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Offensive Christianity
Posted September 18th, 2009 by Greg Mayers
Cameron Freeman started an interesting thread in his recent post on “the role of jesus in inter-spiritual dialogue” (http://integrallife.com/member/camfree/blog/role-jesus-inter-spiritual-dialogue) which spawned a second post by Balder “Spiritual Marriage (A Postmetaphysical Approach to the Scandal of Particularity)” http://integrallife.com/member/balder/blog/spiritual-marriage-postmetaphysical-approach-scandal-particularity
(Sorry, I don’t know how to embed those nifty ‘link’ icons in a document).
These two threads are characterized by erudite insights, honest assessments and sensitive expressions of convictions.
And that concerns me.
There is something at the heart of Christianity that is offensive. To pretend otherwise, or otherwise to try to plaster over this offense, is to do a polite violence to the Christian revelation and dogmas.
My worry is not that some readers on this Integral site are offended by the Christian claim. My worry is that they are not offended enough. Paul of Tarsus, among unnamed others, was murderously offended by that tiny group of heretics.
You see, Christianity is outrageous! And if you are not outraged you are not paying attention. The paradoxical thing here is that outrage and offense makes one vulnerable to the message, the announcement of the Good News! It is not only preferable in this day and age of political correctness, but safer to curb one’s outrage and offense in order to protect oneself from this subversive message.
Here’s the outrage, even more than what Cameron so aptly expresses. There is no one in history like Jesus of Nazareth who is uniquely completely human and totally divine. He gave himself up to the will of his Father in order to save everyone without exception from our deadly self-deception and for the transformative love of God. It is through Him, his incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection, that this redemptive act of each particular human person “happens.”
No other religious tradition makes such an outrageous and offensive claim, so humiliating a claim; humiliating because there is nothing we can do about it or to it. Whether we are esoteric or exoteric in our secular or religious development makes not an iota of different to our redemption. It is a “deep” fact and truth beyond the superficial scientific facts and the philosophical propositional truths of human genius.
Rationalists try to parse through this claim from their “higher” intellectual perch, picking at it like crows over a corpse, prematurely proclaiming it a dead myth. But the so labeled “myth” refuses to cooperate with their self satisfying analyses and just stay dead. It keeps on rising from the dead, as if in affirmation of the Risen Saviour himself. Just read a little history. Christianity has the annoying characteristic of converting cultures, and peoples, from the inside. And it simply refuses to be explained away or analyzed into absurdity. It seems to be able to take all the punches and be unaffected by them. Even its own worse self inflicted wounds can’t execute spiritual suicide on it.
So, dear reader, my sincere hope is that you will be absolutely outraged at Christianity’s claim, and especially if you count yourself a Christian. It is not my hope to make you uncomfortable – just the opposite is the case, (but I am powerless over your emotional states). Christianity is outrageous and your outrage is an accurate and healthy response to its message. May you be blessedly offended.
Greg Mayers
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No one was 2nd tier during Biblical times
Posted September 29th, 2009 by Alan Sato in response to the possibility of offense...Camfree, you wrote: Of course, Jesus of Nazareth mostly offended those upright spiritual folks who considered themselves 'saved' - the card carrying members of the the ecclesiatical hierarchy whose self-identity was propped up by an image of their elevated (second-tier?) status.
These upper class people did not embody 2nd tier. 2nd tier only came into existence the last half of the 20th century. In fact, less than 10% of Americans are 2nd tier. In the 60's only 10% of Americans embodied 1st tier Green. The upper class of Biblical times were probably mostly ethnocentric Amber with just the very beginnings of Orange beginning to sprout. The hippie generation brought forth the Green revolution. Orange became a powerful mode in culture during the industrial revolution. 2nd tier did not always exist.
The Greek aristocracy poineered Orange level thinking in developing democracy. They developed it further than Jesus took it. Scientific methodology still had not come into existence. Thus the Greek practiced alchemy, not science.
Jesus did not embody anything more than just the very beginning of Orange thought. Or at least the people who wrote about him, that is. That is why Jesus is not documented as speaking about the abolishment of slavery, equal rights for women, or parents nurturing the self-esteem of their children. Those things requre a well-developed Orange level thinking, which simply had not manifested yet. Jesus was presented one step ahead of the general populace, and thus he did Orange world-centric things like opening the religion up to all people, but retained ethnocentric, Amber things like retaining the claim that there is only one true God. It's also why he overthrew tables in the church. He was deeply Amber and following set rules were the "physics" of the day. He had not yet questioned the absolute validity of the rules.
That type of questioning did not come about until quite some time later in history. It did not become the dominant mode of thinking until the industrial age.
What Jesus did in his time was great. He transitioned the religion from an ethnocentric religion into the beginnings of a world-centric religion. However, his work was not complete. To complete the work, all ethnocentric claims must be dropped for lack of any evidence. Note that I do consider first person interior experience as valid proof, so long as it is confirmed among others who complete the same practice. It's the same scientific injunction, except for the upper left instead of the upper right. And that's just to get Christianity up to an Orange level of Spirituality.
To get to Green, a spirituality must be developed that embodies a 3rd person, plural. In other words, one must be able to hold multiple perspectives without allowing any one perspective to contaminate or color the other. At this perspective, Christianity is ready to share it's bounty with all other religions and recognize the strengths in other religions where Christianity is weak in and appreciate the genuine exploration of other religions.
At the integral level, one seeks to clarify all stages of development in Christianity and utilize lessons learned in other religions to grow Christianity into the fullest possible religion. That is precisely what is happening at the Integral Life Spiritual Center. Kudos to them for poineering spirituality to the dawn of a new age.
One key, very important thing I need to point out is the difference between Stages and States. Traditionally, philosophers stacked spiritual states on top of the stages of development and considered spiritual states to be higher stages of development. KW has pointed out this error and developed the Wilber-Combs model for spiritual States. Trans-rational is not equavent to or above Green or 2nd tier thinking. It is not a stage. This is so very key to understanding what is happening here at Integral Life. One can attain authentic spirituality at any stage of development. The Dali Lama is considered to be ethnocentric, although he experiences authentic spiritual states.
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Offensive Maneuvers
Posted September 18th, 2009 by BalderI've spent many years talking with folks on Christian forums, usually conservative ones. And I've noticed that this self-proclaimed offensiveness often is used defensively, as a way of warding off all unwanted criticism. I can't count how many times I've heard people appeal to "the foolishness of God" when some argument or claim they are making is shown to have big holes in it. Similarly, I've heard lots of self-justification of ethnocentric, exclusivist, or triumphalist language through appeals to "the offensiveness of Christ." Meaning, "Don't blame me: I'm just behaving like God, voicing God's views, and if you object to what I'm saying, it is just because you are still a lost and sinful human being."
If someone objects to this, often the next statement is something like, "Your taking offense just proves what I'm saying -- God's truth is offensive to self-righteous, lost, truth-fearing human beings. To object is thus to stand convicted." (Adi Da often used strategies like this to intimidate and corral followers.)
Greg, when you make this statement, "It is a 'deep' fact and truth beyond the superficial scientific facts and the philosophical propositional truths of human genius," you are pronouncing the bald metaphysical claim at the heart of Christian apologetics. The Christian message is not a human one, but a divine one, and thus it cannot be touched by any argument at all. Similar to the presuppositionalist strategy of Van Til or, later, Gregory Bahnsen: simply start from the presupposition of the divine status of a particular set of propositions, and then reason from there. The claims themselves, though, are imagined to stand outside of time (as 'deep facts') and, by fiat, declared 'unreachable' by lower human faculties such as philosophical, scientific, or moral reasoning.
I've seen a lot of pre/trans stuff get neatly defended in this way.
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many encounters
Posted September 19th, 2009 by Ambo Suno in response to Offensive ManeuversBruce, I think you expressed your experience along your long path of inquiry, and I imagine a path with some fertile struggles with the material along this way, well. It sounds that you have seen patterns over time and over many civil engagements with people and this material - I've noticed your interest for some years.
Defense or offense, not always so clear which is which, which is primary, you are pointing out, as I hear you, that in the elegant use of language, thought, belief, opinion, and the verbal casting of "truth", including Christian truth, there may always be other layers of truth that can be peeled away. When one has arrived at a pleasing to them and us explanation or strategy, that too is very painful to have peeled away or brought into question.
Sometimes, I feel disheartened by the limits of my understanding such that I can't contain with equal affection both what you are pointing to and what Greg is pointing to. I feel disheartened by the ongoing selling of ideas and war of ideas - and I suppose the real, constricting current limits of my metaphors and perspectives. Thanks for bringing up these possibilities.
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Re: Many encounters
Posted September 20th, 2009 by Balder in response to many encountersThank you, Ambo, for your feedback. I hear your therapist's voice in that post, and I hear you hearing me, which I appreciate.
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Pre/Trans Offense...
Posted September 18th, 2009 by camfree in response to Offensive ManeuversHi Bruce,
You've raised an important integral point here - is the "offense" that is communicated by a person preaching the Gospel pre-rational or trans-rational? I too have to exercise some discriminating wisdom here when listening to Christian speakers try and defend irrational beliefs by ascribing to the category of offense (creationism, virgin births, the return of Christ at the end of the world)... But there is nothing in Greg's post that strikes me as a pre-rational "defense". It' reads much more like he has gone on the trans-rational offense to me...
The sentence you quote: "It is a 'deep' fact and truth beyond the superficial scientific facts and the philosophical propositional truths of human genius," simply refers to what KW has called the Three Eyes of Knowing - science deals with the eye of the flesh (sensory-empirical knowledge), philosophy deals with the eye of the mind (logical propositional knowing) and Christ deals with the eye of spirit (revelation - the 'deep' fact of the Incarnation).
Much of the pre/trans confusion here can be cleared up if we simply specify what is it that's genuinely offensive about the Christian message - and it's the paradoxes of faith, as outlined in numerous previous posts... That is, if we can differentiate the scandalous way of Jesus from claims to exclusivity, supernatural intervention, ethnocentric tribalism, the second coming of Christ in violence and glory, and so on... we will go a long way to differentiating pre-rational superstition from the trans-rational "category of offense" (Kierkegaard) in the movements of authentic faith.
But Greg is right - there is no way to skirt around the issue, the Christian gospel is radical and offensive to our conventional sensibilities... and its hard edges should not be blunted in the attempt to make it palatable to a post/world or integral world-space - that's precisely what went wrong with the historical development of Christianity in the first place!
Cheers,
Cam
--
"Become passers-by" (Jesus of Nazareth)
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To get to Trans-rational, one must go through Rational.
Posted September 27th, 2009 by Alan Sato in response to Pre/Trans Offense...To get to trans-rational, one must move out of pre-rational, move fully into rational, explore the shortcomings of rational, and move out of rational and into the trans-rational. Has he done this?
First of all, he makes the claim that Christianity is unique and special among all religions. That is pre-rational and ethnocentric. No doubt about it. You might be trans-rational and be able to make trans-rational interpretations that, I am willing to be prejudiced about and say that the original poster does not embody.
To say that being offended is a healthy way to respond to a religion is in direct violation of a rational point of view. He has yet to even make ammends with a rational spirituality. There is no psychologist or philosopher that will agree that being offended is a "healthy" response to a religion, or that an offensive religion is a good one. His pre-rational version of Christianity is dysfunctional. Dysfunctional because his form of religion does not embody the rational level.
His being worried that we are not offended enough by Christianity implies that he is at odds with the liberal rational Christian church which starts reaching towards a more unitarian message. He celebrates the pre-rational message flying in the face of the rational message, and is willing to call it healthy. Thus, his spirituality does not embody a rational structure.
Thus, it is impossible for him to be trans-rational. Trans-rational is a structure, not a state. You might be mixing up a higher spiritual experience with trans-rational. (mixing up a state with a stage.) There is a clear difference between the two. All spiritual states exist at all the structure stages. He exhibits pre-rational, ethnocentric structures and wraps his spiritual experience around it. A true trans-rational spirituality recognizes the arbitrariness of all religious messages and recognizes that spirituality can manifest in many forms, and an integral view will lead to the richest experience. He is not making this statement at all. He is making an ethnocentric, dysfunctional, pre-rational statement.
