This is an excellent TEDx talk by TJ Dawe of Beams and Struts. The author says it’s more important now than at any time in history to share what we know, and to approach each other with trust and respect rather than with fear and raised fists. If my ego becomes invested in my own opinion, I will defend my position no matter what facts are being exchanged. It becomes a lose/lose situation...I don't learn anything, and all I've done is confirm my own biases and opinions! If I "win" I make an enemy out of the other, guaranteeing they will never listen to anything I have to say, and further entrenching them in their own opinion...watch to discover the benefits that can be derived from actually listening to other points of view.
In this video hosted by Huffington Post, Deepak Chopra and Leonard Mlodinow discuss their newly released book "War of the Worldviews: Science Vs. Spirituality." The book promotion on Deepak Chopra's website says, "These two great thinkers battle over the cosmos, evolution and life, the human brain, and God, probing the fundamental questions that define the human experience." These topics greatly interest me, and I found their video discussion quite informative. It's refreshing that although they do disagree, they are able to engage in an open and non-antagonistic dialogue and seem willing to learn from each other. I think we need more discussions like this, not only between science and spirituality, but between religious denominations, faith groups, belief systems, politicians, special interest groups, cultures, and people groups throughout the world.
I recently listened to an interview with Bruce Sanguin and Rev. Kelly Isola in which Sanguin talked about how he’s applying the Spiral Dynamics model of human development to explain why Jesus means so many different things to so many different people.
I have been a fan of Spiral Dynamics for quite some time. Spiral Dynamics is a theory of human development introduced in the 1996 book by Don Beck and Chris Cowan which was based on the work of professor Clare W. Graves. This theory explores the process of human emergence and how living systems evolve, grow and change. Each new level transcends and includes all previous levels.
The following diagram illustrates the different levels of development and their associated characteristics:
vMEMEs
COLOR
THEME
FOCUS
VALUE SYSTEMS
LEVEL 1 (A-N)
BEIGE
SurvivalSense
"ME"
Group bands together
to stay alive
LEVEL 2 (B-O)
PURPLE
KinSpirits
"WE"
The sense of family-tribe
with time honored
LEVEL 3 (C-P)
RED
PowerGods
"ME"
Power-action driven,
egocentric
LEVEL 4 (D-Q)
BLUE
TruthForce
"WE"
Purposeful, absolutist,
"one right way"
LEVEL 5 (E-R)
ORANGE
StriveDrive
"ME"
Entrepreneurial,materialistic,
success-driven
LEVEL 6 (F-S)
GREEN
HumanBond
"WE"
Community,harmony,
equality,relativistic
LEVEL 7 (G-T)
YELLOW
FlexFlow
"ME"
Natural processes, mutual realities; live for mutuality
LEVEL 8 (H-U)
TURQUOISE
GlobalView
"WE"
Harmony, holism, spirituality
In his book The Emerging Church, Sanguin applies these stages to how Christians see Christ. Each stage's view has a positive and a negative aspect:
Purple--Christ is the Tribal Christ. "He makes the world go 'round when proper ritual is performed....He answers the prayers of those who are obedient." (p. 94).
The negative can be superstition: praying for football victories, parking spots, and miracle cures.
