Jim Marion In Dialogue: Putting on the Mind of Christ

Jim Marion

Jim Marion is the founder and Director of the Institute for Spiritual Awareness in Washington, D.C., the author of Putting on the Mind of Christ: The Inner Work of Christian Spirituality, and The Death of the Mythic God, the Rise of Evolutionary Spirituality, studied for the Catholic priesthood, and later undertook divinity studies at the interdenominational Hartford Seminary.

Jim acknowledges that Christianity—like other traditions with their beginnings in the Axial age—retains a shadow, or what Ken calls an "allergy" to the gross realm (i.e. the soul is privileged over the body). But he points out that Christianity is nonetheless a remarkably embodied tradition. Proceeding from its core of love, there is clearly an injunction to serve the poor. An oft-used metaphor is that of the spring and the stream. Without the spring, the stream dries up; without the stream, the spring turns in on itself. In this light, it is interesting to note that the Catholic church is by far the largest provider of healthcare and education in the world. Jim speculates that Mother Teresa was sent to India, among other reasons, to be a model of service to the East. He contends that, in this teaching, the tradition has been of tremendous service to the human race and to evolution itself.

Second, says Jim, Christianity has fostered a sense of human individuation. From the writings of St. Augustine to those of Pope John Paul II, the "human person" is deeply valued. The process of becoming a deeper Christian bears a striking resemblance to the dynamic of human development itself: one comes into a deeper and deeper self-sense until the True Self is realized (in contrast to some Eastern teachings in which the soul dissolves). Of course, there is truth, both East and West. But the Western emphasis on individuation has had far reaching effects, including the advent of liberal democracy itself.

Ken suspects that, in the next hundred years, the leadership of most of the world's lineages will shift from Jean Gebser's mythic level of development (at which, for instance, scriptures are taken literally), to the rational level (at which concepts such as evolution are embraced). And increasing numbers of teachers will come into the integral level of consciousness. That being said, according to our best understanding of development, "everybody starts at square one." So the traditions will continue to play the incredibly important role of conveyor belt, helping to move individuals, in Gebser's terms, from archaic to magic to mythic, and hopefully beyond. Ken suggests that the continents that adopted the various traditions will probably retain them for the foreseeable future. So with the table of the world's religions basically set, we can indeed look at what each tradition uniquely brings.

What Christianity uniquely brings—and can continue to bring—is the practice of contemplation through love. No other tradition places such an emphasis on love as the way to higher states of consciousness. And no other tradition places such an emphasis on love as the way to return from these states, in service of all. In the footsteps of its founder, the Christian way is the way of love. And for all the failings of the institution, love is still its great gift to the world.