Is it possible to describe a mystical experience?

The following comes from Richard Rohr's daily email.  I am sure that my atheist friends will say that this is nothing to do with God, but with the exception of "Union" I would would expect agreement that these are good things and ask how they find them in their life?

To sum up these two weeks, mystical encounter always implies a dipping and even falling into a Great Love, and below are just some ways to describe it. It is first of all a momentary "state,” and with years of practice, the state becomes a permanent trait and a way of life. But know this is available to ALL of you! In fact, you are hard wired to receive it.

• Enlargement: You will become larger in your heart and attitudes, not smaller.
• Union: You will have a stronger sense of union with things, not disunion from things or others. You know you are not alone.
• Freedom: You will exhibit a deep sense of inner freedom, not constriction.
• Optimism: You will find a grounded hopefulness within yourself, not pessimism.
• Safety: You will feel a primal security and a “being held”, not anxiety.
• Rest: You will have found a deep and abiding resting place, deeper than any passing restlessness.
• Possibility: You will be filled with creativity and options, over any "all or nothing" thinking.
• Permission: You will wonder, "where does all this inner spaciousness come from?"

Following the Mystics through the Narrow Gate ... Seeing God in All Things

Does our desire as Christians to be inclusive of all sorts of people mean that we will never say, 'You should not do that'? Surefish Daily Reading

I read this yesterday and so wanted to answer this question!  There is a big difference between advising people and ordering them.  Too often Christians order people - and it is wrong and it does us no good.  We need to respect people's free will, of course we can explain our views to them, but to order them or threaten them shows an arrogance that is not found in Jesus.

Some Christians also do not appear to understand the difference between the law of the land and a belief drawn from faith.  I may or may not believe something is wrong because of my faith - but if I live in a land which has chosen a different law then I am free to campaign against it - and in many senses I have a duty to do so - but if I chose to break the law in doing so I must be prepared to take the consequences.  After all we have rather a good role model for doing exactly that.

Is the rational all there is?

Since I blogged on rationality the other day the web seems to have been full of others doing the same.

Apparently Terry Sanderson had held Rowan Williams up to ridicule but Andrew Brown supported him, my Bishop chipped in comparing the spirit and dogma and the Naked Pastor critiqued faith from within.  Then Richard Rohr sent round a daily thought with the following:

So we have these words describing mystical moments: enlargement, connection or union, and emancipation. You may not use these same words, but on a practical level it is experienced as a new capacity and a new desire to love. And you wonder where it comes from. Why do I have this new desire, this new capacity to love some new people, to love the old people better, maybe to enter into some kind of new love for the world? I even find my thoughts are more immediately loving.
Clearly, you are participating in a love that’s being given to you. You are not creating this. You are not generating this. It is being generated through you and in you and for you. You are participating in something larger than yourself, and you are just allowing it and trusting it for the pure gift that it is.

The question that I will keep posing is what about the things that can't be proven: are they worthless and to be ignored, or can we admit that there is something of worth which cannot be proven?  My vote is for the latter.

Do you like this?

Place your hope in God alone. If you notice something good in yourself, give credit to God, not to yourself, but be certain that the evil you commit is always your own and yours to acknowledge.
The Rule of Benedict http://www.eriebenedictines.org/benedict (only there 1 day in 4 months) http://www.osb.org/rb/

I like this quote from Benedict, but I have a friend who dislikes it - we haven't gone into why - but I think that it is an example of the religious paradox that I was writing about yesterday.  It isn't necessarily that I think that it is "true", but that it gives insight into ways of thinking which help me come to God.

What do you think?

Paradox and Faith

Something else which I suspect will get up the nose of atheists is the concept of religious paradox.  I want to say (and mean) both that God is powerless and that God is powerful.

When we are talking about God we cannot use language - God is bigger than language - instead we are working with metaphor - and sometimes a metaphor of powerlessness helps us understand more, and sometimes a metaphor of powerful does.  All of these help us colour in our picture of God - or perhaps taking an apophatic path help us in removing bits that aren't in the picture!