Red--The Warrior Christ. "Followers of the Red Christ go with him into battle on behalf of their tribe, nation, or belief system....In its most positive expression, following this Christ gives us the energy to "fight" for what we believe in--to take a stand." But, "The Red Christ led the Christian armies in the crusades. He also led the U.S. army into Iraq." (p. 94) Blue--The Traditional Christ, a Divine Scapegoat. "As part of the divine plan, God sends his only son to suffer and die on behalf of humanity, modelling sacrifice of self for a future reward....Christ's own sacrifice invites followers to led lives of self-sacrificial love, with the hope of eternal reward. But...he can be used in a triumphalistic manner. He is the only truth, the only way, and the only life, and if you don't believe it you're going to hell." (p. 95 emphasis author's) Orange--The Modern Demythologized Christ and Christ as CEO. "Christ is seen as the human one, a teacher of spiritual wisdom....In its positive expression, the Orange stage helps us transcend the literalism of previous levels....modernist values give us permission to think for ourselves. But......In its negative expression, the Orange level leaves no room for Spirit." (p. 95) Green--The Egalitarian-Postmodern Christ. "The postmodern Christ embraces multiple cultures and downplays the "Truth" of any particular religious system. The Green Christ draws the circle ever wider, so that it includes the outcasts, the left-behinds, and the marginalized. But...In its negative expression, followers of the Green Christ are impatient and dismissive of all other value systems." (p. 96) Yellow--The Integral/Ecological/Cosmic Christ. "The Yellow, integral Christ encompasses the universe and all cultures as an integrated ecology of systems....Followers of this Christ become fascinated by the world that the new sciences are discovering, and by how this world connects to the core metaphors and narratives of the Judeo-Christian tradition." (p. 96)
But...elitist thinking and impatience with those perceived to be 'below' this stage.
Turquoise-The Mystical Christ. "At this level, the world is experienced--not merely conceptualized--as one. A follower of this Christ does not merely perceive the universe an integrated whole. She knows herself to be a form of the integrated whole, the part in whom the whole is manifest. The great diversity of life is also an expression of the Holy One. All of life is sacred revelation, for those with eyes to see." (p. 97, emphasis author)
(Thanks to John Shuck at Shuck & Jive, for this summary).
I can see my own journey reflected in this spiral. Although it has not been a smooth journey (I'm more than sure that I've expressed both positive and negative traits at each stage!), I've traveled through magical thinking, dealt with anger problems and judgmentalism, escaped the bonds of fundamentalism, questioned everything I ever thought was true, and come to a place where I can embrace the Oneness and inclusiveness of the Divine.
I fully believe we need to have space for people to think for themselves and ask questions, but I've been puzzled lately by the attitudes of some (certainly not all!) skeptics that I've encountered on blogs and in comment threads. So what was really illuminating for me was Sanguin's perspective on the unhealthy aspect of the Orange meme's worldview. This seems to fit with what I'm encountering: a tendency to leave out spirit; a mindset that rejects the spiritual completely and reduces everything to the level of matter and empirical evidence. Throwing the baby (spirit) out with the bathwater (mythic literalism), so to speak
In his book, Sanguin describes healthy Orange: "The orange value system embraces scientific rationalism...Within this system, Christ is seen as the human one, a teacher of spiritual wisdom. The divinity of Christ is downplayed in favor of the flesh-and-blood human being...In the scientific era, we learned that Christ didn't actually walk on water, heal the blind, or raise from the dead. These are rich metaphors, but not to be taken literally...In its positive expression, the orange stage helps us to transcend the literalism of the previous levels" (p. 95).
According to Ken Wilber in his book Integral Spirituality, both modern science and religion have confused the premodern mythic level with spirituality itself. He went on to say that religion itself needs to make room for and sanction the orange, or modernistic, interpretations of its religious messages. Wilber recommended the works of John Shelby Spong, Marcus Borg, Stephen Carter, and F. Forrester Church as religious and spiritual writers who have emphasized the orange interpretation of Christianity without dispensing with spirituality (p. 178-179).
To disregard any level of development leads to rigidity and lack of growth. Let us allow room for one another to retain a connection with the Divine at whatever developmental level we find ourselves. May we encourage one another to grow and transcend each level in a healthy manner, and may each of us enter into the place where all of life is experienced as sacred.
Lately, I’ve been frequenting some blogs written by self-described Christians who are deep in the throes of doubt or ex-Christians who are now skeptics, agnostics, heretics, and/or atheists. While some are quite comfortable in their present position, many tell heart-wrenching stories of doubt, inner turmoil, fear. Why is this topic of interest to me? Because for the past ten years or so, I have been going through a period where I have questioned everything.
