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Speaking a new language

Speaking a new language

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Pillars of Creation photo by James Webb Space Telescope
Photo of the Pillars of Creation by the James Webb Space Telescope (2022)

Recently I came across a piece of writing that stunned me with its clarity and wisdom. It was an essay I came across on YouTube by a young man who creates videos on spirituality and nonduality. Going by the online name ASCENDOR, he has no apparent religious affiliation but has learned much from the world’s various spiritual traditions and from life.

There is an intelligence that endlessly holds everything in perfect harmony. It permeates all that is, both seen and unseen. It is the force that guides the stars in their orbits and sets the planets to dance in precise order. Effortlessly, it orchestrates the rhythm of the universe – from the gentle ebb and flow of the seas to the winds that carry the clouds across the sky.

Within this intelligence, everything finds its place. The trees grow as if they understand the language of light, stretching towards the sun, knowing that their growth is part of a greater plan. The animals instinctively follow their nature, migrating, hunting, resting, creating a perfect balance in the web of life. The seasons shift in an eternal cycle, as if an invisible hand gently directs them, allowing everything to bloom and fade at just the right moment.

Even in the smallest things, this intelligence reveals itself. A tiny seed, seemingly insignificant, contains within it the blueprint of an entire tree. It knows when to sprout, grow, and bear fruit – not through thought, but through pure being, through the infallible wisdom of life itself.

Everything happens in harmony, as if the universe were a single, vast symphony, where each note plays exactly in its proper place. This intelligence is not distant or separate from us; it is within everything we are and experience. It is in our breath, in the beating of our hearts, in every thought that comes and goes.

You have never seen a sulking or despairing tree, questioning its existence or losing itself in thoughts of the future. Trees live in natural harmony, rooted in deep trust. They surrender to the flow of life, carried by an intelligence far beyond the grasp of the human mind. In the same way, you too can let go of your worries, for they are not needed to live a beautiful life. When the weight of your worries lifts, the search ends. The ego-driven energy dissolves, and in this newfound vastness, the entire cosmos – everything that exists – becomes your family. Or, more accurately, you recognize yourself in all things.

What is being talked about here? Life, existence, reality, being, and “an intelligence that endlessly holds everything in perfect harmony.” There is so much to be pondered and explored in these words. One word that is not used, however, is “god”, though anyone from a religious tradition would want to say that is what the “intelligence” spoken of here means.

For me, however, this essay supports the late Catholic theologian Karl Rahner’s belief that we should stop using the word “god”, at least for a long while. Regardless of one’s beliefs, the word has accumulated so many ideas over the centuries, and has become so rigid, that is hides more than it reveals. By avoiding the word, as is done here, we are forced into questioning and exploring, rather than assuming we’ve got “it all” figured out.

Yet religions have great difficulty with the idea that they haven’t each got it all figured out—and usually exclusively. Speaking in Singapore during his recent Asia trip, Pope Francis got himself into hot water by publicly expressing this inclusive viewpoint.

“Religions are like different languages in order to arrive at God, but God is God for all. Since God is God for all, then we are all children of God…. If you start to fight, ‘my religion is more important than yours, mine is true and yours isn’t,’ where will that lead us? There’s only one God, and each of us has a language to arrive at God.”

The pope’s conservative critics once again were horrified at his openness and broad-mindedness. A retired archbishop responded incredulously,

“To suggest, even loosely, that Catholics walk a more or less similar path to God as other religions drains martyrdom of its meaning. Why give up your life for Christ when other paths may get us to the same God?”

Of course, he completely misses Francis’ point. God is the universal truth, not any religion. But this bishop and countless others like him are so wedded to their religious institutions that they can’t make that distinction. Such ossified misunderstandings are dragging religion down around the world.

The growing numbers of the “spiritual, not religious” reflects an attempt to find new language for this universal truth, ultimate reality, ground of being, which religion traditionally calls God. One of its most commonly expressed beliefs is that this ultimate reality is not in some particular place far off but here and now. As it says in the essay: “This intelligence is not distant or separate from us; it is within everything we are and experience.”

In a recent blog post reflecting on the pope’s words, Christian nonduality teacher Marshall Davis affirms his declaration but takes issue with one aspect of it.

In this regard both Pope Francis and his critics go astray. Religions are not paths to God. There are no paths to God. Religions are not different paths up the same mountain. Identifying religions as paths to God assumes that God is somewhere else and we need to travel to arrive at God. 