Pete Rollins is very good on paradox in all his books

Faith - Pragmatist v Rationalist

The debate between we of faith and an atheist rationalist has been going on in the comments of a number of blog posts (here, here, here and here for example).

As a pragmatist I am finding it frustrating as we appear to have little common ground to debate on; for example we agree that there is no scientific data to base our thinking on, but that is all that is allowed as proof by our atheist friend.  When it comes to circumstantial evidence, for example the behaviour of Christians, then it is responded that this could come from another source (which of course it could).  The one argument that I don't think has been answered is that Christians behave in counter intuitive ways (see long quote below fold), but ways which when they are lived lead to life in all its fullness (John 10:10, GNB), but again subjective experience is not allowed.

Fowler's theory of Faith Development defines faith thus:

Think if you will, of faith as `universal’, as a feature of living, acting, and self-understanding of all human beings whether they claim to be `believers’ or religious or not (Fowler & Keen, 1985:17).

As teachers of the faith one of the things that we have to deal with is that there are people at all faith stages in our congregations, and things which may be helpful to those at one stage might well be harmful to those at another.  Somehow we have to find a way of speaking to all, of encouraging all, without frightening some away.  That is why I believe that clergy will say things in private that they will not say in public or on a blog - in private one to one conversation it is much easier to work with where that person is!

Whilst taking on board Fowler's comment:

that the stages should never be used for the nefarious comparison or the devaluing of persons (Fowler, 1987:80)

I do believe that those in the higher numbered stages are less likely to behave in ways which militant atheists object to.

The challenge to those of us of faith is perhaps how to move people through the faith journey, and perhaps as a real challenge how to evangelise directly into the later stages, for if the stages apply to whatever "faith" we have then it should in theory be possible to do this - although most programs, such as Alpha,  appear to introduce people to the early stages.

Do we all have a special gift?

A couple of days ago I met up with some old colleagues.  One of them mentioned that he had heard Clive Woodward saying that early in life you should find what you can excel at and nurture it.  None of us knew what our gift in this area was (and we are all of an age when too much time is spent talking about pensions J) and it set me wondering whether that something exists - and if it does what it might be.

This also takes us into the nature v nurture debate and that is also informed by Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers". In it he talks about how the vast majority of Ice Hockey players have birthdays in January, February and March - the reason for this being that if they start playing at a young age their greater development gives them and advantage which is magnified by the further opportunities that they get.  OK, so perhaps if your birthday is later in the year then Ice Hockey should not be your sport - but that to me questions whether you have a specific gift, or whether you have a number of aptitudes which can be developed in a number of different ways.

Perhaps I have misinterpreted Clive Woodward and what he was doing was to encourage everyone to find something which they enjoy and then to do it to the very best of their ability for its own sake - but sadly I doubt it.

Faith in God encourages us to see everyone (including ourselves) as loved by God for who we are and not what we do.  Our current society seems to be trying very hard to persuade us that this isn't true.

Differences of Opinion

Red posted on differences of opinion and I felt that my answer was so long that it had better be a separate post!

For me there are two questions in Red's post.  The first is what do we do when we agree that something is wrong and the other is what we do when we don't agree.  When we all agree then it is relatively easy - although I suspect that there are few things that we all agree on!

So, when we don't agree, what happens then?  As Red said, Suem posted a link to the Bishop of Gloucester talking about what are first order issues and what aren't - where we have to agree and where we don't:

I think the best place is with the categorising of first and second order issues. I am quite clear that the issues on which the creeds make a firm statement - God as trinity, the divinity of Christ, the death and the resurrection of the Lord, the role of the Spirit and more - are first order issues on which there can be no change in what the Church teaches. They are fundamental to the Christian faith. I am equally clear that there are second order issues, which are important, and where interpretation of the tradition needs to be careful and prayerful, but where nevertheless individual churches and provinces need to be free to define doctrine in the way that seems to them to be in accordance with the mind of Christ.

Second order issues are those where we recognise that Christians can come to different conclusions and Christians can allow their view to be shaped in dialogue with their culture without imperilling the good news of Jesus Christ, setting back the Kingdom of God or breaking the fundamental unity of the Church.