M. Scott Peck says that people entering Stage III in the spiritual journey begin to question the religious doctrines with which they were raised:
Stage III Skeptic, Individual, questioner, including atheists, agnostics and those scientifically minded who demand a measurable, well researched and logical explanation. Although frequently "nonbelievers," people in Stage III are generally more spiritually developed than many content to remain in Stage II. Although individualistic, they are not the least bit antisocial. To the contrary, they are often deeply involved in and committed to social causes. They make up their own minds about things and are no more likely to believe everything they read in the papers than to believe it is necessary for someone to acknowledge Jesus as Lord and Savior (as opposed to Buddha or Mao or Socrates) in order to be saved. They make loving, intensely dedicated parents. As skeptics they are often scientists, and as such they are again highly submitted to principle. Indeed, what we call the scientific method is a collection of conventions and procedures that have been designed to combat our extraordinary capacity to deceive ourselves in the interest of submission to something higher than our own immediate emotional or intellectual comfort--namely truth. Advanced Stage III men and women are active truth seekers. (The entire article can be read here.)
This doesn’t sound like such a bad experience on paper. But in the nuts and bolts and guts and gore of real life, the transition can be an earth-shattering experience that affects all aspects of our beings - emotional, physical, psychological, spiritual, and social. And to make matters worse, many who enter this stage don’t know what’s happening to them. I know I didn’t – for the first time since I became a Christian, I didn’t know where I was spiritually. I had always been a person of great faith, what was happening to me? I felt lost and alone in a great sea of questions. I ran from the questions that kept arising, and tried to fight the questions that I was unable to suppress. Adding to the difficulty, in my opinion, is that the majority of churches are at Stage II (Formal, Instutional, Fundamental, threatened by anyone who thinks differently from them), and so there is no place in these churches where people are allowed to ask questions. So not only do we have all these questions, but there's no safe place to ask them - we have have people all around us who think we're falling into heresy. In fact, I was actually "churched" as it's called here in the Bible belt. It makes a scary place even scarier!
In my lonely “dark night,” I grasped at anything that might shed light and help to give me understanding about what I was going through. I read Madame Guyon and Saint Teresa. I read the writings of George Fox and Watchman Nee. And while all these were helpful to some extent, they also seemed to be dark writings presented in antiquated language, difficult to understand from my 21st century perspective. After that,I discovered the writings of contemporary mystics like Evelyn Underhill and Father Thomas Keating which explained a lot. And thank God for the internet – I did find other crazies there, and that was of some comfort.
I think one of the challenges is if we dare to question, if what we have previously known is NOT true, then what are we left with? Nothing? It sure feels that way… But there is a time for everything, even a time to tear down (Ecc. 3:3)…or, to use the contemporary term, deconstruct. We must be willing to subject our adolescent faith to questions in order to make the transition into a more mature level of faith. I don’t claim to have all the answers; I’m still very much in transition myself. But I did come to a place where I stopped resisting the questions. I can remember thinking, “I’m just gooooing…” And everything as I had known it did crumble. (I won’t go into specifics – you might think me a heretic!)
I have been very fortunate that I came into what I can only term “a new place” in which I’ve found a greater faith; a greater certainty. I like to think that at last I’m moving into Stage IV, into a more mature faith (I wrote about some of this here). But I realize, as well, that even that is only the beginning. And while I think I’ve been through the period of intense questioning that the skeptics describe on their blogs, I wonder. My doubts may be as nothing compared to theirs! In either case, I think Brian McLaren is correct in what he says in the trailer for his soon to be released book Naked Spirituality: A Life with God in 12 Simple Words: “After we complete the four stages once, we go through them again and again, each time at a higher or deeper level.”
Peck says "Knowledge of these stages is so important because it facilitates the acceptance of others even though they may be in different places spiritually." Doubt is natural; doubt can even be very good and necessary for growth. There is a great need to make room in our diverse faith communities for people on all levels of the spiritual journey, even the skeptical level! And I think that’s what the emergent church folk are doing – they don’t claim to have all the answers, but they ARE trying to make a place where people can feel free to ask some of their questions.
Update! This "late-breaking video" just in from Reflections blog. I just had to borrow it and add it to this post. I realize it's an extreme example, but it is a sad example of what happens when there is no room for questions..."Westboro Baptist Church Family Disowns Daughter"
