Two recent posts (my church is sick & reactions to a sick church) elicited some comments and emails from friends and strangers alike. Common among these was a varied understanding of this word "Spirituality". So in response, this is an attempt to articulate some of the challenges posed by this word - what is spirituality? It's a bit long!
There are three parts to this: about the term "Spiritual"; what others tell us about being Spiritual; and a personal principle or two that I think fits facts, experience, and logic. A. Spirituality 150 years ago the term probably referred to someone who is religious. In our post-modern world it increasingly refers to non-affiliated thinking about one's spirit; about a hunger for something in addition to our material existence. Secular society is increasingly a spiritual society in this sense - but not in the sense of traditional religions. There is no shortage of speakers and authors stepping forward to put their spin on the emergence of spiritual living. It ranges from the superficial scratching of Oprah, all the way through to deep philosophers. Many of the writers emerge from religious backgrounds, but not all. Examples include Richard Rohr, Alan Watts, Rob Bell, Eckart Tolle, Cynthia Bourgeault, Byron Katie, Thomas Merton, and many, many more. This has been paralleled by a massive growth in courses, videos and spirituality institutes coupled with some "interesting" new monikers; like Nones, Dones, and SBNR (another link is here). Outside of the orthodox version of traditional faiths, contemporary spirituality seems to mostly be various forms of implicit gnosticism. This is nothing new, and gnostics have been around since the beginning of recorded history. This type of spirituality is now reflected in just about anything: paganism, Zen meditation, post-Christian thinking, mountain-top moments, etc., etc. The bottom line is that in our ever increasing materialism, with an ever-expanding marketplace of spiritual options, we are all yearning for moments of transcendence to satisfy the sense of unfulfilled lives that surfaces when we're being honest. "Love is all you need" is the refrain we hear shouted from the rooftops, and so we go searching for this love that is supposedly everywhere but which we never seem to find. We want, we demand our dose of transcendence - that's the secular expectation of spirituality - just like we want our TV. And if God is supposedly everywhere, why do we need to find him in church? That's a very good question indeed. But step back, consider, reason with me for a moment. What does "spiritual" mean. At a minimum, spirituality is acknowledging that I am more than my material existence (if you think we are simply the chemicals and compounds that make up our body, spirituality can only be an emotion at best). This acknowledgement is how spirituality has been secularized ... its the Oprah version. It is about me looking inside to find my transcendent self, riding on the mantra that I can be anything I set out to be if I only believe in myself. Its highly appealing: promising to satisfy (theoretically) and makes me feel good (if and when I find moments of transcendence); it has no/low barriers, requires little sacrifice, with no dependencies on anything external (how we love to be self-sufficient). This type of spirituality says all my spiritual needs can be found in inward reflection. But hang on, think about that. That is surely only a very shallow spirituality! Because that is a spirituality that settles for self. I don't know about you, but my own spirit is not something I'd like to settle for - it's not that great a spirit. I know my own spirit only too well, and it's not at all what I'd like it to be, in fact its got some downright ugly bits. Besides which, I am a relational creature, so settling for self is selling myself short. Ok then, what's the next level up of spirituality? The next step is of course to say "Well, I have a spirit, and my spirit yearns for the Great Spirit" ... or "God" to use shorthand. This is a spirituality where my spirit hungers for relationship with something greater and more pure. But this spirituality also claims "I can find and relate to God", which fails the test of logic. If God is God then a) how we relate to him is not defined by our choices, but by God, and b) it fails to answer the question of how my broken spirit can relate to a perfect God. For perfection is by definition both perfect justice and perfect love: frustratingly this little apparent paradox we often overlook in our desire for spirituality - where we think that love is all we need. How can perfect love overlook everything? If love is ALL we need, then child molesters, human traffickers, mass murderers, terrorists, organizers of genocide are logically all ok with God (not to mention the equally abhorrent back-stabbers, malicious liars, deceivers, adulterers, all-out greedy Wall Street money grabbers, and (some) investment advisers). For if love is all we need, and if God is love, then according to that logic this should be enough to clear anyone's slate, not so? Or so some would have us believe. Unfortunately that understanding simply does not fit a definition of love: a love that says there are no consequences is a "love" that necessarily gives me licence to do any sort of evil I like, because it says that in the end love is all I need, and that a loving God would never hold anyone to account but simply forgive it all away. Nope, that sort of weird love is not what we conventionally understand as the meaning of love. But perhaps "love is all we need" simply means I need to receive God's love and all will be ok. The problem is that one of the fundamentals of love is that it is a surrender; if I love someone I surrender my will to them, I don't love in order to get what I want. Yet sadly many (most? all?) of the current purveyors of the spirituality say that all I need is the private love relationship between me and God, and in this they are promoting that I do this for what I can get out of it, not about what I will need to surrender to receive love. This is not real love. What's missing then from this form of spirituality? Well, this spirituality is missing relationship with others. And so rationally the next level of spirituality is about our spirit in relationship with God and with others. It is also a spirituality that acknowledges I am not equal with God, that admits I am the lesser partner, and hence my relationship with God and with others has to be on God's terms, not mine! This is the spirituality claimed by orthodox Christianity. So quickly summarizing. Spirituality focused simply on my own spirit is shallow and unsatisfying. Spirituality between only myself and God (the type that says my spirituality is a private affair) is illogical if God is perfect love, because our actions have consequences for others. Also it is typically sold as the spirituality