly making decisions, choices, the ‘motivations’ for those choices are mixed, including not only our conscious discernment of reality and our conscious attempt to ‘discern’ what we would like but also our unconscious, our inner conflicts, fears, repressed emotions and what might seem like ‘fate’ (echoes from the last post). Nudging Sartre’s idea, Jung posits the notion, not of essence, (as a static portrait) but also the dynamic concept of making a choice based on what I choose to become. And, helpful, at least partially, is the cornerstone idea: ‘until we make the unconscious conscious, it will direct our life and we will call it fate.’

What does ‘making the unconscious conscious’ have to do with a search for God? Much if not all of our conversations in the academic, corporate, political, medical and legal fields are based upon a recitation of empirical, literal information. Our senses perceive, our brain interprets and our deliberations ensue. From one perspective, we come to consciousness of ourselves, others, and the universe as if in layers; we know in part, and see and think in part, until we see and think and know further, again only in part. Jung’s (and Freud’s) discernment of those influences in our mind/psyche/soul (from Hillman), include what we can articulate and what remains a mystery.

From Medium.com, in a piece entitled, How Writing makes peace with the baggage we carry, by Jan fortune, November 8, 2018, we read:

Poet, Robert Bly describes the shadow as a ‘long bag we drag behind us’ filled with all that we denigrate and repress:

·      The parts of parents and teachers disapproved of

·      The parts that didn’t fit with peer pressure

·      The parts our culture has labelled ‘disallowed’

It is not a stretch to note inferentially, as each of us lugs our ‘bag’ behind us, that collectively too we share a different bag of what we might call blindnesses, shames, embarrassments, guilts, denials, repressions, disapprovals, and disallowals. Not surprisingly, the collective unconscious has a similar and imperial impact on the social ethos, or the anima mundi, (Hillman) as Jung reminds us it has on our individual lives.

In his penetrating critique of the corporatist society and culture, entitled, ‘The Unconscious Civilization,’  John Ralston Saul writes about knowledge this way:

I am a snake, not an apple.

What does that mean? Well, our civilization—the Judeo-Christian—in its founding myth portrayed the deliverer of knowledge as the source of evil—the devil—and the loss of innocence as a catastrophe. This probably had more to do with religion than with the standard desire of those in authority to control those who are not. And control of the Western species of the human race seems to turn upon language….Those of us who disseminate language are the snake not the apple. What does this mean in a corporatist society where knowledge is power—that is in a society which rewards and admires the control of information in its tiniest strips of specialization by the millions of specialists in their thousands of corporations, public and private? The apple is the game. Power, self-protection, self-advancement are dependent on our ability to control knowledge as if we were the apple itself. I would say that we have now reached an astonishing level of sophistication in our apple-envy psychosis. (p.38-39)

In scribbling in search of my own unconscious, and attempting to bring into congruency (if not always harmony) those duelling pictures of myself (hero and martry/victim and conscious/unconscious), I am conscious that while the last several decades of North American culture have seemed to concentrate on the ‘personal, individual, ego’ aspects of each human, in and through therapy, as Hillman reminds us, ‘We’ve had a hundred years of Psychotherapy and Things are Getting Worse’ (book title, 1992). Both Hillman and Saul are interested in addressing the ‘culture’ as an entity needing to have its blinders removed. Conformity, repression, fitting-in, for the purposes of personal self-aggrandizement both within the corporations, government and also the church, have resulted in a conspiracy of silent repression of many truths on the personal level as well as on the cultural level.

Saul continues:

In this century dominated by mass ideologies, all-inclusive structures and technological revolution, it is as if the Western individual has taken refuge in the search for something that no one can take away—their own unconscious. Therapy, as Hillman puts it, thus becomes yet another ideology—‘a salvation ideology’. (p.103 of We’ve had a hundred years of therapy etc.) But this flight into the unconscious has gone far beyond formal therapy into the general Western myth of what as individual is and –more importantly—what properly should interest an individual. The answer? Himself. Herself. Not society. Not civilization. The particular versus the whole. The narrowly examined life of the passive citizen versus that unexamined life of the twentieth century. (Saul, The Unconscious Civilization, p. 49)

Left off the agenda of what amounts to the consciousness and the dramatic confluences of geopolitical powers in deep tension over their own hegemony, often supported by the churches, are the most profound and legitimate interests of the civilization itself: survival, protection from global warming and climate change, the widening gap between the rich and the poor, the growing public awareness of a tension between mass migration and traditional cultural, religious and social values. Buried in the narcissism of personal interest, (an argument abrogated by the MAGA cult) along with the denial of the needs of civilization, we could be facing an existential crisis of our own making.