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Re: Pre/Trans Offense
Posted September 19th, 2009 by Balder in response to Pre/Trans Offense...Cameron, I think this is a challenging issue. In writing my post on 'spiritual marriage,' for instance, I admit that I was concerned that I was putting forward a view that, while it might be more agreeable from a postmodern or Integral-enactive perspective, would strike Christians as too much of a compromise ... as too watered down, in a sense. So, I respect your and Greg's concern not to blunt the Christian message, just for civility's sake or political correctness or whatever. I think it is a good thing when a teaching can challenge conventional sensibilities ... disturb us, unsettle us, provoke us into new seeing.
The reason I say this is challenging is because sometimes the offense we might feel in listening to Christian apologists (among others) is not due to the challenging irruption of a higher message into our worldspace, but because we are encountering a 'lower' one, a preconventional one, perhaps dressed up in 'transconventional drag,' as Wilber might say. And then the offense is reasonable, not necessarily evidence of the objector's lostness or fallenness. If 'offensiveness' is made into a badge of honor, we should be mindful of where it gets pinned.
Regarding the three eyes of knowing, my concern is whether the eye of spirit really discloses the type of knowledge that some Christians would like it to: the revelation that Jesus of Nazareth is the only son of God, fully human and fully divine (or other similar claims). Do you think this is the sort of knowledge that can be disclosed via the eye of spirit? In your own discussions of the status of Jesus in your recent blogs and posts, you've primarily used reasons to present it, and described your process of arriving at that perspective as a rational, reflective one. Which makes it seem more like a 'propositional' piece of knowledge than a unique, transcendent disclosure via the eye of spirit.
I know a quite brilliant guy who says God told him the Bible is divine and infallible and the only source of reliable spiritual knowledge, and so he argues strictly from a presuppositionalist perspective. He takes what I see as a propositional claim (the Bible is the infallible, exclusive word of God) and defines it as a non-propositional, transcendentally given, foundational 'deep truth' and argues from there. And his view is nearly impenetrable because all criticisms that do not start from the presupposition of the Bible's infallibility necessarily fail, and the appeal to the 'eye of spirit' (direct revelation) is used to back up this whole edifice. How do we understand what's going on here? (I think Wilber's W-C Lattice might be of help...)
In making these comments and asking these questions, I am not asking you or Greg or other Christians not to be offensive, or to water down all challenging and offensive parts of the Christian message. (I actually think the Integral 'second-' or 'third-tier elite' language, while I don't reject it, could still use some good paradoxical challenging!) I just wanted to raise some of the complexities and problems I've observed in my encounters with appeals to the 'offensiveness' and the 'foolishness' of the Gospel over the years. I think there's a lot to sort through here, from an Integral perspective. (So ... I eagerly look forward to your book, Cameron!)
Love,
Bruce
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Take This Lightly...
Posted September 19th, 2009 by Greg Mayers in response to Re: Pre/Trans OffenseDear Bruce:
Thank you again for your posts in response to me, and to Cameron. Let me reiterate here what I’ve mentioned elsewhere, namely that I have a deep respect for your opinions and your integrity, and anything I say needs to be understood in that light. In fact, your honesty encourages me and assures me that I can return it in kind. Thank you. Now to your posts.
I am not sure that you are responding to me and Cameron or to some fundamentalist Christian ghosts you’ve encountered maybe too many times online and in person. Let me assure you that I am no fundamentalist. I am a champion of modern biblical scholarship, of challenging theological positions and of the Catholic absolute moral principle of “Freedom of Conscience.” (For those who are unfamiliar with that absolute moral principle I’ll summarize it thusly: Under all conditions and circumstance each individual, Catholic or not, must - we aren’t morally or ethically free to do otherwise - follow their own conscience even when that conscience contradicts the defined and definitive dogmas of the Catholic Church). I am also a Zen teacher confirmed as such in two Zen traditions. I am sure you realize this is hardly the credentials of a fundamentalist Christian.
I need also to say that when I wrote “Offensive Christianity” I was writing as much for and to myself as to readers on this site. I’m offended by the Christian claim. To explain that, I must get personal for Christianity can’t be seen in the abstract. It is as Cameron says so well, the scandal of the particular. And that “particular” refers not only to Jesus of Nazareth, but extends to each other “particular” or human person ever born.
Here’s the personal part. At a certain time in my life when I was enduring a dark night phase, I was meditating in the way I was trained in the seminary on the crucifixion. Suddenly, a rage rose up from some deeply hidden place within me and I found myself shouting aloud to a crucifix I was holding: “Goddamn you. I didn’t ask you to love me this way!” Then a most remarkable thing happened. Nothing! I didn’t get struck dead. I didn’t get caught up into a mystical trance. Nothing happened. No glorious revelation. No earth shaking epiphany. Nothing changed. The love that always has been the self sacrificing act of Jesus, kept on keeping on. It was quite, serene, gentle, consistent and most of all unimposing. It seemed to me that it was perfectly okay whether I accepted it or not. My acceptance or non-acceptance changed nothing. It was as if someone much greater than I understood the outrage and humiliation of unconditional love, and would not, could not turn away, and it was all okay. I haven’t the slightest idea how to categorize that “experience” on the Integral chart. I’m sure others are putting their little pins in the integral chart as they read this, but I don’t think it fit anywhere!
One of my beefs with Integralists is that they reduce Christianity to a contemporary and minor expression of this great tradition and they will not engage, or perhaps more kindly, they are incapable of engaging Christianity’s claims at its deepest levels. Every time Cameron or I try to introduce these deeper themes, the respondents rant on about obviously absurd fundamentalists propositions or they tame the Christian message by reducing Jesus to the equivalent of a first century Jewish Buddha. Those are such snug stances, but they do not reflect the consistent claims of early and of historical Christianity.
I’m beginning to wonder whether there can be an Integral Christianity, whether the Integral framework is too narrow, or too prejudiced to illuminate the well established Christian claim. I’m not snipping at Integral theory here. I’m serious. It has done a marvelous job at illuminating so much in the philosophical/scientific domains. But its Vedantic/Buddhist prejudice does not serve its stated objective of “everyone is right”, at least not so far that I can see in relation to Christianity. Not yet at any rate. It keeps trying to make this round tradition fit a square hole.
I find Christianity to be at least as inclusive as Integral theory and maybe more affirming. In its Catholic tradition it ranges from a neo-polytheism that rivals Tibetan Buddhism in its complexity to the deepest insights of some of history’s greatest mystics like St. Gregory of Nyssa who not only “grasped” the Non-dual of Buddhism, (although he knew nothing of Buddhism), and pointed out that there is a deeper reality than non-dual in his break through illumination of the Trinity which “resides” behind or beyond or above, so to speak, what Buddhism understands as Non-dual. Gregory of Nyssa’s language has been described as oxymoronic. So don’t read him in a fundamentalist’s frame of mind. Read him within the highest mystical consciousness and you might get a taste for wisdom he is illuminating.
About Christian neo-polytheism, if you go to any Latin Catholic culture (and some others as well) you will find local saints who are “venerated and honored” to a degree that most of us sophisticates would find quaint to say the least. The Old Testament prophets thought they put to rest these “local powers” called gods, but as is usually the case, what we individually or cultural suppress will come back with a vengeance. Without making sense of it, Christianity seems to make room for all of this, the highest mystics to the mythical appeals to local powers (saints) without the put downs and arrogances I find among the Integralists. That is not only inclusive, it is life giving for those who need their household gods. Don’t be too shocked by this, even Buddha couldn’t suppress polytheism forever, which returns, also with a vengeance, in the reforms of Mahayana Buddhism.
Back to your post. I understand your complaint about the pre/trans fallacy, which is one of KW’s brilliant insights. My suspicion is that the Christian claim goes beyond the pre/trans fallacy and Integralists don’t see it because they are using the wrong tools, the wrong technology. To use an analogy and its only an analogy and one you know well, no one would know that microbes exists if all we had was our naked eyes to rely on. And there is no way of proving microbes exist if one refuses to look through a microscope at a prepared slide. With the same kind of proportionality the naked intellect can’t see the reality of the Christian claim. You’re well aware of the folk saying: if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. The analytical intellect by itself can only reduce the Christian claim to a set of propositional truths or metaphysical assertions, then rip them apart in a glorious display of cleverness. That illuminates the powers of the analytical intellect, but says little about the enduring claims of Christianity.
As an aside in this discussion, it might appear to some that Cameron and I are a tag team. I am a Catholic priest, thus I understandably default to my Catholic heritage. (That doesn’t mean I indiscriminately swallow it whole – I’m not a fundamentalist Catholic – my patron saint is doubting Thomas, the apostle).To my knowledge Cameron has not declared his religious affiliation, but from things he’s written, I doubt that he is a Catholic. However, I have the deepest respect for what I see as Cameron’s profound and challenging faith and find myself inspired by everything he’s written. He and I are not in cahoots on this issue. I resonate deeply with his understanding of Christianity, but I imagine that if he and I started discussions on some arcane minutiae of Christian theology we would each find differences enough in our positions. That wouldn’t matter to me at all. His writings have already changed some of my perspectives on Christianity.
So, dear Bruce, my challenge is when are the Integralists going to meet the stark, bold proclamation of Christianity at its deepest and most liberating levels and on its own terms, instead of changing the venue every time and thus ducking the issue with sidelining dust ups? The burden of proof is not for Christianity to justify itself to Integral Theory. The burden of proof is for Integral Theory to account for the Christian claim. There are 2 billion Christians in the world, and growing. Some of those just by shear odds have to be at the highest mystical levels. If Integral theory is going to be relevant for the 21st century, it can’t ignore, dismiss or otherwise denigrate that large a portion of the global population. That’s an ad hominem argument, of course. But you get the point. The issue is: how does Integral theory account for the Christian claim that Jesus in his incarnation, death and resurrection is the Lord (no power is greater than the powerless Jesus) and Savior (he overcomes death by his death and resurrection)? Don’t side track the conversation. I’m not saying anyone has to believe this. I’m saying, to use an example from KW, account for this most basic of Christian facts in Integral theory, and check your account of it with Christian experts (the Christian mystics – living ones if you can find them - and their record will be a good place to start) to see if they agree with your account. So far the way it accounts for it, as far as I can tell, is to dismiss it, reduce it to some form of Buddhism or Vedanta or relegate it to a mythic mentality. I’m open to being educated in this.
Thank you for your patience with me and with my rants. I hope I’ve added some illumination to this discussion. And please know that I appreciate your willingness to hang in there and keep coming back to these issues again and again.
--
Greg Mayers
Zen taught me everything I can do.
Christianity taught me everything I can't do.
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Denigration runs both ways
Posted September 27th, 2009 by Alan Sato in response to Take This Lightly...You wrote: So, dear Bruce, my challenge is when are the Integralists going to meet the stark, bold proclamation of Christianity at its deepest and most liberating levels and on its own terms, instead of changing the venue every time and thus ducking the issue with sidelining dust ups? The burden of proof is not for Christianity to justify itself to Integral Theory. The burden of proof is for Integral Theory to account for the Christian claim. There are 2 billion Christians in the world, and growing. Some of those just by shear odds have to be at the highest mystical levels. If Integral theory is going to be relevant for the 21st century, it can’t ignore, dismiss or otherwise denigrate that large a portion of the global population.
