Liberal Christianity
Introduction
Welcome to SuiteU’s course, Understanding Liberal Christianity.
We live now more than ever before in societies that emphasize conformity in more and more aspects of life. We are driven somewhat by our fast-developing yet rapidly changing technology which itself is grounded in consumerism and materialism. Commercial, political and spiritual activity seem to support the implication that the more we conform to what everyone else has and does, the more we are supposed to be able to function and interact with each other appropriately.
Do we measure our own spirituality and sense of religion with some “attitudinal norm” commonly supported within our society?
Are such comparisons the most efficient way to stop for a moment, look around to see how we are doing and whether or not we are satisfied?
Must a religious practice be self-defined in the absolutes of either/or and all or nothing?
Is it possible to sustain beliefs that are simultaneously liberal and conservative? Is it possible, for example, to be against abortion yet support a woman’s right to choose for herself.
What we are about to explore and examine is liberal Christianity from a basis of what has been called a liberal Christian theology.
Our preconceived notions
If you are to proceed with me in exploring liberal Christian theology you must recognize and identify the spiritual assumptions by which you live. These assumptions may be culturally inherited – many usually are – or may be the result of your own personal labors in pursuit or construction of a spiritual inner system by which you view the outer world.
You must understand the source of your assumptions and based on that source, determine if your assumptions and definitions of reality are your own or borrowed - someone else’s magic.
Whoever defines your reality dominates your perception of every aspect of reality.
What is the source of our internal images of Jesus? His impact on our lives is a spiritual impact and for Christians, Jesus informs our inner spiritual experience.
It is important to realize that in our culture we are not required to formally study Christian doctrine as some “approved and defined body of beliefs” in order to experience the influence of Jesus in our lives.
Nor are we expected to accept without question input from those who have made formal study or who have made a lifetime of informal study. We can profit from such folks only to the degree that we are allowed to reach our own conclusions, have our own experiences and define them for ourselves. This in a nutshell is critical thinking as it relates to religion.
Liberal Christianity expresses the essential idea that all we need to do is follow his quite famous advice that is both simple and powerful: Ask, seek and knock. You shall be given, you shall find and when you knock it will be opened for you.
Note that Jesus said nothing about asking righteously or worthily, seeking righteously or worthily or knocking righteously or worthily. Jesus did not say you have to pass some muster of orthodoxy or follow scripture from some commonly accepted or enforced orthodoxy before the Father will hear your asking, notice your seeking or open to your knocking.
And it was not Jesus who propounded the idea that all those things will come to you only after you accept Him as your personal savior.
If Isaiah says that the Father’s thoughts are not our thoughts, he does not say that we cannot know the Father’s thoughts. He does not say we cannot come to understand and think the Father’s thoughts.
Begin then this exploration with an inner prayer to know what God knows, see what God sees and understand the intent God has in creating life. These are the only important queries in a quest for a vitalizing and vivifying personal inner spirituality based on the pattern of Jesus.
I cannot tell you what that might look like for you. It is not mine to know. I cannot insist that my own experience is what you will have – again because I do not define your reality. I can only declare that if we take ownership of our personal definition of reality, what happens when we seek further light and knowledge about ourselves is ours to receive.
During our study you will be encouraged to examine the interaction between your internal thinking and outward behavior and attitude.
We will attempt to contrast the traditional tendency to preach that God desires obedience more than reasoned thinking. In this regard, spiritual pillars of Faith, Scripture, Prayer, Tradition and Reason will be discussed.
Many theological disputes between fundamentalist and liberal Christians have been defined as conflicts between faith and reason. Reason is a significant part of liberal Christian thinking. Reason, which is so much more than simply applied logic, includes an intuitive way of thinking and knowing. Reason applied spiritually is prayerful – prayer in its purest sense. Reason is reflection of one's own experience and, integrated with intuition, is the means by which the inner soul speaks in a voice sufficiently loud to be heard by the outer consciousness.
Literal Thinking
Those who take the greatest exception to the influence of Fundamentalist Christian thinking differ with a literalist "black/white" and "either/or" way of perceiving reality.