MAGA is merely a mirror image of everything it HATES, including D.E.I., international collaboration, shared decision-making and shared international responsibility and the co-operation of at least a form of ‘world order’ that MAGA, in its own narcissistic obsession, deems to be fatally flawed. The corporation, and the pursuit of profit and wealth and self-aggrandizement are now the mantra of the United States. Saul, and Hillman, doubtless, would be neither surprised nor shocked.

Hillman considered ‘money’ the idol at which American worships, while Saul considered ‘corporatism’ the disease under which North America labors and lives.

How complicit is the church in both of these icons, idols, images or archetypes depends on one’s experience, one’s sense of outrage and pursuit of justice? Irrespective of one’s answer to that question, it is a matter not only of  our politics or our economics that demands critical examination. The churches’ both conscious and unconscious ‘fitting-in’ to the politically correct and also psychically and spiritually repressive expectations and demands of the corporation, and its hierarchical, literal, empirical and structural obsession with its own power, and the gigantically shaped rise in its influence has only increased since both Hillman and Saul were attempting to frame its influence on individual and on our shared culture.

Salvation therapy is neither ethical nor effective on either the personal or the societal level, under the shadow of unconsciousness. The Search for God, in these times, can be and perhaps even should and could be open to that exploration. Risky, undoubtedly, yet inescapable too.

Searching for God # 75

 Having breakfast with a prospective supervisor in another life, I heard him assert, clearly, comfortably and surprisingly, ‘I believe in fatalism!’ In a context and conversation of religious faith, belief and his life within such a community, the line struck a note of what I considered dissonance. How did fate have anything to do with a belief in a Christian God?

The next line from the colleague, “I really have no regrets, anxieties or fears!” pushed me further into wondering ‘Was God part of his ‘fatalism?’ Did he either conflate or even equate God with Fate? And was this attitude/perception/conviction a kind of foundational cornerstone to what been a highly engaged, proactive and rather successful back-room life in political circles.

How we ‘see’ ourselves, and the impact of multiple influences, taken sometimes individually and sometimes collectively, is a process that, for many begins with a Christian aphorism, ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven!’ from the Lord’s Prayer. Dante expresses a similar attitude, ‘In His will is our peace.’

Previously the Greek Thanatos and Eros, from Freud, were evoked in this space as forces engaged in the lives of human beings, perhaps imperceptibly, however, unconsciously, nevertheless, ‘pulling’ us in opposite directions, the former to death and destruction, the latter to life and creativity.

Under Fate, in Britannica.com we read:

Fate, in Greek and Roman mythology, any of three goddesses who determine human destinies, and in particular the span of a person’s life and his allotment of misery and suffering….From the time of the poet Hesiod (8^th century BC) on, …the Fates were personified as three very old women who spin the threads of human destiny. Their names were Clotho (Spinner), Lachesis (Allotter), and Atropos (Inflexible). Clotho spun the ‘thread’ of human fate, Lachesis dispensed it, and Atropos cut the thread thus determining the individual’s moment of death.

Under free will, in Britannica.com we read:

Free will, in philosophy and science, the supposed or capacity of humans to make decisions or perform actions independently of any prior event or state of the universe. Arguments for free will have been based on the subjective experience of freedom, on sentiments of guilt, on revealed religion, and on the common assumption of individual moral responsibility that underlies the concepts of law, reward, punishment, and incentive. In theology, the existence of free will must be reconciled with God’s omniscience and benevolence and with divine grace, which allegedly is necessary for any meritorious act. A prominent feature of existentialism is the concept of a radical, perpetual, and frequently agonizing freedom of choice. Jean-Paul Satre (1905-1980) for example, spoke of the individual ‘condemned to be free.’

From Britannica.com under Determinism we read:

Determinism entails that, in a situation in which people make a certain decision or perform a certain action, it is impossible that they could have made any other decision or performed any other action. In other words, it is never true that people could have decided or acted otherwise than they actually did.

The concept, prospect and even the feasibility of aligning human will with God’s will are all daunting at best and impossibly retching at worst. Indeed, the human preference when thinking and acting about, for, with and by God, too often leads one to aspire to and to attempt to embody ‘perfection.’ Here is another of many intersections of psychology and theology.