So, it's Not okay for non-Christians to denigrate 2 billion Christians around the world, but it Is okay for you to denigrate the larger rest of the world's population? Can't you see you are doing just that by denigrating all other religions? It's as if non-Christians are not real people until converted, and other religions are not real. Integral Theory does take this into account, and places it in a pre-rational, ethnocentric, prejudiced viewpoint, where it belongs. It's just not where you want it to be. Your interpretation of mixing Christianity with other religions or interpreting Christianity through the lens of another religion (put in my own words) as denigrating Christianity utilizes a prejudiced assumption. An assumption you feel is quite real to you. But you have yet to recognize the relativeness of the interpretation of your own expreience. Your experience may be absolute, but your gripe is merely with the Christian framing of your experience. I am a practitioner of different religions and have great respect for the work being done at Integral Spiritual Center. I do not see Christianity being denigrated, but uplifted to a place where it can finally contribute it's goodness to Spirituality without the exclusion of the goodness of other religions. This does not denigrate Christianity. I am able to personify Jesus as you do. But I am also able to go beyond a personification framing of the spiritual experience as well. There is nothing denigrating about that. I feel my spiritually has grown up and I now embody this Love and can live fully from it in a mature, assertive way, knowing I am plugged in to Spirit. I am now "big daddy" taking care of others, from a mature point of view. I still have a "big daddy" to look up to as well, and my spirituality is fuller for that. (And I know the last few sentences were offensive to Christians. But I assume offensiveness doesn't go both ways?)
That’s an ad hominem argument, of course. But you get the point. The issue is: how does Integral theory account for the Christian claim that Jesus in his incarnation, death and resurrection is the Lord (no power is greater than the powerless Jesus) and Savior (he overcomes death by his death and resurrection)? Don’t side track the conversation. I’m not saying anyone has to believe this. I’m saying, to use an example from KW, account for this most basic of Christian facts in Integral theory, and check your account of it with Christian experts (the Christian mystics – living ones if you can find them - and their record will be a good place to start) to see if they agree with your account. So far the way it accounts for it, as far as I can tell, is to dismiss it, reduce it to some form of Buddhism or Vedanta or relegate it to a mythic mentality. I’m open to being educated in this.
If you're open to being educated in ths...Realize that you do not embody multiple perspectives. You can see them "out there" as if you're looking out of a train window. But you simply haven't realized your viewpoint is just as relative. That is the key. Let go of your solid foundation as being the only real one. Every point of view here is just as real as yours and just as deserving a space to exist as yours. Not more, not less. You make continuous demands that because you don't like where integral theory places Christianity, that it must "account for the most basic of Christian facts." It already does. You denigrate all non-Christians and self righteously proclaim that you're special because you're being offensive. What's wrong with you? Why do you insist on denigrating all non-Christians? Father Thomas Keating does a wonderful job respecting all people and all religions and uplifts Christianity to embody physically a true inclusive Love that will not turn away from anyone or denigrate anyone.
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Thanks
Posted September 30th, 2009 by Greg Mayers in response to Denigration runs both waysAlan:
Thanks for expressing your love...
--
Greg Mayers
Zen taught me everything I can do.
Christianity taught me everything I can't do.
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Re: Take this Lightly
Posted September 19th, 2009 by Balder in response to Take This Lightly...Hi, Greg, thank you for your frank and respectful response. I also appreciate and respect the perspectives you and Cameron have been sharing, so I hope I haven't unintentionally given any impression otherwise. I have been reading your posts with interest since I first joined Integral Life, and have also read your "bio," so I am aware you are both a Zen practitioner and a priest -- and have not mistaken you for a fundamentalist.
I understand what you are saying about Integralists often interpreting Christianity as some approximation of Vedanta or Buddhism, and Christ as a bodhisattva or 'nondual realizer' (rather than 'incarnation of God'). I believe I was one of the first people in this recent discussion to mention this, back in an early letter on Cameron's blog. I appreciate why many Christians would not likely find this to be an acceptable interpretation. I have found Cameron's posts to be interesting and refreshing because he is one of the first 'Integralists' I've heard who has spoken in a much more starkly 'Christian' language, sometimes repeating claims and statements that I could just as easily hear in a mainstream church -- and using 'Integral Theory' to back it up! I actually have found that (from my pagan outsider's perspective) to be a bit amusing: Integral being used to back up claims and perspectives that probably a great many 'spiritual progressives' have tried to leave far behind.
I do not personally accept or find believable the claim that Jesus is the unique incarnation of God, but I do recognize that this has long been one of the pillars of Christian faith. In previous books, as I mentioned to Cameron (but as I expect he is already well aware), Wilber has dispatched with this claim by calling it a mistake, a mythological, concrete-literal interpretation of a transrational realization. But if you get rid of this interpretation and regard Jesus as ultimately just one among many of the world's mystic realizers, what happens to Jesus' lordship? Can a tradition still be called 'Christian' if that is discarded, or drastically reinterpreted? I recognize these as legitimate questions, as I mentioned to Cameron, and I think it is valuable to explore other ways Christianity and Integral Theory might meet.
In my recent letters to you and Cameron, I brought up the examples I did because, in my experience, they have been the most common forms in which appeals to 'foolishness' and 'offensiveness' have been made. I am not saying they must be discarded by Integral or post-metaphysical Christians, but I do think it is important to clarify what exactly is being said, and what sort of 'move' is being made when they are appealed to.
You said: My suspicion is that the Christian claim goes beyond the pre/trans fallacy and Integralists don’t see it because they are using the wrong tools, the wrong technology. To use an analogy and its only an analogy and one you know well, no one would know that microbes exists if all we had was our naked eyes to rely on. And there is no way of proving microbes exist if one refuses to look through a microscope at a prepared slide. With the same kind of proportionality the naked intellect can’t see the reality of the Christian claim. You’re well aware of the folk saying: if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. The analytical intellect by itself can only reduce the Christian claim to a set of propositional truths or metaphysical assertions, then rip them apart in a glorious display of cleverness. That illuminates the powers of the analytical intellect, but says little about the enduring claims of Christianity.
Would you be interested in saying more about how/why you think the Christian claim goes beyond the pre/trans fallacy, and what tool should be used if an interested inquirer would like to verify it for her- or himself? In my case, I use more than the tools of analysis in my inquiry -- I've meditated for years, and in fact, first started meditating and praying in a Christian context, inspired by Thomas Merton, St. John of the Cross, and texts like The Cloud of Unknowing. But as I said to Cameron, I remain doubtful that something like the 'eye of spirit' can directly disclose, in some unmediated and uninterpreted way, the type of knowledge that Christians would like it to (such as the historical-propositional claim that Jesus of Nazareth is the only son of God, etc). I certainly don't rule out the possibility that there are perspectives I haven't considered yet, and I remain open to that, so I am curious to hear more about what you mean by the 'right tool,' and the Christian claim (of Jesus' sonship?) being beyond the pre/trans fallacy.
You wrote (concerning your experience after meditating on the crucifixion): My acceptance or non-acceptance changed nothing. It was as if someone much greater than I understood the outrage and humiliation of unconditional love, and would not, could not turn away, and it was all okay. I haven’t the slightest idea how to categorize that “experience” on the Integral chart. I’m sure others are putting their little pins in the integral chart as they read this, but I don’t think it fit anywhere!
When you say 'it didn't fit,' are you thinking along the same lines as your suggestion that the Christian claim is beyond the pre/trans fallacy? I wasn't 'putting pins' in an Integral chart as I was reading you, but your claim that your experience can't be located on the AQAL map raises concerns for me, from a post-metaphysical perspective. Are you saying your experience transcended all possibility of interpretation and contextualization?
You wrote: So, dear Bruce, my challenge is when are the Integralists going to meet the stark, bold proclamation of Christianity at its deepest and most liberating levels and on its own terms, instead of changing the venue every time and thus ducking the issue with sidelining dust ups? The burden of proof is not for Christianity to justify itself to Integral Theory. The burden of proof is for Integral Theory to account for the Christian claim. There are 2 billion Christians in the world, and growing. Some of those just by shear odds have to be at the highest mystical levels. If Integral theory is going to be relevant for the 21st century, it can’t ignore, dismiss or otherwise denigrate that large a portion of the global population. That’s an ad hominem argument, of course. But you get the point. The issue is: how does Integral theory account for the Christian claim that Jesus in his incarnation, death and resurrection is the Lord (no power is greater than the powerless Jesus) and Savior (he overcomes death by his death and resurrection)? Don’t side track the conversation. I’m not saying anyone has to believe this. I’m saying, to use an example from KW, account for this most basic of Christian facts in Integral theory, and check your account of it with Christian experts (the Christian mystics – living ones if you can find them - and their record will be a good place to start) to see if they agree with your account. So far the way it accounts for it, as far as I can tell, is to dismiss it, reduce it to some form of Buddhism or Vedanta or relegate it to a mythic mentality. I’m open to being educated in this.
As I said above, I respect your and Cameron's desire to articulate a Christian understanding that perhaps takes deep account of Integral insights, but in a way that remains true to Christianity as you understand it. I think it is fair to say that, until recently, Christianity and its founder, Jesus of Nazareth, have definitely gotten a rather Buddhist/Hindu 'spin' in Integral literature and discussions.
But if Christians are going to make bold, offensive claims in the world community about the status of Jesus that have bearing on the relative status of all other traditions and teachers -- he is the Lord (of all humanity and creation); in his weakness, he is superior to all other supposed savior figures; he is the ultimate arbiter of human destiny; etc -- then it is fair to ask, I think, for Christians to justify such claims. Because often the 'support' for such claims, in Christian apologetics, has been mythological and prerational or prescientific in nature (appeals to the Bible as the divinely revealed, infallible Word of God; appeals to the authority of tradition; etc). Integral Theory challenges all traditions -- not just Christianity -- to face the challenges of modernity and postmodernity. Simply standing aloof and writing them off (as examples of foolish worldly wisdom, intellectual pretension, etc) and not giving further answer or justification is one possible strategy, but I'm not sure it's an Integral one.
About asking the Christian experts, yes, I think that's a good idea; more of it needs to be done in the articulation of a vibrant Integral Christianity, I believe. But to what extent are their 'discoveries,' their enactments and insights, valid for all human beings? How do we begin to trace that out?
Best wishes,
Bruce
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Thank You So Much...
Posted September 20th, 2009 by Greg Mayers in response to Re: Take this LightlyDear Bruce:
Thank you so very, very much for your extremely fine response. I deeply appreciate the honesty and respectful response you consistently make to these issues and I am so very grateful for that quality in your correspondence.
I am going to need time to articulate answers to you most legitimate questions to me. They are right on the mark. To tell you the truth, I've been struggling for 30 years to articulate the answers to these quesuttions, and I seriously doubt that I can suddenly come up with clear and satisfying answers. But I hope to be able to address them intelligently if for no other reason than to disguise my stupidity.
So as they say: stay tuned, we'll be back after a short break.
Thanks again, Bruce. Your inquires are exactly what is needed.
--
Greg Mayers
Zen taught me everything I can do.
Christianity taught me everything I can't do.
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Re: Thank You So Much...
Posted September 20th, 2009 by Balder in response to Thank You So Much...Thank you, Greg. I'm glad you found my questions relevant and I look forward to your response.
Warm wishes,
B.
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A Way To Validate and Pre/Trans Fallacies
Posted September 20th, 2009 by Greg Mayers in response to Re: Take this LightlyDear Bruce:
I don’t have a sure fired way of arriving at the “justification” of the Christian claim you ask for. But I do have a recipe that summarizes a lot of the wisdom of Christian spiritual practice and will assuredly steer you into the right direction for your own direct validation of the claim. That is the best anyone can do. Anyone who claims otherwise is either a fool or a charlatan.
Like all recipes, they depend on the individual cook to get them right and make the proper adjustments. And, as they say, the proof is in the pudding. Like anything, just reading or memorizing the recipe is useless. That is why the analytical intellect alone will never arrive at the insights and wisdom of the great Christian mystics, from Paul, to the authors of the four Gospels, to the early Church Fathers, etc., etc and all the other mystics of Christian history and the unknown non-mystical “common folk” who “saw” the validity of the claim and followed it as best they could.
Following the recipe is no guarantee that you will get the desired results, but the desired results are more likely to happen if you do rely on the recipe. As Olivier Clement has pointed out, “In the Gospel the very root of sin is the pretence that we can save ourselves by our own effort, that we can find security in ourselves and in one another.” (Olivier Clement: On Human Being, New City Press, Hyde Park NY 2000, p. 20).
