We
have not depended on made-up stories in making
known to you the mighty coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ. With our own eyes we saw his greatness.
Message:
There’s a sign out on our reader
board. It says, “Get over the 'Christian’
thing – come join us.” This sign is meant as both
an invitation and a challenge to our friends and
neighbors in the community, many of whom see
themselves as progressive, liberal, or the catch-all
phrase, spiritual but not religious. It’s an
invitation to them to come see us in spite of what
their prejudices about Christianity might be.
There’s a new book by Deepak Chopra
called The Third Jesus. In it he talks about
three ways of understanding Jesus.
There’s the historical Jesus,
the person we presume existed and about whom we know
almost nothing.
The second is the mythical
Jesus, the one that has been created by the church
over the centuries. As one member of our
congregation so colorfully expressed it:
“Christianity is bullshit – it’s just a bunch of
lies and myths.” (By the way, it really delights me
that someone can freely express this opinion in our
church with never a thought that they wouldn’t be
accepted and loved). It seems very likely that the
people who don’t come to visit us very
possibly believe something very similar. Perhaps
many of us do too, but are not as willing to speak
out.
When I speak of “the Christian
thing,” I’m referring to this popular image of
Christianity. The public image of Christianity is
that it is about a lot of things people no longer
believe. The Christianity presented in the media
portrays a belief system loaded with ideas most
thoughtful, rational people just can’t accept any
more. The Christianity we received from the church,
the mythical Jesus, has been used too often to
justify wars, both historically and currently.
Often today’s Christianity asks us to
suspend our thinking mind just to belong. As one
who spent most of his life outside of Christianity,
I have a lot of sympathy for people who say they’d
like to be part of our community if only it weren’t
Christian.
I am not suggesting that we deny our
heritage, but I am suggesting that we balance it
with what Chopra calls “the third Jesus” – the
mystical Jesus – who was one who realized
God-consciousness, who realized directly his
divinity. If we’re following that Jesus, it’s not
really about worshiping him or doing what he would
do. Rather, it’s about discovering what Jesus
became, and becoming that.
This moves way beyond the popular
view of “the Christian thing.” It is directly in
line with the “spiritual but not religious”
understanding. And so we invite them.
The sign outside -- “Get over the
‘Christian’ thing – come join us” -- is also meant
as a challenge to progressive and to “spiritual but
not religious” folks who could likely find a
welcoming community here. One of the salient
features of postmodern culture, and particularly New
Age spirituality, is how spiritual awakening gets
totally and utterly confused with feeling good. As
one person described it, having eviscerated
Christianity and emasculating Jesus, we have now
taken the Eastern traditions and transformed them
into hot tub spirituality. Our spirituality is
about just feeling good.
We live in what has been termed the
postmodern age and many progressive churches are
stuck in just being too darn nice. One of the
characteristics of postmodernity is that whatever
you believe is just fine. It’s your belief and I
have no right to challenge it – you’re you and I’m
me, and we can live happily ever after. The
problem is when we have folks flying airplanes into
the Twin Towers, and all you can say is “well,
that’s what they believe.”
That’s the downside of postmodern
progressivity. For all the wonderful advances, the
wonderful inclusivity that comes with the
progressive church and the New Age movement, there
is this really nasty flaw.
A lot of people run into that extreme
relativism and get really frustrated.
They’re tired of not having anything
to believe in and everything “just being okay.” And
the only real choice available is traditional or
more fundamental Christianity, which
unapologetically says “We’re right and you're
wrong.”
So the challenge that I am offering
to those who are “spiritual but not religious” is
the possibility, that we are exploring in this
church, that there is a place to stand beyond the
New Age; a place to stand beyond progressivism.
There is a place that says “yes!” There are
important moral values, and not all values are
equal. But there is a way to integrate the
complexity of our world, to hold it all together.
It's quite ironic that the idea that
there would be a way of seeing, a way of
understanding, that’s beyond progressive, beyond
politically correct, beyond New Age, and is
fundamentally antithetical to all those views
because from these perspectives “everyone is equal
and there are no differences.” You know the
culture I'm talking about. It gets a bit boring
when everyone is right and you can't offend anyone.
Now, we’re making the outrageous claim that there is
a way to move forward and include all that.
The challenge is this: If you’ve
been raised in this country, then you’ve been
submerged in Christian ideals, whether you were in
the church or not. Just by being part of American
culture, you’ve been submerged in the values of
Christianity. One principal value of that Christian
cultural perspective is this: “We are placed on
this earth. We’re not of this earth; we’re made out
of dirt, and God breathed life into us and we’re
intrinsically separate. And we were given dominion.
That is an important conception that comes out of
Christianity and suffuses Western society.
The notion that “we’re not good
enough” – that we have to do something to be good
enough – comes right out of the concept of “original
sin.” My challenge to be “spiritual but not
religious” is that you can't climb up the ladder to
a very inclusive way of seeing that we call
postmodernism and then kick the ladder out from
under you, which is what our culture tries to do.
The challenge I'm suggesting is, that if you’ve been
raised in the US, you already are suffused with
Christianity, and the way forward is to include the
history that brought you there.
The way forward in your spiritual
journey is, at this point, to look back and
incorporate and include all that you might want to
reject up to this point in your journey. My
challenge is that there’s a community here that’s
seeking to do just that. There is a community here
working to integrate the great myths and lies of our
tradition, to integrate the magical stories, to
integrate the perspective of doubt and science, to
welcome and include of all other faith stories of
other traditions into a larger picture.
I always marvel at the willingness of
this community to be adventurous. There are
conversations that occur here every week that just
blow my mind. I don’t know of another church where
these conversations would happen. I have to wonder
why people aren’t just falling over themselves to
get to us. I know that we are perceived as a bit
progressive and weird and liberal and all that, but
I would expect that to attract as many folks as it
drives away. I think the barrier is “that
Christianity thing.” I’ve talked to any number of
folks who say that “if it weren’t for that
Christianity thing I’d be right there with you.”
So, I’m putting out the challenge,
though I don’t know if there’s anyone to hear it.
The challenge is this: if you want to progress on
your spiritual journey you must integrate that which
you most want to reject. For many “spiritual but
not religious” Americans that means rejecting your
Christian roots. And there really is a place to go
forward. You don’t have to go back to the
Christianity you struggled to leave, you can move
forward into a different kind of Christianity.
So, we are here! We invite you. Get
over the Christian thing and find out what “Big
Christianity” or what we call Integral Christianity,
looks like. Come and see the potential and don’t get
caught up in what you imagine us to be.
Amen.