A literal reading of the Bible as an inerrant and absolute divine document that contains multiple references to an ultimate judgment and divine wrath against sinners seems to lead inevitably to a highly judgmental and critical Christian society. Liberal Christians resist and reject this approach.
Over 50 years ago Allan Watts made an impressive advocacy for a departure from devotion to a commanding and punitive God. In his preface to the second edition of his book, Watts wrote that, “the God of mystical experience may not be the ethically obstreperous and precisely defined autocrat beloved of religious authoritarians; but as experience, not concept, as vividly real as indefinable, this God does not violate the intellectual conscience, the aesthetic imagination, or the religious intuition. A Christianity which is not basically mystical must become either a political ideology or a mindless fundamentalism.”
Most of Christian history seems to have been a matter of competing power-claims that continue to this day.
On one hand, there is internal dispute and competition around issues of authority, true doctrines and what constitutes a true Christian and adversaries use the Bible as the ultimate justification for agreement or disagreement.
On the other hand, there is the issue of the power-claims of the past that are part and parcel of how many Christians view the rest of the world yet today. The notion that there is only the Christian version of heaven and afterlife complete with formulaic requirements for acceptance and entrance does little to enhance a global community of spirituality and religious outlook.
Was Watts on the right track? Is the true essence of Christianity more internal than external? Does it matter more that one seeks good because seeking good is a commanded practice with the promise of happiness and future reward? Or does it matter that one seeks good for the sake of goodness itself.
The former, despite ministerial protests, amounts to "telling God what to do and the people how to behave", as Watts wrote.
We will be examining our own beliefs, how they are impacted by literal thinking and areas in which such thinking enhance or hamper not only personal spirituality, but our overall approach to living.
Personal assumptions: Internal Myths
Our lives are living myths of our own creation. Our companion is our personal story, all the stuff inside we use tell us who we are and tell the world the same.
"Myth" is a word given too much work in how we share knowledge with one another. Many will not accept a myth because they equate myth to something built from nothing. Others say myth is another way to express truth.
Myth is assumption. Every definition of life is an assumption. Every reasoning behind what we choose to do and how we choose to behave is based on assumption. Defenders of religious creeds use the word "myth" to characterize religious beliefs that conflict with their own, saying "Your, assumptions are not as valid as my assumptions. In fact, your assumptions are myth while my assumptions are truth."
What do we risk if we refuse to recognize our own assumptions? How much are our individual lives shaped by inner scenarios based on assumptions we have been taught to accept as absolutely true?
Do we live an inner myth that reflects how we've been taught the world "is" rather than how we've discovered the world to "be"? Our personal mythical scenario is always on and is always running.
Sam Keen has described myth as referring to "an intricate set of interlocking stories, rituals, rites and customs that inform and give the pivotal sense of meaning and direction to a person, family, community or culture. The myths we carry around inside include unspoken consensus, the habitual way of seeing things, unquestioned assumptions, and our 'automatic stance'."
A society lives on its own unconscious conspiracy to consider a myth the truth, the way things really are. Do we belong to the majority who are literal without thinking; men and women who are not critical or reflective about the guiding "truths" - myths - of their own group?
As Keen implies, “To a tourist in a strange land, an anthropologist studying a tribe, or a psychologist observing a patient, the myth is obvious. But to the person who lives within the mythic horizon, it is nearly invisible."
During our studies, we will be exploring whether or not myth is another way to express a truth.
Jesus: History, Mystery and Doubt
We often encounter the suggestion that if Jesus were to somehow appear in this day and age his own reaction to who and what Christianity believes him to be might be surprising.
Regarding historical Jesus, there is a vast variety of images that come to mind among practicing Christians. On one hand, Jesus is expected to return in a supernatural and dramatic context, coming to judge and backed by a righteous army of angels – justifying a relatively new belief (perhaps 150 years) and investment in a concept of rapture, end times and judgment day. For these, the supernatural is an absolute must: the end times when God will intervene and overturn the negatives in life and set things right once and for all.
