Coming Unstuck

Progressive and liberal Christians have always chided the so-called "religious right" for their literalism, rightly so, I believe. However, literalism is often a bugaboo for those of us who consider ourselves progressive or liberal. Sometimes it's called "political correctness" (PC), sometimes it's not named, but "there" nevertheless.

Marcus Borg, in one of the units of the video course "Living the Questions" (both series 1 and 2 of the course)--and in other venues--explains how this phenomenon "severely erodes" Christian witness.

His thesis is that modern Western culture is the only culture in history to insist that "truth and verifiability" are required to go together--to our damage. He notes that, when we are very young we view the world with "pre-critical naivete" and take things pretty much as we hear them (stories of the tooth fairy, Santa Claus, the virgin birth narratives of Jesus, etc.). As we grow older we move more or less automatically into the next phase of "critical thinking" where we begin to sort out which stories of our childhood we'll continue to believe and which to dismiss. This is also the stage where questioning and evaluating new information for truth and verifiability sets in.

He notes that this skill can be valuable and adaptive, but also warns that it can also become a ruthless taskmaster and destructive if allowed to develop into cynicism. We do need a means for sorting truth from tale, but need to be careful and set limits for our scepticism.

He argues that we need to be able to bring "post-critical naivete" to bear on some situations and also to be able to disconnect truth and verifiability where we need to. This is because, often, the truth (or truths) of a story do not depend on whether they "really" happened in such-and-such a way, at some specified time and place.

He notes that, though we move automatically from "pre-critical naivete" to "critical thinking," we don't automatically move on to "post-critical naivete." To get there--to get "unstuck" from the rut of "critical thinking"--takes an act of will. But when we do, we can then reevaluate the stories of our youth, and the stories we've acquired over our lifetime, and reappropriate them as true stories--for the value that they have to inspire and motivate and encourage--without getting into divisive and destructive arguments over whether or not they happened as historical events in "just this way."

I've been told many times, "If you're really a progressive, then you can't say those things and you can only say these things this way...." But that comes from getting stuck in critical thinking and robs us of our ability to find the truth in the metaphor. It also makes us quite as literalistic as our friends on the "religious right."

So when we come to doing Christian Education or to participation in the Liturgy, when we find ourselves "mentally editing" our language and our participation as we go--falling silent on certain lines of a hymn, or when we come to certain phrases of the affirmation of faith, or in explaining the meaning of a parable or a miracle--we can end up severely crippling ourselves, not to mention our students.

According to statistics the so-called Boomer and Buster generations have been some of the most "detached" and "critically-thinking" oriented generations in history. Yet we're seeing a massive turn toward (or back to) mysticism and mystery in the next generations (the so-called Gen-X, Gen-Y and "echo boomers") now growing up and maturing. They seek to enjoy and seek out mystery--particularly in religion--and select for what we Boomers have so often dismissed as "outright myth," as "smoke and mirrors," or "smells and bells."

Perhaps it's time for the church to begin again to revisit our Story, to see it again, as Borg suggests, with "post-critical" eyes; to recover the sense of awe and wonder and to "get unstuck" from our "hard-headed" insistence that every thing and every event must be sorted, categorized, and demystified. Jesus said something about becoming "as little children" did he not?

Tikkun Olam

This past summer and this fall I'm reconnecting with the work of Walter Wink, through the books of his "Powers Trilogy" and his book which more or less condenses the trilogy, The Powers That Be. This reading together with facilitating the study course "Living the Questions" (LtQ) has sparked the renewed interest.

In LtQ, numerous references are made to the "myth of redemptive violence," the "Domination System," and "principalities and powers." The first two are terms Wink uses and defines in his writing; the third, by Paul in his letters.

Wink holds that an analysis of the creation myths of many religions around the world (particularly those which influenced modern Western and Middle Eastern societies in both their sacred and secular aspects) reveals that violence is a "given"--part and parcel of the fabric of existence, both of individuals and of peoples. In these models of reality, violence is "who we are."

Wink also points out that the creation myth of Genesis 1:1-2:4a presents a radically different picture of creation in which violence plays no part in the creation of the world or its peoples. In this model violence is something which may be "added on" but which is certainly NOT "built in." In fact he suggests that the Hebrews who recorded this creation story did so intentionally as a direct refutation of the violence-saturated stories of their neighbors. The strong theme of this premise is that, if we've learned to be violent, we can unlearn it and live another way.

The 16th century Jewish mystic Isaac Luria is the first author known to use the phrase "tikkun olam" which is usually translated into English as repairing, or healing, the world. He poses a different, but interesting, story of how the world became "broken" but his proposal is essentially the same: we are invested with the purpose of healing the world. (You can read more about Tikkun Olam at such sites as www.innerfrontier.org/practices/tikkunolam.htm.) This is a vital--not simply an academic--question for progressive Christians as well, particularly for those of us who are coming/have come to believe that the concept is central to understanding the true meaning of Jesus' term "Kingdom of God" (or, as Wink reads it, "God's Domination-free Order").

Building on our initial experience from this summer's LtQ study, we are planning a fall study on "Principalities and Powers," which goes deeper into Wink's theses and which ultimately asks us to confront the question with how we--as individuals and as a community--intend to participate in Tikkun Olam.

Things to Do Before I Die

This will probably be the first of several posts around this topic. Last week I received a note from a high school classmate (we just marked our 40th reunion, for those who could make it). She had gotten and modified one of those list of Things to Do Before I Die. This one had 10 items, but a Google search reveals hundreds of thousand of web pages devoted to the topic with lists running from 10 to 1000 or more things, depending on the author. There are also a number of books now available on this issue as well. (I wonder if "making a lot of money selling a book" is on those authors' lists!)

Most of the lists I've seen, including the one forwarded by my classmate are, unsurprisingly, "me-centered." Such lists include lots of travel and sightseeing destinations (Galapagos, Mt. Everest, Venice, even the space station) or daredevil events (drive a race car at 200 mph, climb Everest). Which, of course got me thinking about my own aspirations and what I consider worthy and memorable achievements.

Here's the start of my list:

1. Have a relationship with your true soulmate, your best and truest friend, and your life's partner, and realize they're all the same person.
2. And have that esteem, affection, and love reciprocated most willingly.
3. Tuck your children in at night and watch them sleep.
4. Tuck your grandchildren in at night and watch them sleep.
5. The feeling that comes with having a grandchild recognize your voice on the phone and actually talk to you--and include at least one spontaneous "I love you" in the dialog.
6. Enjoy every sunset and sunrise I have the opportunity to behold.
7. Be happy living most everywhere I have occasion to live. Find something good about every place and enjoy it.
8. Realize that when some folks ask my opinion they really do want to know what I think and feel on an issue--and value that opinion.
9. When I die folks will mourn, rather than be relieved to be rid of me.

I'm stopping at 9 so I can think more about this. That way later I can come back with a revised list as I move toward a list with numbers that end in zero. What's important to you?