There has recently been further discussion about whether the gay issue is first order or not, and whether instead we shouldn't be trying to get on together:

If the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives can do it in Britain, surely the liberals and conservatives in the Christian world can form some sort of coalition to bring new leadership to the Anglican morass. They must put their differences behind them, for the sake of God, themselves and the common good.  Ruth Gledhill

The outcome will be a great challenge to the beliefs of many who have understood themselves to be faithful, orthodox, committed Christians and Anglicans.  Colin Coward

All spiritual teachers tell us “DO NOT JUDGE.” For those of us raised in a religious setting, this is very difficult. In a strange way, religion gave us all a Ph.D. in judgmentalism.  Richard Rohr quoted by Bishop Alan

I don't want to argue the pros and cons of the gay debate here, but instead ask why we can't accept that we have differences of opinion over this and recognise that we are all trying to follow the teachings of Jesus as best we can?

I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.

Oliver Cromwell: Letter to the general assembly of the Church of Scotland (August 3, 1650)

How much do you have to believe?

Whilst I agree with this post I was also challenged by it.  How much do we have to believe?  What is essential to our faith?  In this post the same writer suggests a stripping back of belief to a personal relationship, and I have heard David Winter saying that as time goes by he is more and more certain about less and less.  (I recognise that this is an ambiguous statement - for the avoidance of doubt I believe that his intent was to say that there were fewer things that he believed strongly, but those that he did he believed more strongly).  As a pragmatist I want to ask whether these things make any difference to us?

If I can't currently be certain about any of the things in the blog post does it matter whether they ever become resolved?  Or is there a sense in which knowing becomes worse than not knowing?

An old joke goes:

An archaeological dig in the Holy Land unearthed the bones of Jesus Christ. The evidence was compelling, even irrefutable. After checking and double-checking his information, the head of the team of archaeologists became certain that he had found the corpse of Jesus Christ, who therefore could not have been resurrected as Christians had always believed.
Stunned, he called the only person he could think of who was the recognized head of world Christianity, the Pope. After much discussion, the Pope began to understand just how strong the evidence was, and decided that he would have to call together the leadership of all Christian denominations in order to come to terms with this astonishing discovery.
“Who,” he asked his advisors, “is the greatest Protestant theologian now living?” The answer came back: “Paul Tillich.” So the Pope telephoned Paul Tillich and carefully described the way the bones had been found and how convincing the archaeological evidence seemed to him.
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. “Do you understand what I am saying?” asked the Pope.
“Ach,” said Tillich in his thick German accent. “Zo there really was a Jesus after all…” http://www.scriptoriumdaily.com/2007/03/03/old-joke-comes-true/

 The article from which this comes goes on to suggest that:

A major goal of his [Tillich's] theological project was to create a version of Christianity which no possible historical evidence could ever falsify.

but how can we possibly falsify what we already have?  I can think of no evidence (short perhaps of a time machine - but even there it could have gone back to a parallel universe) which would prove to me anything about what happened 2,000 years ago.

I think we are left with mystery - and I think that is a good thing!

My question to those who differ from me is what difference would it make to your life if some of the things that you hold as important were to be proved false?  How would it change your life?  What would you do differently?

Perhaps one day we will know the answer to these questions but that day is at the end of time, and not much good to us in living our lives today other than through faith.

Proofs of the existence of God!

I have two problems with "proofs" of God's existence.  The first is that if such a proof existed then it would severely dent my faith and the second that they don't prove it - at least not for me and so almost certainly not for anyone who doesn't already believe in God!

The reason that any such proof would dent my faith is twofold.  The simplest is that for me God is so incomprehensible (apophatic in the trade) and we could only prove the existence of something comprehensible - therefore we have proven the existence of something less than God!

The second reason is that for me free will is required in faith.  If there were incontrovertible proof of God then we would have no choice (who am I kidding?) but to believe in Him - although of course believing in Him and choosing to love and follow Him are perhaps two different things.  Barry Morgan, Archbishop of Wales, said this in his Easter Sermon:

For many people believing in God, having a faith, is impossibly difficult. They want proof or tangible signs of his existence. Yet when you think about it most things we do in life have an element of trust, of faith. Crossing the road, catching a plane, being in love, assume faith and trust. Love cannot be proved but we each know what it is, how it makes us feel.