Reflect on the words of Marion Woodman, Jungian Analyst, in her profound work, Addiction to Perfection, The Still Unravaged Bride (p. 15):

The I Ching, the Chinese Book of Changes, recognizes the continual shifts that go on within the individual. The Yang power, the creative masculine, moves ahead with steadfast perseverance toward a goal until it becomes too strong, begins to break—and then the Yin, the receptive feminine, enters from below and gradually moves toward the top. Life is a continual attempt to balance these two forces. With growing maturity the individual is able to avoid the extreme of either polarity so that the pendulum does not gain too much momentum by swinging too far to the right only to come crashing back to the left in a relentless cycle of action and reaction, inflation and depression. Rather one recognizes that these poles are the  domain of the gods, the extremes of black and white. To identify with one or the other can only lead to plunging into its opposite. The ratio is cruelly exact. The further I move into the white radiance on one side, the blacker the energy that is unconsciously constellated behind my back: the more I force myself to perfect my ideal image of myself, the more overflowing toilet bowls I’m going to have in my dreams. The man who identifies with his own ideal becomes like Swift’s adoring lover who cries,           Nor wonder how I lost my Wits;

                                    Oh! Caelia, Caelia, Caelia shits!

He cannot accept that the radiance of his beloved can be stained by the humanity of her excremental functions.

As human creatures, not gods, we must go for the grey, the steady solid line that makes its serpentine way only slightly to left and right down the middle course between the opposites.

Developing her argument Woodman continues in a prescient and insightful examination of North American culture.

This sense of finality (the end of the world) is partly why compulsions, particularly those having to do with the body, are constellating so forcibly in our culture. In every newscast we are confronted with destruction-wars, airplane crashes, rape, murder, Books, movies, theatre—from every side we are bombarded with the possibility of our imminent annihilation. At the same time, the structures which once would have supported us are crumbling; the nuclear family, the community, the Church. Rituals which were once the cornerstone of living are now hollow and rosaries are worn as adornments. Coupled with this dread of extinction is the natural propensity of compulsives to live in the future. Often intuitive by nature, they don’t clasp the here-and-now reality with which they cannot cope: rather than dream about what could be, should be, were meant to be in the future. The gap between reality and dream is often filled by the obsession. (Op. cit. p 25)

Furthermore, the technological age is propelling us into a space quite unrelated to our instincts. We have forgotten how to listen to our bodies; we pop pills for everything that goes wrong with us; we can have an intestinal bypass or we can have our stomach stapled. We can turn ourselves over to medicine without ever questioning what the body is trying to tell us. To our peril, we assume it has no wisdom of its own and we attempt to right our physical ills without making the necessary psychic corrections. (Op. cit. p. 30)

Although primarily written for modern women (published in 1982) Woodman’s insights have application and implications for men as well as for both the culture and the Church. Is the compulsive-obsessive drive for instant gratification a psychological issue? OR is it also a theological, spiritual issue? And how do we separate our decisions and behaviour from our psyche and our religious instincts? Or, indeed, can we?

I recently listened on line to an aspiring and apparently neophyte clergy deliver a homily on the Sunday appointed as Peter’s Confession, when, as Matthew records, Jesus is reported to have asked his disciples,

Who do you say the Son of Man is? The replied, ‘Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. ‘But what about you?’ he asked, ‘Who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah, the son of the living God.’ Jesus replied, ‘ Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in Heaven. (Matthew 16:13-17)

After delving into the use of different languages, Roman, Hebrew and Aramaic the homilist then exhorted,( approximately), the congregation to go forth into the world to speak as Jesus spoke with integrity, authenticity, humility, grace and clarity. The notion I gathered was for the congregation to emulate Jesus in the manner in which they spoke of their faith and their life as Christians. So far, so good.

The notion that words, embodying concepts, attitudes, tones, intentions, beliefs, emotions, as well as the Jesus model, and the ‘ethos’ and ‘soul’ of the moment carries considerable freight. That is not to say or even to suggest that everyone must be a linguist, or a grammarian, or a psychic shaman, or an intuitive permitting and enabling  verbal expressions that equate with the values contained and implicit in the words of Jesus, as reported by Matthew.