God is not somewhere else. God is here now…. If religions are paths, then they are dead ends. They often serve as barriers to discovering God. They become God substitutes….  

God is not found by hiking a trail up a spiritual mountain but by discovering that there is no trail and no mountain. There is only the Divine here now. All we need to do is open our eyes. We need to get out of our own way. All we need is eyes to see and ears to hear.  As Jesus said, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.” 

Davis also just published a new video in his series on the spiritual awakenings of people in the Bible. This one is on Job. After chapters of talking about his sufferings, Job finally gets his meeting with God to find out what it’s all about. As Davis says, God doesn’t use theology or quote scripture. Instead, he gives a long speech about the wonders of creation. God is telling Job that he is never going to figure this out with reason. Instead, he needs to fully experience the world around him to discover his place within it.

This is the wisdom that this new yet ancient spirituality is appealing to, rather than the theology and rationalism religion has relied on for centuries. As ASCENDOR says in his essay,

There is an intelligence that endlessly holds everything in perfect harmony. It permeates all that is, both seen and unseen…. Within this intelligence, everything finds its place…. Even in the smallest things, this intelligence reveals itself.

Here are the seeds of a new creed for our time. The great medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas said that the first book of scripture is the universe itself. How was that wisdom lost? Or why was it never assimilated in the first place? I’ve come to believe that the church’s anemic response to the climate crisis is due to it never sincerely believing in the sacredness of creation. And yet all of us have experienced spiritual renewal spending time in our gardens, gazing at the stars, or walking in the woods.

As Paul says in Acts, “God is the one in whom we live, and move, and have our being.” Davis is right that there is no path to God. How could there be a path to where we already are? The “intelligence” at the heart of everything is here now, around and within us. We just need to be still, and look and listen, with our minds and our hearts.

If you appreciate these posts, remember to “Like”, share, and subscribe, if you haven’t done so already. In the mystical world of search algorithms, this all helps “spread the word.” And add a comment, if you’re so moved, to be part of the conversation. Finally, thank you for your financial support (see the “DONATE” box), which covers blog expenses and helps me to keep doing this.

Repurposing the church

Repurposing the church

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A former church now become a restaurant
The former Good Shepherd Lutheran Church building now serves as a restaurant.

Earlier this month, a New York Times article told the story of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in the Chicago suburb of Des Plaines, not far from O’Hare airport. Well, it actually told the story of its building because Good Shepherd no longer exists. It closed a number of years ago and its building, situated in a pastoral lakeside setting, was converted into an upscale restaurant. The article highlights one couple who came to the restaurant to celebrate their wedding anniversary. They had been married in that same building 34 years earlier.

The story goes on to tell of a number of church buildings around the country repurposed in a variety of ways.

Around the world, houses of worship have been converted to restaurants, breweries, hotels, art centers, theaters and even sports complexes. Some abandoned churches have been transformed into mixed-use developments, blending retail and residential space, and affordable housing.

A church in New York City became a disco and one in St. Louis a skate park. Years ago, I stayed in a Chicago church that had become a B&B and I’ve seen a number of church buildings converted to single family homes.

The possibilities are presumably endless—as are the opportunities. Churches are closing by the thousands every year. A sociologist of church trends is quoted as saying that 100,000 Protestant churches in the US could close this decade, which would be close to 20% of such congregations. This after thousands closed in prior years. The story for Roman Catholic parishes is much the same.

Having spent most of my professional life in churches, I can say with some confidence that this situation will only get worse before it gets better, whatever “better” might mean. For most of the people remaining in churches, better means stopping their church’s membership shrinkage and then start growing again. Na’ gonna’ happen. But it’s almost impossible to convince churchgoers of that. I know. I’ve tried.

The people remaining in congregations like going to church. Most have done it all their lives and want to keep doing it as long as they can. Talk of changing, renewing, remaking, transforming the church gets a blank look from them. “We like it the way it is. We just wish there were more of us.” But in fact, their numbers are getting steadily older and fewer. Last one out, turn off the lights.

Now one might think church leaders, who are primarily clergy, would be steering churches in a new direction but they don’t get it either. For most of them, also, the primary goal is to preserve the institution. Which isn’t surprising since clergy are essentially trained to be institutional leaders. But that’s unfortunate since it is the institutional nature of Christianity that is the problem.

In a blog post last fall, Marshall Davis, a retired Baptist minister and now teacher of nondual Christianity, sees the church’s day of reckoning fast approaching.