My faith is based instead on a relationship with God in Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  I cannot prove this, I can barely explain it, but I have experienced it and having done so have been changed by it.

These thoughts were in part stimulated by the discussion going on mainly on this blog post, which also included a link to this mathematical proof for the existence of God (which I see as a probabilistic argument - see below).

Proofs for the existence of God and my problem with them (!) below the fold.

Doubt

25 years ago I was told that the church would be better off without people like me.  I had just shared some of my doubts and was expecting support.  Then for the next 20 years I kept my thoughts to myself, only to find that I had a calling to the priesthood.

I have blogged indirectly before about faith development, but thought it worth looking at again.  Both Fowler and Hagberg and Guelich have 6 stages and the suggestion is that people can be at any stage, and can stay there, although often they will move to stage 3 because

Stage 4 is "the journey inward" - "a deep and very personal inward journey" that "almost always comes as an unsettling experience yet results in healing for those who continue through it". In this stage, our former views of God are radically challenged. The disruption can be so great that we feel like we are losing our faith or betraying loyalties. Hagberg/Guelich

Signs of this disruption can be seem by the creation of Spirited Exchanges

Spirited Exchanges is a network offering support, encouragement and resources for people who are experiencing challenges to and/or the unravelling of their faith paradigms with all its associated issues. Many have already left the Church. Some have felt marginalised and misunderstood, others have felt controlled and disrespected. For most it has led to considerable upheaval in their Christian understanding and practice and has often meant the loss of previously valued community. Much of what is happening for people could be described as faith transition.

 There is of course the old saying (at least I assumed it was but Google seems to attribute it to Ann Lamott)

the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty

and this for me fits with the staged model - in the earlier stages certainty is present - but to move to other stages one has to let go of that certainty.

While I was training David Winter lecturing us said something like: as I get older I am more and more certain about less and less.

Evolution and Faith - Dawkins Dilemma

The theory of evolution suggests that natural selection favours traits that aid survival.  So how has religion survived for so long?  It would appear that perhaps it aids survival - although the fact that religious belief aids survival does not prove that it is true.

However, what I want to look at is more the change in religious belief, something which Richard Dawkins seems to want to deny, suggesting that only fundamentalist views of faith are "true".  For example his suggestion in the Times that:

Loathsome as Robertson’s views undoubtedly are, he is the Christian who stands squarely in the Christian tradition.

when commenting on Robertson's comments on the Haitian earthquake.

If you accept that there is an interventionist God then given the plethora of interpretations of faith out there you would expect the "right" one to come out on top.  If you do not accept that there is an interventionist God then the one that was most likely to aid survival would "triumph", whether it was true or not!

So if Dawkins wants to take fundamentalist religion as the only true faith he has to accept an interventionist God.  If he doesn't like an interventionist God but wants to claim that fundamentalist faith is most predominant then he has to accept that it is because it aids survival.  Horns of a dilemma or what J

Are church "traditions" nearer the edge?

I recently saw a blog on the value of traditions in the church and some of the comments reminded me of the model (above) I developed for one of my essays when I was training.  The Anglican church is based on Scripture, Tradition and Reason (Richard Hooker) with the Evangelical, Anglo Catholic and Liberal traditions respectively being more drawn to each.  The Lambeth Quadrilateral sits somewhere in the centre of this.  Around each is an inner circle of those who would be accepted to be of that particular tradition, and a wider circle of those who would be accepted as having a faith, but not of that tradition.  Unfortunately there are areas where one wing would accept people and others would not.

If you accept that Anglicanism is based on Scripture, Tradition and Reason then almost by definition those who subscribe wholly to one of those are in some sense on the edge.  There are of course other denominations which do not accept that basis, and hence which would not see, for example, a sola scriptura approach as being on the edge - but then I would argue that it is not Anglican!