The recipe in the most general terms was articulated first by Origen of Alexandria and refined through centuries of lived experience as purification, illumination and unification. A more culturally contemporary version of the recipe (and it varies from age to age, but all versions have more or less the same basic components) is in the next paragraph. The following recipe is very orderly; life isn’t. The orderliness can be helpful, but it is not necessary. This is a prescription, not a description or explanation. And control freaks, emotional or intellectual ones, are going to wreck it. The “technology” that is prescribed is extremely difficult, but not impossible. I am sure you are familiar with most of it, but don’t let that familiarity lull you into not paying attention to it. So with these caveats, here we go…
We admit that we are powerless to make ourselves happy and that our lives have become unmanageable. We came to believe that Jesus who is greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God. We made a fearless and searching inventory of ourselves. We admitted to God, ourselves and another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. We were entirely ready to have God remove all of these defects of character. We humbly asked Him to remove our short comings. We made a list of all the persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. We sought through prayer to Jesus and meditation on His life and teachings to improve our conscious contact with God praying only for the knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry it out. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps we try to carry this message to others and practice these principles in all our affairs.
This is one recipe. Others have gotten good results following other similar recipes, or even none at all. In other words, there is no way to tame or limit God in any way. The basic human stance that opens one to the insights and transformations of the Christian claim is that of abandonment of self to the Will of God and the willingness to be changed in whatever way God so desires.
As to my suspicion that the Christian claim eludes the pre/trans fallacy here is an important point. The analytical intellect is not the vehicle of God’s grace. It is the witness of it. It is the unique self who, in the most unavoidably mysterious of ways, is the vehicle, the instrument of God’s grace. That is one fruit of Christ’s redemption, our very particular (ὑπόστασις) humanity (Οὐσία) turns into the instrument of union with God, which activity is the gift of the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus. And that operates on the most primitive of conscious levels (magical) and the highest mystical levels (trans-non-dual).
(And all of this for one easy payment of only $19.95).
The paradox of paradoxes is this: God loves me (and every individual human) with his unconditionally, self-emptying love which is a preferential love in the same way that He loves Jesus. He doesn’t love humanity in general. In other words, He prefers me to any other person including Jesus. And he prefers you to any other person. And he prefers each person to any other person. None of it is contradictory and all of it is oxymoronic.
(But wait, we will also send you absolutely free…)
And that’s not the end of the paradoxes. For it turns out that after saying all of the above, it isn’t about me! After talking about all this incredible divine love, you’d think it would be about me, or you, or us, or Jesus but it isn’t! It is always about the other! “Love your enemies,” is a prime Christian directive. “He who says he loves God but hates his brother is a liar,” shocks our sensibilities.
(But wait there is more, we will also send you absolutely free…)
The analytical intellect, which can only witness this, is sent into apoplectic spastic melt downs at this revelation. Absolute foolishness to the Greeks: Aristophanes, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, etc. and all of their philosophies. If you want to know how to get to these insights, these convictions, follow the recipe for a day, a month, a year, 20 years, 50 years – for as long as it takes. You have to stew in it until it comes out right. Any attempted intellectual justification is an exercise in futility.
So, I answered your question by pointing out a way that you can validate the claim for yourself. You will not have to depend on an intellectual justification, nor on me nor on an external authority like the “Church” or the bible. (It can make for smoother going if you did rely on the Christian tradition because they’ve masticated the more difficult stuff to make it easier to digest, but you don’t have to – Saul of Tarsus didn’t).
I’ve been completely open and honest about what to do and what it takes. Now answer my question. How does Integral Theory account for the stark, bold claim of Christianity which Cameron and I keep irritatingly sticking in everyone’s face on this site?
--
Greg Mayers
Zen taught me everything I can do.
Christianity taught me everything I can't do.
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An illustration between the difference between States and Stages
Posted October 1st, 2009 by Alan Sato in response to A Way To Validate and Pre/Trans FallaciesYou wrote: "As to my suspicion that the Christian claim eludes the pre/trans fallacy here is an important point. The analytical intellect is not the vehicle of God’s grace. It is the witness of it. It is the unique self who, in the most unavoidably mysterious of ways, is the vehicle, the instrument of God’s grace."
This illustrates beautifully how the Wilber-Combs lattice works. Cultural stages exist, but are not the grace of God. However, the witness of it exists at every cultural stage. If you develop further up the integral ladder, it doesn't affect the witness. That is exactly how the Wilber-Combs lattice works. The creation of the Wilber-Combs lattice allows the separation of ethnocentric interpretations from the witness.
Thus, we are able to categorize Cultural stages of development without denegrating Spiritual states. The issue as I see it is which fork on the road you choose to take to reconsile an ethnocentric Bible with a world-centric lens. One can retain all of the ethnocentric claims, drop some of the ethnocentric clams, or drop all of the ethnocentric claims that cannot be proven. I happen to choose the 3rd option. You happen to choose the 2nd option. Fundamentalists happen to choose the 1st option. But there is no longer an absolute Christianity that exists any more. Your views are not equavilent to the views of a typical Christian in a 3rd world nation. Every interpretation of the Bible is relative. Every single one. Every single Christian experiences a different personal God, yet the same personal God. The spirituality is untouched by the specific interpretation. That is the beauty of the Wilber-Combs lattice.
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Re: A Way to Justify Pre/Trans Fallacies
Posted September 21st, 2009 by Balder in response to A Way To Validate and Pre/Trans FallaciesHi, Greg,
Thank you for your post. I will respond to the body of your post first, and then to your question at the end. But I have to say I'm feeling very hesitant or reluctant to respond, because, despite the 'commonness' of this 'recipe' throughout Christian history, it still feels very personal and not like something I really have a desire to step on or criticize. And I say this not just as an outsider looking in, but as someone who also put that recipe into practice when my life hit emotional bottom in early adulthood. Doing so changed my life, pulling me out of near-suicidal despair, and set me on a new course. (For awhile, I even considered the priesthood or taking monastic vows, and went to meet with several priests to talk about vocation.) So, I recognize the deeply personal nature of this transformative relationship, and I also recognize its humbling power. I do not deny its profound lived meaningfulness for Christians.
You said: The basic human stance that opens one to the insights and transformations of the Christian claim is that of abandonment of self to the Will of God and the willingness to be changed in whatever way God so desires.
I do not doubt that both insights and transformations flow from this act of surrender, but I do not see how it can serve to factually confirm the 'offensive' claim in question. It may bolster emotional conviction; I do not think it delivers propositional knowledge (and the 'offensive claim' of Christianity we've been discussing is a propositional one).
You said: As to my suspicion that the Christian claim eludes the pre/trans fallacy here is an important point. The analytical intellect is not the vehicle of God’s grace. It is the witness of it. It is the unique self who, in the most unavoidably mysterious of ways, is the vehicle, the instrument of God’s grace. That is one fruit of Christ’s redemption, our very particular (ὑπόστασις) humanity (Οὐσία) turns into the instrument of union with God, which activity is the gift of the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus. And that operates on the most primitive of conscious levels (magical) and the highest mystical levels (trans-non-dual).
This is a claim about a process (or an entity, God) which works outside of human perspectives and models, such as AQAL or the pre/trans model. But as a claim or interpretation, it is 'mappable' or contextualizable, isn't it?
You said: How does Integral Theory account for the stark, bold claim of Christianity which Cameron and I keep irritatingly sticking in everyone’s face on this site?
Very generally, I believe Integral Theory would say that this stark, bold claim is a claim with a Kosmic address. And likely there are multiple iterations of this claim that show up, in different evolutionary forms, across multiple Kosmic addresses.
But I don't think this is quite what you're asking me. I think you're saying, Millions upon millions of Christians testify that this is a fact, that Jesus really is Lord, the unique and world-saving incarnation of God in history, so how does Integral Theory make room for or adequately acknowledge a claim of this sort? The most I think Integral can do, particularly in an interfaith role, is to help people ascertain just what sort of claim is being made (what its Kosmic address is). Is it a propositional truth claim, an historical fact, an passionate expression of faith and commitment -- or all, some, or none of the above? Depending on the type of claim, it would be subject to different forms, and different modes, of confirmation. And the Integral principle of nonexclusion would call for people making such claims not to try to push the 'import' of their claims beyond the boundaries of their respective spheres of enactment (e.g., a contemplative vision of Adam and Eve doesn't 'prove' that the scientific theory of evolution is wrong).
There is a bit more I want to say, approaching this from a different angle, but I'll save it for another post.
Warm wishes,
Bruce
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In Response Already...
Posted September 21st, 2009 by Greg Mayers in response to Re: A Way to Justify Pre/Trans FallaciesHey Bruce:
I think we’ve gotten to the point in our relationship where we no longer have to keep declaring our respect for each other and tip toe around perceived delicate subjects. You know I have a deep respect for your integrity and authenticity. I know you know that I have a deep respect for your integrity and authenticity. And you know that I know you know that I have a deep respect for your integrity and authenticity. And I know you have respect for me, and you know I know… etc. etc. Don’t worry about hurting my feelings despite my occasional flame throwing on this site. I’ve been around long enough to have had my butt kicked and been jerked around by some of the best, and you’re not one of them.
I want to stop you right in the middle of your response because you are making an assumption that is not accurate. You said the Christian claim is a propositional truth. It isn’t. It is a Person, not a philosophy. You can be forgiven for this assumption because of the terminology: i.e. claim and other formulations. But that’s a problem with not just language, but with thinking… Once it enters the thought formulation, it is already interpreted. Yet, if you don’t express it with all the limitations that come along with any expression, you keep secret what isn’t meant to be secret and shouldn’t be kept secret. What was said of Buddha can also be said of the Christian Gospel: “The World Honored One opened his golden mouth and the world has been entangled in biers ever since.” Or, to put it into Christian terms, idolatry is always a clear and present danger.
One of Cameron’s insights I think is that there really is no philosophical underpinnings to Christianity, and therefore no real propositional truths. There are proclamations about who and what this person is and his paradoxical teaching. (“Today we announce with great joy, the king’s had a son” is not a propositional truth – it’s an announcement, kerygma).
Now you can insist that the Christian claim is a propositional truth and then rip it apart to your heart’s content. And I would more than likely sympathize with your position. But I would like to save you the trouble of growing down that blind alley because you will not run into the stark, bold Christian claim there. You’ll run into philosophers’ thinking about the stark, bold Christian claim. That’s what I’ve been banging my head against when I rail against the analytical intellect. It can’t catch the “claim.” And I think you actually get it when you recognize that my post it so personal. It is personal. It can only be “got” in the “personal realm,” something Buddhism seems to confuse with a separate self sense. (Or is it Integralists who are confused about this?)
You are absolutely right about what I am really asking, and thank you for expressing it so very well: Millions upon millions of Christians testify that this is a fact, that Jesus really is Lord, the unique and world-saving incarnation of God in history, so how does Integral Theory make room for or adequately acknowledge a claim of this sort?
Yes! I tend to think that Integral theory doesn’t “catch” the Christian vision. And what I haven’t said thus far, I think that is a terrible shame. Because Integral theory is so promising and I’ve learned so much with it as a tool and I was hoping to learn more about one of the traditions, Christianity, that is planted in my heart. I hope, I sincerely, passionately hope that Integral Theory isn’t just another philosophy that becomes antiquated in a few generations; that it really does achieve the high goals it reaches for and “explain” everything. And maybe that is hubris.
I’m looking forward to your further posts…
Greg Mayers
Zen taught me everything I can do
Christianity taught me everything I can’t do
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How Integral Theory takes your claim into account
Posted October 1st, 2009 by Alan Sato in response to In Response Already..."You are absolutely right about what I am really asking, and thank you for expressing it so very well: Millions upon millions of Christians testify that this is a fact, that Jesus really is Lord, the unique and world-saving incarnation of God in history, so how does Integral Theory make room for or adequately acknowledge a claim of this sort?"
1) What's the difference between millions upon millions of Christians and millions upon millions of Buddhists? Ethnocentric Buddhists also make a similar Buddhist claim. It's as if they don't count as people because they're not Christians. There is no basis of justification in your statement when it cannot be discerned as more special than any other religion making the same claim that their religion is a fact that it is the unique incarnation of God.