For others, the return of an all-powerful deity who will set things right once and for all, execute judgment with vengeful, righteous and indignant wrath has little or no bearing on how attitudes and actions are justified. For these, the supernatural external God is not necessary to make real the life and teaching of the historical Jesus.
What then is there of value in the life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth if the ultimate intervening God is left out of the picture? From a fundamental perspective the litmus test seems to be “Do you believe Jesus is God?” Or, “Do you believe Jesus was/is the Son of God?”
A supernatural Jesus Christ is by no means the sole basis for seeking a life of goodness in thought and action. To many, the prospect of an indignant returning judgmental God has little to do with why a choice is made to join or remain within a Christian context. For these there is little of the either/or thinking that is spawned by exclusivity taught in a literalist obsession with orthodoxy.
Belief and Critical Thinking
Perhaps influenced by authority, intellectual charisma and peer pressure, we find that our attempts to think critically become more and more difficult when our own internally programmed assumptions assert themselves.
This conflict is a natural part of growth in a social context and while it contributes to harmonizing with one’s culture and society, it may also hinder a sense of independence and the growing natural urge to feel self-reliant, self-confident and assured in where our “automatic stance” is founded.
Personal spirituality is very much the lifeblood of embracing life as it IS rather than naively embracing life as it might be according to someone else’s magic. That magic may be very accurate and totally useful, but until personal experience confirms such a knowing, someone else’s magic remains a borrowed attribute.
This borrowed spiritual attribute by naïve assumption can become habitual and addictive; more internally defined with conscious insistence and lazily labeled "faith" than by honest and critical testing.
Can we believe in Jesus without the background of supernaturalism?
The answer to that question is not up to group-think. The more we worry about the proven or provable facts of Jesus, the more we remain stuck at the image of Christ given us by someone else.
Jesus and the God of Compassion
Were Jesus’ teachings in opposition to the notion of God as a God of condemnation with rules and policies emphasizing purity and obedience as the primary virtues?
Who would argue with the idea that to Jesus the Spirit of the Law was more important than the Letter of the Law? Did Jesus in fact teach not a God obsessed with purity so much as a God of compassion?
A literal reading of the Bible, particularly the Old Testament can easily leave us with an idea of God as wrathful, selective, judgmental, punishing, and even cruel. In more contemporary terms, many Christians see God as a kind of benevolent Patton rather than a powerful but gentle Gandhi.
Is not the gentle attribute of compassion that which Jesus sought to portray in practically everything He said? Was it not precisely the tender relationship of son to father that Jesus portrayed?
Or did He come to teach or pattern a relationship with a God who looked like a more powerful alternative to Julius Caesar?
How was the God of Israel known by Jesus? Christ as a mortal man was a devout and practicing Jew who never departed from His Jewish perception and understanding of God, and who certainly did not “remake” God into something else.
Until we define Jesus for ourselves, we will not succeed in developing an internal and comfortable “fit” of what we know about a Christ-like life and how we will be able to live in such as way as to experience what He promised.
There are those who view God as a deity of requirements, rewards and punishments and who say that there is only one internal “fit” given by God and if that "fit" is uncomfortable, it is because we are not on the true path.
However, Watts went on to say that "The Gospel must therefore be the communication of Jesus' own experience of Godhood. Otherwise Christians put themselves in the absurd situation of reproaching themselves for not following the example of one who had the unique advantage of being God or, at the very least, 'the Boss's son.' It is thus that the 'saving truth' of the Gospel appears, not as Jesus' experience of Godhood, but as his punishment for proclaiming it and that sanctity in the following of Christ is chiefly measured by the degree of guiltiness felt in failing to come up to his example.."
Jesus opened his public ministry with these words: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, Because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor: He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives, And recovering of sight to the blind, To set at liberty them that are bruised."
My hope then is to stimulate an internal sense of healthy inquiry in which internal attitudes and spiritual values are more personally owned and acknowledged – that a sense of confidence exists that one is making his way in the world guided by a his own candle and not on someone else’s borrowed light.
Lessons
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