Sack the Choir

Before I really get into trouble because people think I am advising my vicar to do this, fear not - it comes from this article which caught my eye.  And it was the comments as much as the main article.  A number of them suggested that the vicar was wrong to sack the choir because the impact was a reduction in numbers and, they assumed, giving.  Interestingly a churchwarden then posted that numbers are up as is giving!  Does that mean that those people who thought this was a bad thing now think that it is a good one?

And do we think that numbers are the only measure of success in a church?  Of course numbers count (groan J), but surely whether people are on a journey counts for something too?

Does Prayer work without belief?

What if there was no God? is a blog post which set me thinking.  I agree with the tenor of the post - that my religious practice is of such practical use to me that I would continue with it even if I were to lose my faith.  So how does that work?

I have long wondered about this and the conclusion that I have reached is that when God tells us to do things it is because they are good for us!  So for example apparent threats of punishment are instead warnings of danger.  For example when we told my children that if they put their fingers in the electricity  they would be electrocuted, I was not threatening to do it as punishment, rather warning them that actions have consequences.

Of course this is a "God centred" view of things, but there do appear to be secular practices, such as meditation and NLP*, which appear to resonate with religious practices.  It can be argued that this works in the other direction - that things which work have long been appropriated by religion.  However, as a pragmatist I am more drawn to the impact that things have, rather than the theoretical reasons why people do them.  If only more people did them, without arguing about why,  the world would be a better place.  Peter Rollins talks about this in this video - the good bits start about 7 minutes in!

* The idea in NLP that you can change things by visualising them is very close to the idea of prayer being something that changes you, rather than something that changes the situation.  Similarly the idea of Anchoring might explain why Spiritual Directors will suggest praying in the same place in the same posture each time, and  choosing these so that they are different from other activities.  Perhaps there was a point to the "hands together, eyes closed" of my youth.

MBA Oath - Faith for the 21st Century?

Have you heard about the MBA Oath?  Among other things it includes:

I will seek a course that enhances the value my enterprise can create for society over the long term

There has been some debate about this in BusinessWeek with an INSEAD Professor arguing that it would violate directors fiduciary duties in some situations.

The question is what is for the good of a business?  Is profit today always better than profit tomorrow?  Increasingly business is being driven by quarterly results, but I know of a business where, not that long ago, the MD and FD didn't let the other directors know what the financial results were.

Is the drive for measurability for good or bad?

Certainly directors can argue that the government sets the context within which they work, and if the government wants businesses to have a social conscience then they will have to legislate for it.  And yet some businesses are working in this way.  I heard of a large solicitors where the staff do voluntary work, reading with children in school and offering free legal advice in legal centres, and where promotion depends upon having spent some time doing this!  Why?  Call me cynical, but I believe that they must see some benefit to themselves from this activity, there is no compulsion to do it, and it may cost them money.

Is it perhaps about what these activities do for the person doing them?  Does it make them a different kind of person - and does it make them the kind of person that businesses would rather employ?

Compare this to faith.  As well as having the doctrines to be believed, faith has encouraged people to care for the weaker in society, and I think that it is that caring which transforms people more than any belief that they have.

So, have we discovered faith for the 21st Century?  And what have those of us who hang onto an older one done wrong?  Is it perhaps the clinging so tightly to doctrine that has stopped people discovering the change of life that comes from loving others?

What is it about sport?

I have just finished watching England beat Wales at Rugby, and my reactions during that time have been interesting.  Why did I get worried when the Welsh looked like they were going to score, why did I get excited when England looked like they were going to?  And why was I relieved when the final whistle blew?  After all, it is "only a game", and it isn't as though I was playing.  Why do our emotions get so aroused by sport?

Perhaps, more pertinently, why don't they get aroused by other things? Why does the alleviation of poverty and the cancellation of debt not stir similar feelings to the scoring of a try?  (Perhaps it does in some, but I have to confess, not in me).  Why does the progress made towards the Millennium Goals not stir our hearts?

I wonder if at least in part it is because the bar is set so high.  In sport knowing who wins is easy, and you don't have to be good - just less bad than the other team.  With things like poverty and the MDGs the bar has to be set high, but then in our culture failing to reach that bar is seen as failure.  I recall a briefing that I did to my team at work - I cascaded down the doom and gloom, because we were behind budget, that I had received - only for the FD to join us later and in questioning say that although we weren't making budget we were still a profitable company - which many in our industry weren't.