2) You have distorted the claim. The claim should read that Jesus is the ONLY way. You have distorted it to say that he is the UNIQUE incarnation. I'd like to see the study that uses your exact wording. You cannot under a clear conscience think that you reflect the interpretation of the majority of Christians. You need to clarify who agrees with your interpretation. (you might not like that result.) There is a clear difference between the two claims. You are actively distorting the claims of millions upon millions of Christians who do not agree with you. (Ironically, many of the Christians who would use the word Unique are well on their way to dropping all ethnocentric Christian claims.)
3) Your statement is that millions upon millions make a claim. Then you ask how Integral Theory can "adequately" acknowledge the claim. I would not want any integral theory to acknowledge any claims. That would undermine the factual validity of the theory. You are merely making a statement that Christians claim something to be fact, not that it is a fact. No serious theory will take that sort of weak suppositional statement into account.
4) Suppose you are willing to stop talking in riddles and clearly confirm that you are not making a claim about a fact, but are boldly proclaiming to be fact that Jesus is the Only incarnation of God, and the Only way to salvation. Integral Theory will take the interpretation of the spiritual experience to be happening through an ethnocentric lens. Not liking it is not the same as disagree. No ethnocentric Christian would disagree, they would jus not like their lowly categorization.
5) I don't think you are making the claim in 4), but a more world-centric claim utilized for ethnocentric purposes. This places your religious interpretation in a crossroads between ethnocentric and world-centric. You are partially in one stage and moving into the next. The Stages of Integral Theory takes into account how you categorize the world and make interpretations from your experiences. The States of Integral Theory use the Wilber-Combs lattice to show the spiritual depth one embodies at any given stage of interpretation. It takes quite a bit of integrating to separate spiritual states from psychological stages, but it's worth the while. Why? Because an ethnocentric religion is necessary for young children who do not embody 3rd person perpective yet, and an integral religion will have a healthy incarnation for them to reside in. A healthy integral religion will also have a magical element for very young children to reside in. These elements exist in all religions, but are not necessarily healthy or appropriate the the level of development of each person.
6) Have you noticed that your interpretations of the Bible have moved from being fundamental, literal and ethnocentric towards being more liberal, symbolic and world-centric? You have quite a unique interpretation and stand almost alone in your unique position. Have you noticed that the shifts have been only in this direction and not in the opposite direction (of going from a world-centric view to an ethnocentric view, or a symboloc interpretation to a literal interpretation)? In time, you will find yourself continuing that trend towards a world-centric, symbolic Christianity. Some day, fellow World-centric Christians will welcome you as you resonate with their message. I say this because I want you to watch this in yourself and see it happening. I would suggest you talk at length to World-centric Christians to accelerat the process. Or do it to prove me wrong.
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In Response...
Posted October 1st, 2009 by Greg Mayers in response to How Integral Theory takes your claim into accountDear Alan:
Thanks for the "spiritual direction." And to imagine, I get all of this for free. You must be a Christian.
--
Greg Mayers
Zen taught me everything I can do.
Christianity taught me everything I can't do.
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What Offense?
Posted September 21st, 2009 by Balder in response to In Response Already...Here's my personal take on this:
If the declaration of Christ's lordship and ultimacy is not a 'factual' proposition but an effusive expression of love, it is not offensive. It is celebratory. I feel it with you, celebrate it with you.
It only begins to be potentially "offensive," in my opinion, when it is asserted propositionally, when it is used to cancel out or discredit or somehow diminish both the truth claims and the devotional expressions of other religions (or to attempt to triumphalistically 'subsume' them).
You and Cameron have both been carrying on as if you were uttering scandalous propositions. Now that I begin to ask you to support these propositions, you are saying, no, these aren't propositions at all.
Then what is so scandalous about these statements? A non-propositional devotional expression or a passionate anouncement of personal faith has no bearing on the truth value of other religions, does it?
My wife is Hindu and has a simple, beautiful, devotional relationship with Shiva (and other Hindu deities), engaging in daily pujas, fasting, dedicating many days throughout the year to contemplation of them (all of whom she considers to be expressions or manifestations of One God). Does the Christian message have any bearing on the validity, the truth-value, of her Hindu faith and her way of life, or on her future state? If you answer yes, please tell me how you can do so without crossing into the worldly 'propositional' territory you've thus far disparaged.
Warm wishes,
Bruce
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Back to the Offense and Scandal...
Posted September 22nd, 2009 by Greg Mayers in response to What Offense?Hey Bruce:
I don’t think I’ve mentioned in any post I’ve written that I have any devotion to Jesus. My Christian faith finds expression apophatically. I ascribe to St. Thomas Aquinas’ statement in the Summa Theologica: The greatest knowledge of God is to know you do not know God. The choice is not between factual propositions and devotional emotionalism. There is a third option, but I don’t know what to call it. I’ll call it the unknown alternative, until someone identifies it or I come up with a clever title. I’ll try to illuminate it below. But thoughts and words, much less logical systems of thinking, conceal as much as they reveal. The mystery is consistently inconsistent and entirely reliable.
I can only speak for the Catholic heritage which recognizes the revelation of God in nature and in all religious traditions, even (no put down intended, check it off to language limitations) non-theistic ones. If Catholicism at one time condemned other faiths, it reversed course at Vatican II. And no, people of other faiths and traditions are not ipso facto going to hell. To the contrary, those who in their lives express the heart of revelation even without explicit knowledge of the Christian Gospel (kerygma) are closer to the eternal truth than Catholics who are just a name in a parish register. And because of the absolute moral principle of ‘Freedom of Conscience’ (aka: Primacy of Conscience) previously explained an individual acts meritoriously when they follow their own conscience. And no, the Church is not saying that other traditions are just diluted forms of Christianity. Religious freedom is one of the Vatican’s prime ongoing diplomatic objectives. And yes, the Church does teach that the “fullness” of God’s self revelation is in Jesus’ incarnation, death and resurrection and that revelation is definitively redemptive; meaning nothing rivals it.
Now there is an interesting background maneuver going on in this conversation, and that is to “de-hierarchalize” religious traditions. All traditions are equal except the tradition that say they aren’t. That tradition is less than equal to the other flattened out traditions precisely because it claims it is the “fullness” of religious aspirations. KW has shot that maneuver to hell. Yes, there is a hierarchy in religious traditions. Maybe we have to add a “traditions line of development” that is different from the spiritual line. That would honor Christianity’s acknowledgment that individuals can achieve the highest spiritual development and the Christian kerygma is the fullness of the traditions. But, I imagine it will be a cold day in hell before that happens. That will just spark more religious wars. Maybe we can get away with it secretly… (he suggests conspiratorially).
Back to the previous paragraph: that is the scandal. You seem to me scandalized by it. Am I right? Doesn’t it offend you that God is so particular? (First corollary to this: pay no attention to the religious nuts who want to make you choke on Christianity, then burn you at the stake when you vomit).
I think we’re getting into an interesting issue of around faith here. You say you don’t believe that Jesus is the only-begotten Son of God, (don’t forget the “begotten” part which has a very long theological footnote attached to it to get at what it is trying to convey, because otherwise it is a mistranslation – in summation, it refers to the Nicene/Chalcedonian proclamation). So what’s the problem? Why bother with this conversation?
I wonder if some part of you does believe it, and is deeply scandalized and offended by it. It’s the same pattern you find in fundamentalists but in reverse. The fundamentalists are denying the part of themselves that don’t believe what they profess and argue with people who reflect their own unacknowledged disbelieve. I wonder if you are denying the part of yourself that does believe, and arguing with people who reflect your own unacknowledged belief, or just maybe “suspicion” that it might be right on. (You’ll notice there are no polite question marks at the ends of the above statements. We’re still friends, huh? Just checking). It’s kind of the same perplexity I have with the atheists. If they are so convinced that God doesn’t exist why do they spend so much time talking about Him? As a friend of mine says: irony is so ironic.
Of course, you could ask me the same question: why am I spending so much time on this topic. For three reasons that I can think of. 1) I want to correct the distortions around Christianity I find on this site. I want people to understand Christianity so they can criticize it and not their worst nightmares of it. 2) Because I really want Integral Theory to get it right. I really would like to rely on Integral Theory to understand my Christian tradition the way I relied on it to understand my Zen Buddhist tradition. And so far, it hasn’t gotten it right. 3) And finally, it is so damn much fun! It sharpens my intellect and opens me up to possibilities. You are a worthy “opponent” and this conversation is immensely helpful to me and my teaching work. (I’m going to end up writing a whole theological tome out of this blog if you and I don’t stop soon). Someone is going to have to point out my unconscious motives, since I obviously can’t see them – boy is that an invitation for the flame throwers to jump in!!
Okay, the personal part in the scandalous, offensive, Christian claim or message or kerygma, or non-propositional truth, has nothing to do with the modern meaning of the word “person.” That’s a distortion which post modernism can help deconstruct. The cultural context of the contemporary term “person” was unknown to the Cappadocian Fathers and Nicene bishops, was unknown until modern psychology actually. It couldn’t even operate on an unconscious level back then. I can’t imagine Basil of Caesarea or Augustine of Hippo saying: I’ve accepted Jesus as my personal savior! But this will take us too far afield. I’m just pointing out for now the ambiguity around the word “person” when it is casually used in conversations around Christianity. If you’ve studied patrology you probably know all of this. (Yes, post modernism can help contextualize theology, which is thinking about what can’t be adequately thought about and what can’t be adequately thought about discloses the mystery which is the scandal part). So when I said previously that “it is personal,” I did not mean that in the contemporary usage of that word.
In conclusion, I’m not asking you or anyone else to ascribe to the Christian kerygma. The only reason I am persistent in this dialogue with you is that you are an expert in Integral Theory (otherwise I would have blown you off a long time ago because it’s not my business what you believe) and I want Integral Theory to account for the Christian kerygma on its own terms. I understand that evolution of conscious and lines of development are not going to be trumped by a faith tradition. And it makes sense to me that the majority of people on the globe regardless of religious affiliation are at the magical/mythic levels of development. But that doesn’t explain Gregory of Nyssa who wrote that there is something that is “deeper” or “higher” or “prior” to non-dual consciousness. I also understand that the current Integral Theory employs a Buddhist/Vedanatic template and I think it doesn’t catch the Christian kerygma. If I was as smart as KW or you, I’d adjust the model, but I don’t know how to do that. My only pathetic attempt at this with the resurrection remains an embarrassment to me.
Enough for now… and my passionate responses reflect my admiration for you…
Greg Mayers
Zen taught me everything I can do
Christianity taught me everything I can’t do
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Amendment
Posted September 22nd, 2009 by Greg Mayers in response to Back to the Offense and Scandal...Hey Bruce:
I just had a brilliant idea that might satisfy the “Everyone is right” principle. In the previous post I suggested that maybe we need a line of development for the Traditions, where we can rank the traditions according to ultimate depth of each, but that such an effort would cause untold problems since no one would agree on any ranking that put their tradition on a level below the highest.
How about this; in the Line of Development for the Traditions, have five to six different sub-lines that rank the degree of depth according the understanding of each of the traditions. So, we’d have a line for the ranking the way Islam sees it, and Judaism, and Christianity, and Buddhism, etc. This has the advantage of honoring the unique way each tradition sees itself and offers the “outsider” a relative view, relative to each tradition, instead of the absolute view of just one line. I’m not offended by the fact that Islam and Judaism both see Jesus as a prophet, pure and simple. I just don’t believe. But it is fine with me if they do. This way each tradition can be as outrageous in public as they are in private and they all get equal time.
We already know what the basic outlines of the rankings according to each tradition are. It's called comparative religions studies. Now this Line of Development would be different from the line of spiritual evolution, which may still be applicable to individuals. It is a matter of different scales. On the individual scale, the spiritual lines work within the traditions. On the grand scale of teachings, the traditions lines work. We’re just use Integral Theory to bring detail and clarity to what is already there.
Just a thought.
--
Greg Mayers
Zen taught me everything I can do.
Christianity taught me everything I can't do.