The repeated question, ‘Who do you say that I am?’ echoes both the curiosity of the one asking, Jesus, as well as the nature of the response which is inevitably also an indication or sign of the relationship of the one answering. Given the rise and preponderance of existentialism, ‘Who do you say that I am?’ is at the heart of both our social integration as well as our honest perceptions of ourselves, if and when we ask it of ourselves. The various possibilities proferred by the apostles suggest an ambivalence and a speculation about who this one is as well as an inference of someone ‘different,’ for example, John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.

It is not surprising that the group of scholars who call themselves, “The Jesus Seminar,” created to ascertain the authenticity of Jesus sayings, would have found these words of Jesus to be non-historical or fiction. For example, Jesus did not claim to be the Messiah. The seminar deemed Jesus’ affirmation of being the Son of the living God’ to be a post-Easter utterance by the early church rather than a statement uttered historically and literally by Jesus.

Those notes are not included here to throw aspersions on the homily or the homilist. They are inserted to demonstrate that we are all working in an exploratory, discovering, and interpreting method and purpose in our search for God. The manner in which we perceive, conceive, imagine, interpret and aspire in this realm of our personal lives will impact our perception of God and our aspiring relationship with God. Each of us lives in a post-Easter world, with perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs that may have preceded that epic event and some that may have followed.

From another point of view, that might to some seem relevant here, there is no evidence that Jesus wrote any books, nor established any churches. Most of that latter work was the result of a converted, passionate and determined convert named Paul. Borrowing again from the Jesus Seminar, the notion of Peter as the “rock” on which the church is built is also not considered a historical statement of Jesus. Even the idea of Jesus founding an organized church is anachronistic, a later development that they did not consider to be attributable to the historic Jesus.

These notes are not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. This is not a dismissal of Christian theology, nor it is a condemnation of the Christian church. What it is an attempt to do is to question the priorities of both the identity and the relative purpose of the ecclesial institution, especially at a time when all traditional institutions are apparently and allegedly, crumbling before our eyes. Building edifices, whether they are idols, icons, or even bone fragments sold as tickets to salvation, can be a testament to a theology that has lost its focus. Glorifying God, as did Johann Sebastian Bach on his manuscripts, by signing many with the initials, S.D.G. (Soli Deo Gloria-To God alone the glory) is a personal, private declaration of a personal faith, believe and a form of worship. He often began his manuscripts with the initials, J.J. (Jesu Juva-Jesus, help me).

The most recent decision and act by those in charge, including Bishop Barbara Budde, at the Washington National Cathedral to inter the ashes of Matthew Shephard within the cathedral vault was an act of reverence for a gay man who was severely beaten and left to die tied to a fence for 18 hours near Laramie Wyoming. He died five days later. He was then a 21-year-old college student when he was murdered in 1998. He was also an acolyte in his local Episcopal church, and when Bishop V. Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop consecrated in the Episcopal Church suggested the National Cathedral as a fitting resting place for Matthew’s ashes, his family agreed. Bishop Robinson delivered the homily at the service, at times overcome with emotion..saying, ‘I have three things to say to Matt,’ he said through tears. ‘Gently rest in this place. You are safe now. And Matt, welcome home. (with notes from abc.net.au, in a piece entitled, Matthew Shepherd is laid to rest 20 years after his brutal murder)

Decisions, amid personal internal and public external turbulences, taken as acts of reverence, worship, gratitude and humility, and even perhaps in revenge, can best be evaluated, learned from and integrated into our world view, after they occur. And then concepts like fate, free will, determinism, perfectionism and concepts like projections can be teased out of the narrative. And that is where the faith-supported courage enables a deeper, more intense and perhaps even more authentic discernment is accessible…and that kind of process can be best done with a trusted ‘other’.

Searching for God # 74

A New Hampshire Episcopal bishop's stark warning to his clergy is resonating across the nation, drawing fervent praise from some and rebukes from others.

Bishop Rob Hirschfeld was one of several community and faith leaders gathered in Concord, N.H., for a vigil for Renee Macklin Good just days after she was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in

Hirschfeld called out the "cruelty, the injustice and the horror … unleashed in Minneapolis," and warned his clergy to prepare for "a new era of martyrdom."