that gives me what I want, not a spirituality or surrender that love requires. But the spirituality that says bind me + God + others on God's terms (not my terms) - that's the fullness of what Spirituality could be. B. Some comment on what's being marketed out there What are the philosophers and thinkers of today saying? There are basically two streams. One begins from a position of denying that God exists and instead looks to syncretism - a blending of nice bits from traditional faiths - to seek the transcendence of self in a new experience. The other takes an orthodox faith and re-invents a new spirituality through a creative re-interpretation of selective elements, restructured and expanded in a way that they find more acceptable. Basically, if given enough time both streams ultimately converge (as they logically must) into an introspective and contemplative mysticism of one form or another that tries to put a palatable face on the realities around us. What about some examples? The "spiritual but without God" perspective is the domain of naturalism. There is a huge diversity of expression in this, as one would expect, for everyone is creating a personal spirituality that satisfies their preferences. In this we also find Buddhism (which could be argued is a do-it-yourself religion with no concept of grace, and essentially a form of atheism), along with atheists rationalizing a personal spirituality, and a host of conflicting thoughts emerging from spiritual philosophy. If I were to pick only two examples of the latter, both because I've recently been discussing them, I would point out Alan Watts and Eckhart Tolle. Watts was a provocative thinker who flirted seriously with Buddhism, then Christianity, and emerged from both into a mix of pantheism and/or paganism, along with a good dose of sex, drugs and drink along the way. Tolle was born Ulrich Leonard Tölle, but changed his name to Eckhart supposedly in homage to 13th century Meister Eckhart who was a complex writer, but paradoxically for Tolle was also a Godly man who once wrote "... you can rest assured that He [God] is immeasurably more devoted to you and He trusts you far more, for He is loyalty itself." Tolle teaches an appealing array of messages that are "the essence of all religions". To my reading, the writings of people such as these are the musings of individuals that, however well articulated, ultimately leads one into a form of nihilism, while along the way holding out the hope for the transcendence of ego as an evolutionary path to happiness and peace. Then we have the multitude of the other "new-spirituality" people who are "(re-)discovering" true spirituality. There is no shortage of these, and so I'll mention simply two that I encounter most often. Richard Rohr, an Anglican priest who lives on the edge of orthodoxy, and writes things such as "... every time God forgives us, God is saying that God's own rules do not matter as much as the relationship that God wants to create with us" - in my logic that's not a God, that describes a whimsical child who thinks Truth can be whatever they want it to be. Or there's Rob Bell who is currently on his "Everything is spiritual" speaking tour which he described at one event as being about "A bunch of the old stories that we used to rely on just aren’t working any more ... I want to take a stab at a new story.” I can tell stories too. But I want a story based on Truth, not my desire. Among all these spiritual "leaders" there are deep contradictions. Not all can be right, so who does one listen to? C: A principle or two that are important to me I strongly hold to the view that what people want is not necessarily what people need, nor what they should get (just think of children, teenagers, and actually if I think about it, quite a lot of adults too). Wants and desires are normal but they create pressures that if allowed, push us into places of narrow-mindedness and selfishness, places where we try to escape from uncomfortable truths, places of cowardice because it takes such courage to look reality in the face, and places where altruism, compassion and grace take the back seat. The sort of spirituality that is me-focused is a spirituality that hides me from having to admit a dependence on some sort of God. Consider: if God is God, then regardless of what I might get out of a spiritual relationship, God would be worthy of my undivided attention. If I am gazing at the Milky Way in the night sky on a moonless night, I'm going to be in deep admiration; not for what the Milky Way can give me but for what it is. That's a Truth I want to live by, and I start with acknowledging the immensity and awesomeness of God despite my circumstances. Then comes the necessary questions: can I know God, does God want to know me, and on what terms? Its so tempting to play the game of conditional relationships with God - you know, "If you do that I'll do this" - but conditional relationships are inherently about self interests, not about the other. As Chesterton wrote when he was brutally honest with himself "I did try to found a little heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy.” I believe there are many "thinkers" of today who are consumed with trying to invent their own little heresy in the belief they've discovered something new. Instead, all they are finding is a distortion in the mirror of their own intellectual ego. Is there any evidence at all that we are growing more wise (not growing in knowledge, that is not the same thing). Are we any wiser than say, 3000 years ago? I believe not, for wisdom is not itself knowledge, wisdom begins with acknowledging Truth, and each person begins their life in total ignorance and has to find wisdom for themselves. For myself, I find fully satisfying the spirituality in orthodox Christianity: by which I DO NOT mean the hugely inadequate and disturbingly problematic institutions, but I mean the relationship with the person. (The best writer I know who has walked this path of exploration before me is Chesterton. Although his writing style is of an earlier generation, he gives a clear voice to truths of spirituality as can be seen in quotes, better yet in his essential writings, with full value in the originals.)
1 Comment
Hmm. ....I was most interested in your thoughts on Eckhart Tolle since u read the books and did the Oprah 10 week study. And I did feel extreme peace in attempting to relinquish the ego's hold. But upon reading this I do see how Tolle ' s commentary on how he is free of ego is in fact an egouc statement. And Oprah, we'll she us ego incarnate. I do have to say, (and this isn't your fault, it's a compliment) that your writing is so introspective and so.ewhat complicated I'm certain I'm not grasping the entirety of your reflection. Thank you for writing this.
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May 2017
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