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Re: Amendment
Posted September 22nd, 2009 by Balder in response to AmendmentGreg, if I followed your suggestion, you are recommending that each tradition comparatively rank itself and other traditions on an agreed-upon scale of development or completeness, so that everyone could gain insight into how a tradition conceives of itself but also how it conceives of others. If that is what you are suggesting, yes, I think that would be an interesting exercise. But following on some things I mentioned in my last post, I think you'd probably need multiple lines for each tradition beyond 'overall' development, since I think it's clear that no tradition is equally developed in all possible areas. So, representatives of a tradition might first do a self-analysis with regards to an agreed-upon range of important areas or domains common to most traditions, and then look 'abroad' (drawing on research in comparative religion and elsewhere) to evaluate how it sees other traditions doing in each of these areas as well.
Now, if we can just get traditions to agree on the appropriate ranking criteria...! The results of the Snowmass Ecumenical Conference that Father Keating participated in a couple decades ago might be a good place to start...
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Re: Back to the Offense and Scandal...
Posted September 22nd, 2009 by Balder in response to Back to the Offense and Scandal...Greg,
You're right that I have something of a 'mixed' relationship with Christianity, and I have no doubt that some 'shadow' persists here. Because I was a committed Christian at one point in my life, and I still value that part of my history, but for a number of reasons -- having to do both with Christianity itself and what I found outside of Christianity -- I ended up leaving it and moving on. But while that shadow element is likely present in my discussions with you, I would not say it is my sole motivation, or even my primary one.
I am taking the time to speak with you because I agree with you that the Christian vision has not been fully or adequately 'captured' in Integral Theory to date. I do not have enough knowledge of Christianity to personally help with the fine details of that, and I actually am quite sympathetic to the interpretive moves Wilber has made (e.g., treating Jesus as an ethical teacher and a mystic realizer among many others, rather than the historically unique incarnation of God). In general, I think Wilber has good reasons for doing so. But, as I said previously, I also understand why this would be objectionable to many Christians, and so I'm interested in engaging in exploratory discussions and debates around this question. I can see why Christians would not appreciate Jesus being 'translated' into a largely Eastern (Buddhist-Hindu) framework. But at the same time -- and this has been at the center of my discussions with Cameron -- non-Christians don't particularly appreciate having their traditions retranslated and 'subsumed' into the Christian framework, which is what triumphalist/inclusivist approaches have attempted. So, can we find a way for Christianity to illuminate Integral thinking, and Integral thinking to illuminate Christianity, in a way that does not involve taking recourse to pre-postmodern triumphalist strategies? (And can we perhaps also address unacknowledged Eastern triumphalist threads in current Integral Theory?)
You said: Now there is an interesting background maneuver going on in this conversation, and that is to “de-hierarchalize” religious traditions. All traditions are equal except the tradition that say they aren’t. That tradition is less than equal to the other flattened out traditions precisely because it claims it is the “fullness” of religious aspirations. KW has shot that maneuver to hell. Yes, there is a hierarchy in religious traditions. Maybe we have to add a “traditions line of development” that is different from the spiritual line.
I am not trying to de-hierarchalize religious traditions. I am saying several things: 1) If a tradition expects its claims to be taken seriously outside of its own circle, at least within modern and postmodern contexts (both of which Integral tries to 'integrate'), the superiority of a tradition can't simply be presupposed at the outset, as a doctrinal position or a matter of faith (My tradition is superior because scripture and tradition declare it to be, because I have faith it is, or because its founder is held to be [fill in some claim to divinity or inherent perfection here]); 2) there are no monolithic traditions to speak of, but rather a developmental spectrum of 'forms' or 'levels' within traditions, with arguably comparable levels of development in evidence across multiple traditions, problematizing claims to the inherent superiority of any particular tradition; 3) claims of the inherent superiority of a particular tradition are further problematized by the incommensurability of traditional religious worldspaces, each of which may emphasize, and help believers to enact, a range of different values, aims, human potentials, etc. ("Jesus is uniquely God-in-the-flesh" is not very meaningful within the contexts of pantheistic, nondualistic, or non-theistic worldviews; "Jesus conquered death" doesn't make much sense in a system which includes belief in reincarnation; "Jesus was resurrected on the third day" fails to impress, in the way it is intended to impress, within the context of worldviews which have their own teachings on how to raise the dead [say, through the practice of Phowa] or how to realize the rainbow body [through the mastery of the 72000 nadis], etc.) I am not saying that all religions are flat and equal, but that there is a rich geography of spiritual enactments with multiple horizons of fullness, and it isn't clear to me (from my studies over the years) that any one tradition really can claim to surpass all others in all relevant areas (a claim which, itself, problematically presupposes a shared, pregiven framework).
Regarding the rest of your letter, I am not clear how it really addresses the question at the heart of this discussion. In your opening blog, you wrote:
Here’s the outrage, even more than what Cameron so aptly expresses. There is no one in history like Jesus of Nazareth who is uniquely completely human and totally divine. He gave himself up to the will of his Father in order to save everyone without exception from our deadly self-deception and for the transformative love of God. It is through Him, his incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection, that this redemptive act of each particular human person “happens.”
What is the connection between this claim and your apophatic approach to theology?
Your quote above is a propositional statement. Apophatic knowing is non-propositional (and Christianity, as you know, is not the only tradition to emphasize or cultivate the apophatic approach). So, how do you link your apophatic theology (knowing you don't really know who God is) to this particular claim, which includes definitive historical and objective assertions about a particular human being and his role in the world's socio-cultural-spiritual economy? Why do you think apophasis ultimately supports this particular culture's claims about its religious leader and not others'? If it doesn't support it, why did you bring it up in relation to this 'offensive' claim?
Glad to be helping you write a theological tome,
Bruce
P.S. I just saw your most recent letter. I'll read that now.
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Too Tired...
Posted September 22nd, 2009 by Greg Mayers in response to Re: Back to the Offense and Scandal...Hey Bruce:
I'm too tired right now to respond because I was up til 2am last night working on my "Amendment" idea and then pounding away at it most of the day. I'll start a new thread on it in a few days and let others jump in. And I'll get back to your response, which are good as always...
In the mean time, enjoy these bumper stickers spotted in Berkeley: "Well...at least the War on the MIddle Class is going well..." and, my favoret: "The Age of Reason - Fun while it lasted."
--
Greg Mayers
Zen taught me everything I can do.
Christianity taught me everything I can't do.
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Re: Too Tired
Posted September 23rd, 2009 by Balder in response to Too Tired...I'll start a new thread on it in a few days and let others jump in. And I'll get back to your response, which are good as always...
I look forward to both.
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Response
Posted September 29th, 2009 by Balder in response to Re: Back to the Offense and Scandal...Greg, I understand you've been quite busy, but I do hope you come back to this; I'm sincerely interested in your response.
All the best,
B.
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RE: Response
Posted September 30th, 2009 by Greg Mayers in response to ResponseDear Bruce:
Thanks for the encouragement. Truth to tell, I've been completely absorbed and obsessed by the paper I am working on re: The Holy Trinity, which when I am finished with it, will address and clarify some of the issues you and I have been chewing on. I haven't forgotten you. In fact, just the opposite... You are constantly on my mind, you and your fine thinking and challenges.
Please be patient with me. When inspiration flows, go with it. Or, as Yogi Berra says: when you come to a fork in the road, take it.
To whet your appetite a bit: I think I've spotted KW and Integral's pre/trans falacy and reductionism at higher states and stages. It should be a wild discussion once I make the Holy Trinity post.
Blessing on you...
--
Greg Mayers
Zen taught me everything I can do.
Christianity taught me everything I can't do.
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Re: Response
Posted September 30th, 2009 by Balder in response to RE: ResponseThank you for checking in, Greg. I will be patient and wait for your new blog! I have been disappointed in past discussions (with Christians, primarily) where the conversation has died out or been abandoned just when we were getting to the questions that seemed to me to have the most clarifying potential; so I spoke up this time, not wanting this to happen again. I know that you've never actually done this with me before, though, so I have no reason to expect you would; I just wanted to offer a little confession about some of the past conditioning that underlies my impatient promptings. :-)
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More to come later...
Posted October 1st, 2009 by Greg Mayers in response to Re: ResponseDearest Bruce:
You wrote:
I have been disappointed in past discussions (with Christians, primarily) where the conversation has died out or been abandoned just when we were getting to the questions that seemed to me to have the most clarifying potential; so I spoke up this time, not wanting this to happen again.
That fine intellect of yours is intimidating... :-)
More to come later... still working... thanks for your patience...
--
Greg Mayers
Zen taught me everything I can do.
Christianity taught me everything I can't do.
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Not judging a tradition
Posted October 1st, 2009 by Alan Sato in response to Back to the Offense and Scandal...You wrote: "All traditions are equal except the tradition that say they aren’t. That tradition is less than equal to the other flattened out traditions precisely because it claims it is the “fullness” of religious aspirations. KW has shot that maneuver to hell."
When KW states this, he never uses it to consider the authenticity of realized spiritual states as lesser. He specifically talks about the stage of development of the culture. He specifically states along with this analysis (almost always, if not always) that it does not discount in any way the authenticity or depth of spirituality. He is very careful to separate cultural behavior from spirituality. He is not judging the tradition. He is labeling the cultural manifestation. Note that he considers most Buddhism in Asia to also be ethnocentric.
Note that in Christianity, KW does recognize a World-centric church, a Green church and a 2nd tier church, which reflect the cultural stages of development, and not the spiritual component. The labeling of ethnocentricity is used on the cultural stage. For example, in most 3rd world Christian nations, I doubt they are talking about the paradox of Christianity, or the offensiveness of Cristianity. This is because their culture is actually in alignment with the message. In America, however, the culture is not in alignment with the message. Thus there is a paradox or offensiveness. Your cultural lens is world-centric, and you have to reconsile the ethnocentric message. This is not the case world wide. Note that I am not analyzing the spirituality or authenticity of spirituality, just the cultural manifestation.
One method of reconsiling an ethnocentric message through a world-centric lens is to do it the way you're doing it. Another way to do it is to consider the ethnocentric message irrelevant through cultural development. The first way leads to arguments over borders and the second eliminates it. It just so happens that Buddhism can lead itself into the second way of reconsiliation more easily. But Buddhism's original form is also ethnocentric. It's been adapted in America to become relevant to Americans. But no one would claim that Buddhism in America is flattened out or less full. And neither is a non ethnocentric Christianity.
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2 cents
Posted September 19th, 2009 by Steve in response to Take This Lightly...Why the effort to prove Christianity is superior?
Why the condescention? " So, dear Bruce" "Reduce it to some form of Buddhism or Vedanta"
From my perspective, anybody who has any spiritual training, who knows the methods, and yes, the techniques, to transcend and ascend into the subtler realms of existence...could give two hoots about proving something about religion.
I'll even go so far to say the in the higher stages, one doesn't feel the need to affiliate with a tradition at all. Study, learn, see where things fit, appreciate? Yes. Affiliate? No.
Once you enter the skull cave...these matters don't matter.
At some point, one needs to get out of the intellect, out of the ideas and concepts, out of the books, and into the microcosm...and start exploring there.
--
"This too shall pass"
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The Vision of a Renegade Pharisee
Posted September 18th, 2009 by Wes HopperYes, that vision is offensive, because it makes Jesus LESS than he was, not more. It's the vision of a renegade Jewish fundamentalist who could not see Jesus' life and death in any way other than as a sacrificial appeasement of an angry god. The fact that Jesus taught a loving God didn't matter, because as Saul proudly stated, he wasn't interested in what Jesus taught. "I determined to know NOTHING except Jesus Christ and him crucified." And he didn't.
So what did Saul miss? He missed the inspiring vision of a man who showed the heights to which we could rise in awareness and consciousness by doing our inner work. He missed the vision of unity in God demonstrated by a Jewish man who treated Samaritans and Romans as children of God too. Without qualifications. And when the other branches of the followers of Jesus were scattered in 70AD, Saul's fundamentalist Pharisee version came to represent Christianity. So we got an angry God, a division of the world into believers and unbelievers, and the religious strife of the next 2,000 years.
I'm a follower of Jesus. I'm not a follower of Saul. That would be offensive.
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Good for you...
Posted September 18th, 2009 by Greg Mayers in response to The Vision of a Renegade PhariseeDear Wes...