"I've asked them to get their affairs in order to make sure they have their wills written," he said, "because it may be that now is no longer the time for statements, but for us with our bodies to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable." (From NPR, January 18, 2026, in a piece entitled, ‘Amid ICE clashes, New Hampshire bishop urges clergy to prepare their wills’ by Tovia Smith)

From merton.bellarmine.edu, quoting the preface to ‘The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer,’ we read:

‘Dietrich Bonhoeffer, ‘ Reinhold Neibuhr,’ in his preface, was one of the truly creative spirits of the Church. In Nazi Germany he carried his Christian loyalty to the actual point of taking up his cross and going to his own Golgoltha….(Bonhoeffer) sets forth what the doctrine of the grace of Christ really means, in distinction from the formalisms of thought which have often obscured its searching truth’’ and semi-mystical interpretation he treats at length the Sermon on the Mount and he concludes with a rapt and semi-mystical interpretation of ‘The Church of Jesus Christ and the Life of Discipleship.’ Here are convictions wrought in the fires of magnificent self-sacrifice and a courage which went all the way to a martyr’s death.

First published in 1937, Bonhoeffer was answering the call to return home to face the Third Reich. First published in 1894, and also in response to the Sermon on the Mount, Leo Tolstoy’s epic work, ‘The Kingdom of God is Within You,’ includes these words:

This is the case with all men in authority, who occupy positions more profitable than they could occupy except for the present regime, from the lowest police officer to the Tsar. All of them are more or less convinced that the existing order is immutable, because—the chief consideration—it is to their advantage. But the peasants, the soldiers, who are at the bottom of the social scale, who have no kind of advantage from the existing order, who are in the very lowest position of subjection and humiliation, what forces them to believe that the existing order in which they are in their humble and disadvantageous position in the order which ought to exist, and which they ought to support even at the cost of evil actions contrary to their conscience? (p. 300)

Bishop Herschfield’s ‘call’ to his clergy to ‘get their affairs in order to prepare for a possible and feasible martyrdom’ echoes both Bonhoeffer and Tolstoy, and while some may, and likely will, call his rhetoric catastrophizing, it is the most clear-headed, authentic, responsible, and encouraging ‘call’ to come from the ecclesial hierarchy in this turbulent period in United States history. Statements have to give way to bodies in the streets, on the roads, in the Home Depots and the Walmart parking lots. And with bodies in the streets, with or without a clerical collar, those bodies, just like Rene Good’s, will suffer the ignominy of bullets from the terrorists who themselves have been recruited and serve at the pleasure of the single-most dangerous terrorist, the occupant of the Oval Office.

Millions of ordinary citizens have already, for months, been putting their bodies and their whistles, and their cell phones and cameras in the streets whenever the ‘jack-booting thugs’ invade their cities and neighbourhoods.

Once again, theology collides with political history in a most dramatic stage setting. There are, of course, are other equally violent, deplorable scenes playing out in other theatres of conflict outside the U.S. borders where thousands are dying, being displaced, starving, suffering from disease and the stress and anxiety of when and where the next missile, bomb or drone will attack.

Language, legitimate language that depicts truth and reality in terms we can all agree are authentic, has evaporated into the sound-bites of propaganda, lies, deceptions and dissembling. The pursuit of personal power has replaced any vestige of political ideology, or even the modicum of human decency, threatening not only the ‘existing order’ of the previous 80 years but the actual lives of what to the thugs in power call, the collateral damage of war, human casualties. Vocabularies, text-books curricula and even college-admission requirements have been overtaken by the MAGA scorched earth campaign, as well as appointed positions and elected positions been filled with MAGA loyalists. Courts have been defied, mass communications behemoths have been secured through the financial assets of sycophantic friends of the chief executive, who is reported to have enhanced his personal wealth by $1 BILLION in the first year of his second term.

Some readers may not have thought specifically about those clergy in New Hampshire and elsewhere, who might consider Bishop Herschfield’s exhortation to  be more than they ‘signed up for’ when they completed the protracted process for ordination. “Get your wills and affairs in order” has not been the predictable and predominant homily of Bishops in ordination ceremonies. Rather, it might have been something akin to, ‘there are serious hidden risks in this business, and some will attempt to betray or to pillory or to exhaust or even to remove you in their excessive need for control.’ And the risks in that context would have been exclusively considered as members of and/or adherents to the church, certainly not enemies without, but still within the nation.