But there is the rub, because if the MDGs were set lower would we still fail to reach them?  One of my managers said "if you aim for the stars you might hit the moon" justifying an approach of setting unrealistic targets to achieve what he really wanted - and there are times when that is right - it is just that it leaves people always feeling like failures.

Just like the Welsh (sorry - couldn't resist J)

Hope and Heaven - or Heaven as Hope

Christianity cannot exist!  Or so suggests John Caputo in "What would Jesus Deconstruct", a book I have recently reviewed here.  One of the ideas in the book is that some things are never realised under the existing conditions.  Caputo explains that in some rabbinic traditions the Messiah never turns up, but instead is a name for hope and expectation.  He goes on to point out that, having received a Messiah, Christianity is now awaiting the Second Coming.

This set me thinking about the need for hope, not just religious hope, but hope in life generally.  Victor Frankl wrote about "Mans Search for Meaning" and suggested that all manner of persecution can be endured if there is an understanding of meaning.
I think that I want to see that as an expression of hope, so...  Heaven could be seen as an expression of future hope, and what more natural  way of expressing that in the culture and time in which it was first expressed.  Now that we are not sure where Heaven is (having travelled above the sky) I find this a helpful way to think about it.  Of course as a post modern, I don't think that you have to!

And finally...  This post reminded me John Cleese in Clockwise, couldn't find the clip, but the quote is:

"It's not the despair, Laura. I can stand the despair. It's the hope"

Even though it completely contradicts the post J

Religion's Responsibility

I read this story with a heavy heart.  At times like this I can almost side with Richard Dawkins when he talks about how religion can be evil.  My faith is one of life in all its fullness (John 10:10), one of forgiveness.  And yet I have to recognise that there is this punitive side to religion, that there are strands in most religions (I want to write all, but...) that "know" what is right and think that God wants them to punish those who disagree - for their own good you realise - and there is an internal logic to this.  If you believe that by misbehaving people are putting their immortal soul at risk then logically it makes sense to "save" them (funny how it always seems to be other people who end up suffering).

I want to use this tragic event to look at Christian behaviour - how do we treat people who behave differently from the way that we think that our faith demands?  Lets face it we all do it - our boundaries of what is acceptable may differ, but somewhere we will have a boundary that some people are over.  Do we condemn them, or do we love them, and leave them to God?

I know that some will argue that the loving thing to do is to persuade them to change their mind - unfortunately, more often than not the methods used aren't likely to be terribly helpful - people tend not to react to abuse and threats by agreeing with those threatening them.

Challenges to Faith

I was challenged on Facebook with what happens if you answer Brian McLaren with B:

Quiz:
When I am presented with a new idea or proposal, my first question is more likely to be ...
___A. Is it acceptable to my religious/ideological community or belief system?
___B. Is it possibly true, valuable, and worth exploring?

 This was as a result of my previous blog.

The short answer is that life carries on as normal!  I suspect that behind it is the question of how you can have faith if you are prepared to evaluate ideas which are contrary to it.  I would argue that if you are not willing to do so then you have certainty, not faith (I know that sounds a little trite).  When training we were talking about dialogue with Muslims, and one of the criteria for a good dialogue is that you are prepared to change your mind, even if you are confident that you won't!

My faith is open to new insight - I believe in faith as a journey, so how could it not be - and it is conceivable that something will come along that will change it - perhaps even to the extent of moving me outside the church.  But then Jesus didn't come to found a church, he came to bring in the Kingdom of God.

As my faith is founded on the two great commandments, rather than a large number of rules, then I believe that it is perhaps more resilient to challenge from outside.  And I think that Jesus had some things to say about those overly concerned with rules!

Finally, I believe that God helps us find God.  Joan Chittister, in her commentary on the Rule of Benedict writes:

It is the goodness of God, not any virtue that we have developed on our own, that brings us to the heart of God. And it is with God's help we seek to go there.