You're offended. Good for you. You are paying attention! You are vulnerable to the Good News. Duck! Grace is setting an ambush.
--
Greg Mayers
Zen taught me everything I can do.
Christianity taught me everything I can't do.
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Is Christianity Redeemable? or is it a load of American romance?
Posted September 24th, 2009 by LeoAlexander in response to The Vision of a Renegade PhariseeI guess those with faith have no problem answering this in the positive, but I for one watch efforts to develop an Integral Christianity with skepticism. Wouldn't it be better to just get over it? It looks to me to be either a purely pragmatic program - so many people (in the USA) use this mythology, therefore we'd better find them a way of growing; or a thoroughly romantic ideal. But what place do identities like this have in Integral culture? Call me Sam Harris but I don't get why anyone with an understanding of the three stands of deep science would feel any inclination to identify with any particular mythology, and especially not with xian mythology.
I don't want to abuse those who are sincerely working for it's evolution but let me add a voice from the camp that doesn't understand what you see in it. For all the reasons given above (and of course from personal experience of growing up in a christian community and rejecting it) I do find it offensive, as KW has exhaustively described, it does limit growth by proclaiming that one and only one person can achieve full realisation
I don't find it offensive that that person isn't me, do I care whether I make the grade or not? what I find offensive is that it claims to work as a moral ordering system and it obviously has very little moral impact, it doesn't protect it's adherants health, it doesn't encourage critical thinking, it just drives sexual expression underground or exstinguishes eros altogether, and makes it difficult to relate to actual spiritual practice. But who needs reasons, we've got millions of Voltaires now.. I'm just puzzled by what keeps an intelligent person trying to resucitate a dead tradition except pragmatism? Wouldn't you prefer, if it was possible, if there were no sheep further behind, if the path was over, wouldn't you be relived to leave it? And if you're only in it for pragmatic reasons, what does faith consist of? An American ideal? The view from europe is less enthusiastic.
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One Explanation...
Posted September 24th, 2009 by Greg Mayers in response to Is Christianity Redeemable? or is it a load of...That's one explanation. Two billion people on the globe don't agree with you. Get over it. If Integral Theory accounts for everything, then it has to take into account and account for the Christian kerygma and the Christians say it doesn't speak to them. It puts them down.
--
Greg Mayers
Zen taught me everything I can do.
Christianity taught me everything I can't do.
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States, Stages, and the Wilber-Combs Lattice
Posted September 29th, 2009 by Alan Sato in response to One Explanation...It doesn't matter if 2 billion Christians don't agree with the ethnocentric assignment integral gives it. That's where it gets catagorized based on a wealth of developmental psychology research. It's not based on the Christian kerygma or a Buddhist kerygma. It's based on universally documented stages of development found in all studied cultures, including aboriginal tribes.
It's not only Christians. KW has said many times that the Dali Lama is ethnocentric and the great bulk of Buddhism is also ethnocentric, so Christians are not being picked on at all. If there ever came into existence a world government and each person had one vote, the president elected would only serve Chinese concerns, much like George Bush only served his ethnocentric concerns. Fairness to the world would not be the result of a world democracy. The great work at Integral Life Spiritual Center has been about defining a Magenta spirituality, a Red spirituality, an Amber spirituality, an Orange spirituality, a Green spirituality, a Teal spirituality, a Turquiose spirituality, and so on.
You can be fully stationed in an Amber Stage of development and still achieve quite deep spiritual States. Previously, philosophers would simply stack spiritual States on top of psychological Stages and consider the spiritual States to be higher Stages. KW identified this error and developed the Wilber-Combes lattice, in which all spiritual States can be achieved at each Stage of psychological development. States and Stages are two different things. The way these two tie in is that your interpretation of reality (what you personally experience as reality and take for granted as reality) is colored by the Stage you use to interpret it through. It has been found through thorough research that spirituality is also susceptable to the lens of the Stage you use to interpret it through.
So, to say that the bulk of Christians reside in an Amber, ethnocentric developmental stage doesn't say anything about the depth of the spiritual State they can achieve. As KW has said, Mohammad achieved genuine deep spiritual states, but interpreted his states through a deeply ethnocentric, Amber stage of psychological development, and thus his writings are deeply ethnocentric.
Likewise, I disagree with your Christian kerygma as being the key to understanding Christianity. The Bible is not offensive to me because it wasn't written for me. It was written to an illiterate public that did not even go to elementary school. You take for granted your logical thinking abilities. But logic has to be learned, (and requires a 3rd person perspective and abstract thinking) and the people back then were quite ignorant, except for the educated upper class. To put it in perspective, what would have happened if Jesus had talked about abolishing slavery, equal rights for women, and parents nurturing children's self-esteem? He would have been stoned by freaked out fearful people who were not ready for that, since they barely embodied ethnocentric 2nd person perspective, and those issues require a 3rd person perspective. What's in the Bible was one step ahead of the uneducated illiterate culture. You could say that Jesus brought in the birth of the 3rd person perspective to Christianity. We have since then become vastly more compassionate, vastly more accepting, and vastly more loving. That's why it's not offensive to me. It served as a template of change in the past, and we can see the frution of that change before the Mideval period. The Bible has become irrelevant since then. God doesn't talk. Not to you. Not to me. Not in words, that is. His presence can be experienced, but an Orange manifestation would seek to validate only what can be confirmed through exterior observation, or interior observation (personal spiritual experience, but confirming only what is actually experienced and not adding anything that isn't there). Thus the personification of God that cannot be personally confirmed through direct experience by anyone has to be dropped. Otherwise one must live in hypocracy. You are quite discerning in your descriptions of your spiritual experiences. But you fail to call into question the attached claims spoken by a talking God in the Bible, but who will not talk to you. What would your religion be like if you simply used the same discernment with every claim? It would be much more authentic in this world, and any ethnocentric claim would have to be dropped.
For example, you site that 2 billion Christians disagree with integral. And you claim that God prefers Christians. However there are many more billions of people who are Hindu, Taoist, Buddhist, etc, and you don't consider them as valid people. That's a practice of limited compassion, which conflicts with your direct experience of the absolute compassion of spirit. I refuse to lie to myself that way. You only show that you consider how Christians are put down, never how the rest of the world's population, living on the "outside", are put down by you. You denigrate them without a single thought, because they are on the "outside". The don't desreve your compassion, do they? I refuse to live in inconsistency with my spiritual experience that way. I will not jump through a myraid of hoops to fabricate a a lie that I can live with.
Once you drop the personification of God, one must question the myraid of claims. Every claim that cannot be verified must be dropped. It's that simple. Much of the Bible is mythical. I have no problem with that. It simply is the case, if you dare to make observations and look for evidence. The Bible would be offensive if I had to take it literally, because God talks like a gang leader, saying, "You're either with me, or you're against me." It's not surprising that those words were put into God's mouth. They were man's interpretation in the manifest world of his spiritual experience through a red/amber lens.
Then, there's Green spirituality, but I won't even go there. I might keep witing for pages and pages...
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RE: States, Stages, and the Wilber-Combs Lattice
Posted September 29th, 2009 by Greg Mayers in response to States, Stages, and the Wilber-Combs LatticeAlan:
Thanks for your thoughtful post. As I said in previous posts, I think the "stage/state" model works fairly well on the individual scale, even the cultural scale; but the it misses the big picture on the Great Traditions scale. So I kind of agree with you, but I think you are mixing up scales...
Also I never wrote or said anywhere on this site or in my life that God prefers Christians. Find a quote where I said that. As a matter of fact, I've been called on the carpet on this site for including every human being in the Christian kergyma, regardless of religious affliation or lack of one.
You look at Jesus the Christ through the Integral lens of development. It sounds valid. It confirms Integral Theory. But it misses the heart of the Christian kerygma. As I said previously: if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. It's shadow boxing.
My future post(s) on The Holy Trinity will illuminate what Integral Theory misses in Christianity.
With gratitude for your insights...
--
Greg Mayers
Zen taught me everything I can do.
Christianity taught me everything I can't do.
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Reforming Christianity?
Posted September 30th, 2009 by mysticolin in response to States, Stages, and the Wilber-Combs LatticeFirst, addressing Leo's question of the reason for working on an integral Christianity. Modern and postmodern thought are influencing a minority amongst Christians and they are demythologizing and reinterpreting the Christian tradition to various degrees in in a variety of ways. I am coming across more and more people going through such a process. Therefore, it may be the Christians who say that there is only one way to interpret the deep truth of Christianity that need to get over it. Not that I expect the majority to do so, but it's sad to see that even the more integral Christians here are not willing to budge on certain issues. This seems contrary to being integral, to having a multi-perspective view. I'm not saying that one must get rid of all 'beliefs' because they don't hold up to scientific scrutiny. That's the sad assumption of the rationalists. They assume atheism is the scientific view, but atheism is quite often mythic as well. Just as one cannot prove the existence of God, one cannot disprove it either. Science makes conclusions based on proof, but neither the existence nor the nonexistence of God can be proven; and this goes for all other beliefs. At the same time, I think a modern/postmodern Christianity may have a healthy amount of agnosticism. I believe it is possible to believe something with one's whole heart and yet recognize that they could be wrong, that their beliefs are but one possible interpretation. Christianity is a rich tradition which may be interpreted numerous ways. I think we confuse our spiritual experiences with our interpretive framework and forget that the same experience, the same scripture, the same ritual can be interpreted in a variety of ways. I'm repeating myself a bit, but I'm trying to clarify that I think there is a place for those who believe Jesus was uniquely human and divine and whose death had a metaphysical result on humanity as well as for those who see Jesus as an expression of what the Kingdom of God is, what it means for humanity to respond (eros?)to the grace/call (agape) of God (And yes, that mythic language is the only way I can articulate something deeper than the myth). Of course these aren't the only interpretations. That's the beauty of a diverse humanity encountering Spirit/G-d/Fill-in-the-Blank.
--
Broken and Divine
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I know...
Posted September 30th, 2009 by Greg Mayers in response to Reforming Christianity?I know. That's what is so offensive about Christianity. Not all perspectives are equal. Not everyone is right. Jesus is the Way.
That can't go away no matter what perspective one is at, and be Christian.
Sorry, I didn't invent it. I really didn't even want it that way.
There are many interpretations of Christianity and its events, but one can't take Jesus out of the center and call it Christianity. If you do, it'll all come tumbling down into some form of ideology.
--
Greg Mayers
Zen taught me everything I can do.
Christianity taught me everything I can't do.
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Offense? Evolve!
Posted October 1st, 2009 by Federico Parra in response to I know...Yes? Are you sure? What father Thomas Keating would say about this bold statement that "JESUS IS THE WAY"? You don´t name him so much do you? 
Is he "not a Christian" for you? because he don´t say (as you do) that Jesus IS THE WAY? (implying of course THE REAL way...THE son of god...)
Because he let go all the Blue Myths and went far more profound?
Who do you think you are to decide who is Christian and who is not?
Are you somehow "more" Christian than him, so you can decide "from above"
who falls into the "real christian" cathegory and who fails to?
I tell you what Greg: I am a Christian.
Maybe, more than you.
But still, don´t believe "Jesus is the way"!
Instead, believe he was one very very (the most?) grate teacher, among others,
and that he was not THE son of God, but ONE son of god, as all of us are; but that he REALIZED that in all his heart, mind, soul and spirit, and those became the son of god (as any of us can (should?) do).
So what?
You would state I am not a Christian? 
Come on Greg.
Evolve!
And please, like Cameron, stop Running away when REAL questions start in your debates. The three important debates both of you opened finished in a "no-way-out" post by Bolder or John Speers that you really couldn't answer...
You really think you are going somehow beyond Integral Theory? It is not much (very much!) probable that you are failing to understand it in the first place? 
You are talking about some of the more brillant thinkers in the world today (and in some cases, realized persons as well...(you saw the EEG video on Youtube I imagine...)
So, why you think (just that easy!) that you are coming with ideas they failed to observe?
Sorry for being so "offensive" but...
maybe "offense is the way"??
Have a nice day!
Federico
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Excellet...
Posted October 1st, 2009 by Greg Mayers in response to Offense? Evolve!Federico:
You have a great philosphy about Jesus.