To those whose theology tends to avoid the political, the prophetic and the nature of discipleship that we have witnessed in Latin America, with Bishop Oscar Romero. Here is a brief description of Saint Oscar Romero from Britannica.com:

     

    St. Oscar Romero…was a Salvadoran Roman Catholic archbishop who was a vocal critic of the violent activities of government armed forces, right-wing groups and leftist guerillas in El Salvador’s civil conflict. Although Romero had been considered a conservative before his appointment as archbishop in 1977, he denounced the regime of Ge. Carlos Humberto Romero (no relation). The archbishop also refused to support the right-wing military-civilian junta that replaced the deposed dictator. Further his outspoken defense of the poor-who were powerless victims of widespread violence-brought repeated threats to his life. Romero declared his readiness to sacrifice his life for the ‘redemption and resurrection’ of El Salvador. His unreserved advocacy for human rights made him a hero to many, and he was nominated for the 1979 Nobel Prize for Peace by a number of U.S. congressmen and 118 members of the British Parliament. The following year Romero was assassinated at the hands of an unknown assailant while saying mass.

The tragic irony of Bishop Herschfield’s exhortation to his New Hampshire clergy echoing the martyrdom of the assassinated El Salvadoran Roman Catholic Bishop while he was saying mass in 1980 and the current highly complex and heinous and nefarious relationship between the United States government and the government of El Salvador with its cruel and inhuman(e) prison for deportees (Terrorism Confinement Centre CECOT) from the United States cannot be lost.

Alevo Airlines has stopped flying deportees for the administration after public protests ; Apple, Ben & Jerry’s and Costco have resisted the administration’s attempt to trash all DEI programs. Millions of Americans have repeatedly gathered on the streets of American cities and towns and villages in protest of this administration’s gross violation of human rights, something no American ever thought or conceived s/he would ever have to do in his or her own country.

Mark Carney’s historic line at Davos to middle powers in the new world, Middle powers must act together, because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu, signals a kind of refined, dining room law-of-the-jungle where the powerful ‘eat the weak.’ And the other table, the communion table over which the Eucharist is celebrated and when and when sacrifice and atonement are worshipped and revered is being evoked indirectly by Bishop Herschfield. Denominations no longer matter; even religious sects and faith communities must all join together, just as must all middle powers, in a phalanx of opposition to the inhumane, unjust sinister, evil, tyrannical and apparently unstoppable American administration. Just as Romero opposed the violence of both the right and the left, and the legal and financial impoverishment of the poor, so today we must not be deferred, distracted, dispirited or detained in our collaborative, non-violent, confrontation of evil by force.

Decision time has arrived for the priests in New Hampshire, as well as for the rest of the citizenry in America, in NATO countries, and in all nations that support democracy, human rights, the pursuit of equality and equity, the protection of the environment and the reduction of military armaments and military conflicts as ‘normal.’

As Carney also reminded us, ‘Nostalgia is not a strategy,’ and the church is renowned for having clung to many ‘sacred’ nostalgic perceptions, icons and attitudes, especially the one that has enmeshed the mainline churches with the establishment of both corporate and government America and the West generally. That complicity has been shattered, at least by the current administration of the United States, and the clergy and the public have really no choice but to acknowledge that umbilical cord, like many others, has been ripped up. The glimpse of silver lining, perhaps here, is that the power and wealth structures that have embossed the reputation of mainline churches through their cheques and their public reputations, and filled their pews with others seeking to ‘be affirmed’ by the ‘establishment’ no longer can rely on such a platinum spin-off, given that the establishment is proving that, like the emperor, it has no clothes.

Dis-membering the ecclesial establishment from the political and social and corporate hierarchies and their ‘faux-star-imprimatur’ may yet be one of the most fortuitous outcomes from this stormy decade. How ironic to envision that a tyrant obsessed with the pursuit of his own personal self-aggrandisement might actually nudge or even shove the churches back to being the voice of the voiceless, the arms and legs of the amputees, and the Good Samaritan for all those forgotten and taken for dead in the ditch, across the world.

Not only a Samaritan for the hated Jew, but a Samaritan all the dispossessed! And at the same time, a forceful, cognizant, sentient and committed enemy of the tyrant and the abuse of power.

Can Pope Pius XII possibly, from the grave, hear the plea and the prayer from Bishop Herschfield and weep for having maintained his policy of strict neutrality and public silence regarding the Nazi extermination of Jews? Can the church, generally, hear the voice of this Bishop, who, through both courage and faith, seems to be prepared to move beyond statements into the bodily activity of physical and sacrificial protest? Can the church continue to redeem itself, however painfully, in and through the active listening to new voices of agape, compassion, courage, and fearless faith?