The church does not have a problem; the church is the problem. The church thinks the problem is in the culture outside the church, but the real problem is in the church culture. The church does not see that, and therefore it has no motivation to change. Instead it doubles down on the culture wars. Because of the church’s spiritual blindness, the only solution left to God is so drastic that no one wants to think about it.

The church needs to die, so it can be resurrected as an entirely new creation. For that reason I am not dismayed when I read ever-worsening statistics about the decline of the church. I see God’s hand in it. Like a gardener or farmer, God is turning over the soil, in order to prepare for a new season.

Most people today just aren’t interested in belonging to a church, or to any other religious organization for that matter. That’s very hard for Christians, lay or clergy, to comprehend. For them being a Christian means belonging to a church. They enjoy the worship services (mostly), the “coffee and” after worship, Bible studies, service opportunities, etc.

Primarily, though, people enjoy the friendships they have with other church members who they encounter at such events. But newcomers or people outside a congregation’s “inner circle” often find these activities are “not all that.” Add to that the scandals, political divisions, and internal squabbles that rack many congregations and folks looking in from the outside will say, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

More than the church’s organizational flaws, however, is the fact that it is simply not offering what people are looking for. In clinging to its traditions, the church has been blinded to a cultural sea change occurring all around it. The result, as Davis says in a later post, is that people are looking elsewhere to meet their spiritual needs.

I see God at work in the hearts and minds of people who are leaving the church. People are looking more closely at what they believe … and don’t believe. They are deconstructing the faith they were raised in (if they were raised in a religious tradition). Upon careful examination, many are deciding that their religious tradition is not true. 

So church decline has little to do with liberal or conservative. It has everything to do with people looking for meaning and purpose, beauty and truth, community and meaningful relationships in life. People are not finding those in churches, so they are looking elsewhere. They are looking to other religious traditions and humanistic philosophies. They are exploring other spiritual practices and beliefs.  

Throughout my ministry career, I have watched my denomination, and others like it, struggle to stem their decline. The proposals and renewal programs have been endless, and millions of dollars spent on them. Nothing has changed. But to use a commercial metaphor, all of these efforts have dealt with the packaging. No one, it seems, whether in the pews or the pulpit, dares to question whether it might actually be the product itself that is the problem.

Specifically, but only briefly, the church needs to finally acknowledge that its ancient sin/salvation shtick is over. Not only are people outside not interested in it but many in the pews—and pulpits!—don’t buy it anymore, either. The carrot-and-stick of heaven and hell are way past their sell by date. Many churches today, of course, barely pay lip service to this tradition. Yet it is still at the core of these churches’ creeds, liturgies, calendars, prayers, hymns, and education materials.

“But that’s what Jesus is all about, isn’t it?” That’s certainly the direction the early church pulled him and it’s the direction the church has gone ever since. But there is good evidence now that many early Christians were not onboard with that viewpoint and instead understood Jesus very differently (see the gospel of Thomas, for instance, where the crucifixion and resurrection are never mentioned). And throughout its history, there has always been a minority in the church who viewed Jesus as something other than a “savior from sin”, the mystics being the most notable.

More importantly, thanks to modern New Testament scholarship, and when we remove our “savior-colored glasses”, it has become easy to see that Jesus himself showed little interest in salvation religion, his “attack” on the temple being perhaps Exhibit A. Rather, his primary concern was with the suffering of people in their daily lives, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual. In Mark, the gospel’s “good news” is that God’s kingdom is here, now, at our finger tips. And in Luke Jesus declares,

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

While the church certainly affirms these texts, what isn’t acknowledged is that they have nothing to do with the ancient sin/salvation mantra the church has recited for nearly two millennia. It is so ingrained that, as I said above, the church’s predicament will have to get worse before it gets better. People within the church today won’t be able to undo the doctrines, imagery, and language that have sustained the church for so long. It’s what they’re there for.

Nonetheless, I share Marshall Davis’ view that from this dying will come a new rising. The Spirit is indeed “turning over the soil.” It may not look like much now but in the spring, however long that is in coming, new growth will appear. Then, repurposing church buildings will give way to repurposing the church itself.

If you appreciate these posts, remember to “Like”, share, and subscribe, if you haven’t done so already. In the mystical world of search algorithms, this all helps “spread the word.” And add a comment, if you’re so moved, to be part of the conversation. Finally, thank you for your financial support, which covers blog expenses and helps me to keep doing this.