And from the evidence of your response, you seem to get the offensiveness of the core Christian claim.
Thanks for sharing...
PS: if you think I'm outrageous so far, don't miss my post on the Holy Trinity in the near future. (I'm still working on it, tweaking it, etc.)
--
Greg Mayers
Zen taught me everything I can do.
Christianity taught me everything I can't do.
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the teacher way? the blue mythic way?
Posted October 1st, 2009 by Federico Parra in response to Excellet...Dear Greg:
Let separate this and make it clear:
if you are trying to generate spiritual development trought the use of offence, then I AM WITH YOU, and I think The Christ is one of the most powerfull offences out there, obviously not the only one that works.
I was told that the teacher of Trungpa Rinpoche ask him one day (and all his disciples) to eat his shit to become enlighten.
From all the disciples present, only he is supposed to had eaten..
and (they say): enlighten he was!
So, i´m ok with STRONG offences that really are hearting the core of our clinging to the self, and are serving as process for development. You can find this kind of "offences for the good of growing up" in all traditions.
If you are doing all this for that, then I congratulate you and appreciate it.
But, if we speak about Integral Theory, and about levels of understanding, then, as i said, your core message, wich is very near to Cameron core message, wich is very near to any Catholic blue priest in this world message...
Is simply a lack of understanding of more greater levels of reality. You go further in your understanding, and naturally, you drop that "universal truth" (because, you discover it was NOT an universal in the first place).
So, your claim (Christ is THE one, THE savior, THE unique god-man) can´t survive the Integral level of developtment INSIDE a person. When one person start to make the connections that occurs trought that level, the kind of truth you are presenting here collapse (as well as any other non-integral statement, like "if you insult a lama you will pass 8 lifes in the demons realm", or "if you let your dharma teachings in the floor that makes bad karma...").
Taking these blue statements as truth or dogma caused so many deaths and wars that I think it is not needed even to mention it: WE HAVE TO LET THIS BLUE STATEMENTS GO FOR THE SAKE OF HUMANITY! AS FAST AS WE CAN!!
So, again, if you understand what I´m saying; if in your mind you really DON´T BELIEVE AT ALL this kind of blue message; but you decided to USE IT here for the sake of evolution (I mean, for making all of us get angry and revise our beliefs, and so on) then you are in a way a spiritual teacher.
But, if you really believe this, then...farewell! we all need to grow up in so many ways, and I suppose that's why we are here anyway.
Blessings,
Federico
PD: About my faith in Jesus, I recommend with all my heart the book "The Last Temptation of Christ" of Nikos Kazanktakis. Never read something like that before. Changed my life.
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Yes!
Posted October 1st, 2009 by Greg Mayers in response to the teacher way? the blue mythic way?Dearest Federico:
How much I enjoy your posts...
I'll be utterly honest with you. The reason, at least the conscious motive, I write all of these posts on this site is completely, totally and unreservedly selflish. I am trying to work out a way to say - to clarify - the heart of the Christian kergyma as it is presented in the Christian Tradition throughout its 2000 year life. The motives you attribute to me are far too noble and far too ignoble.
Yes! I read "The Last Temptation of Christ." I love fiction. I even saw the movie... ...in Texas, in the heart of right-wing Republicans, fundamentalists', literalists' bible thumping, Texas. I went to the movie in my Catholic priest monkey suit - all dressed up so everyone would notice me, because the fundamentalists in town threatened to burn down the theater that was screening the movie. Boy was that fun! And the movie was good too...
Federico, we're going to have to stop meeting like this... I think I love you...
--
Greg Mayers
Zen taught me everything I can do.
Christianity taught me everything I can't do.
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You're not a fundamentalist
Posted October 1st, 2009 by Alan Sato in response to Yes!Note that this fundamental church in Texas is the millions upon millions of Christians you imply are in alignment with you. They are not. They would reject your form of Christianity without a second thought. Yet you imply that include yourself with these Christians. (At least you imply that you approve of the fundamental, ethnocentric, literal church by including them in your arguments, as you do in other miscellaneous posts.) You are not part of them. THEY have excluded you.
You have a very unique interpretation of the Bible, which is in the minority. You don't make the bold claims that fundamentalists make. In fact, the fundamentalists would claim you don't have their kerygma. You convolute your message to the point that you make no statement at all, but imply lots of things. You'd make a very dangerous politiian! You yourself are not offensive, but watered down. But it is this fundamental church that is the largest by population, around the world.
I'd like you to be clearer with your use of Christians who support your claims. The only justifiable Christians that can be used are the ones that share All of your views. The ones that share some of your veiws either do not consider you a Christian, or consider your form as another possible incarnation of spirit. You're using votes that are not yours. It's a subtle game of deception.
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Phillipian 2:12-13
Posted October 3rd, 2009 by mysticolin in response to I know...I know. That's what is so offensive about Christianity. Not all perspectives are equal. Not everyone is right. Jesus is the Way.
That can't go away no matter what perspective one is at, and be Christian.
Sorry, I didn't invent it. I really didn't even want it that way.
There are many interpretations of Christianity and its events, but one can't take Jesus out of the center and call it Christianity. If you do, it'll all come tumbling down into some form of ideology.
Um. That sounds a bit pre-modern. Christianity is a variety (already, even at the pre-modern level) of interpretations of Jesus' life and teachings. Christianity, like every other religion (whether more so or less so) is the result of human beings in all their limitations and flaws coming into contact with that part of reality we may call "God", "Spirit", etc. And it seems the closer one gets to It, the less one makes sense, the more that person is misunderstood. Takes the mystics of any tradition. I would include Jesus amongst them. The gospels already tell us that his closest disciples didn't get him on many occasions. Think about it. You've got this Rabbi who is speaking about Torah in unique way. Then when he dies/ascends into heaven (whichever you may believe), people are still trying to make sense of it. You could claim the Holy Spirit magically (choice of wording intentional) made it possible to interpret his life and teachings, but that's got holes (to be discussed later, maybe. I'm trying to get to my point). At some point in my studies, I began to struggle with the text below:
12. So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; 13. for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.
I thought, "Well is it God or is it us. This seems to take Pelagius and Agustine and say, "Yeah, you're both right." Sounds a bit integral really. I came to see that "revelation" was this cooperative effort; and not just revelation, but all of life. It's a dance, and humanity and divine blend into one another. Well, that was just one drop in the bucket that lead to my nondual perspective. But when it comes to the "invention" of Christianity, modern historical research challenges the assumption that Christianity today is the same as 2,000 yrs. ago. In fact, it seems the messianic movement that became Christianity had to have undergone quite a few changes in order to become a religion distinct from Judaism. Modern and Postmodern biblical scholarship frees one from feeling stuck with Christianity as it is because it was "invented that way". It developed in its early years and has continued to develop. It's development slowed a bit by the Enlightenment because Christians seem to have lost the awareness that a religion is to be like a living organism, ever developing. That God might want to teach his children something new over time. I'm surprised that, in spite of Christian supersessionism, that such a concept doesn't seem to exist within much of Christianity. Not that I advocate supersessionism, but it is one way to reach the view that God reveals more and more about "Himself" over time. When one takes an evolutionary view toward even religion, one is no longer constrained to the pre-modern interpretations and yet these need not be thrown out with the bathwater as Wilber is fond of saying.
As for the center of Christianity, I think Jesus must be turning in his grave to hear people make him the center when he always pointed to God. Jesus was not the center of his message.
Broken and Divine
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Orange Spirituality
Posted October 1st, 2009 by Alan Sato in response to Reforming Christianity?I'd like to add that an Orange form of Christianity is not exclusively athiest or agnostic. So, what does an Orange spirituality look like?
It seeks to confirm interior personal experience with consensus among experts.
It seeks to recognize all scientific knowledge such as evolution, and the recognition of psychological development.
It seeks to confirm the push of evolution as Spirit in action. Thus Spirit is not agnostic at all, but cares absolutely about you and gently nudges you to transform. Your transformation brings about new incarnations of compassion and love that have never existed before. We are the vehicle of evolution through Spirit. (of course, a lot of what I have stated is suppositional and must be confirmed by experts. Also one must try to discern what was added that is not there.)
Orange Spirituality confirms symbolic abstract thinking and gives permission for one to interpret each situation individually to optimize the offering of compassion and love in each situation, instead of following strict rules. It's the Unique Self in action.
Orange Spirituality finds common practices among all religions and recognizes the validity of the findings upon personal interior verification. (Green Spirituality furthers this trend and begins the integration process and is truly willing to learn wisdom from each religion.)
Orange Spirituality questions all religious claims and statements and puts them to the test. Those that do not hold up under scrutiny are dropped. Orange Spirituality is also willing to take up entirely the perspectives of other religions and cross interrogate traditions in an attempt to distill Spirituality down to it's core existance. It is not merely an intellectual process, but an entirely spiritual one as well.
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Exactly...
Posted October 3rd, 2009 by mysticolin in response to Orange SpiritualityI agree with most of what you've said here. I wasn't intending to say one must be agnostic, but I'm curious about the scrutiny you mention. When it comes to Spirit we're crossing into mysterious ground. Much of what you said reflects Wilber's writing on different quadrants/zones (in Integral Spirituality) having different injunctions. So what kind of scrutiny are we talking about? Also, there might be a valid distinction between claims and theories. No matter what injunctions we use to scrutinize religious claims, we will never have all the answers. There is a place for mystery; not the types of mystery that are solved but the type that are due to our being finite (for the most part).
--
Broken and Divine
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Let's try this again..
Posted October 10th, 2009 by mysticolin in response to Orange SpiritualityWhen speaking of mystery and "theories" I am trying to get at what Integral Christianities might look like without "throwing the baby out with the bathwater". I have dropped most of my Christian upbringing even to the point of no longer considering myself Christian. Much of that was due to my going through the Orange stage. Now, I'm beginning to see that I may be "Christian" but not simply in the mythic sense of the word. While I have no problem letting go of belief in Jesus' unique divinity or his death being a necessary blood sacrifice to God, I am not sure that an Integral Christianity can't view Jesus as divine in a way different from everyone else, though it doesn't seem possible. The sacrifice thing is definitely pre-modern, so that's not so problematic. The Trinity seems like a handy way of speaking about God being as Creator, Creation and the Act of Creating (or to put it in more Integral terms: The Spirit as the Infinite/Nothingness, as Manifest reality as well as the process of involution and evolution). Of course this implies a nondual perspective.
The reason that I mentioned the agnostic element is that it can be applied to both objective and subjective aspects of reality. In science, there are theories and hypothesis that have yet to be proven or disproven. This seems to be all the more the case when it comes to our subjective experience of Spirit. The mystics in the upper stages seem to become more and more vague, paradoxical, etc. That's what I mean by mystery. Of course Orange scrutiny often doesn't allow for such mystery, but what about Green and Turquoise scrutiny? Must all "beliefs" be eradicated? I definitely see a benefit to not having beliefs, at least beliefs to which one holds too tightly. There is definitely a place for Christian symbols being interpreted various ways, but what if such "beliefs" are simply theories or hypothesis? Is that a possibility? Am I making a pre/trans fallacy here?
I'm asking what you think because you seem to have a really good understanding of Integral thought. I'm not out to prove my point. I'm trying to flesh this out, bounce it off of people in order to cultivate a more Integral perspective about all of this, especially concerning a new way for Christians to be Christian.
[Edit: I edited this post a bit because I'm still working on articulating my thoughts.]
--
Broken and Divine
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'Seemingly' Offensive
Posted September 30th, 2009 by Michael MaskowThank you Greg for your bold stroke. Great comments here also, many thanks. This 'Offensiveness' of which is being spoken is in nature merely a reactive beginning - the arising of an appearance of offense due to unfamiliarity of existence, what the Buddhist might call 'ignorance' - here in lies the rub of suffering as well - it is very useful (perfectly the means in fact) for driving the ultimate transformation. The word must be lived before its true nature is even really comprehensible - and that is offensive to a conciousness which wants to Become through self-oriented pure knowledge (that is, constructed information and not simple embodied activity). Then there is a conciousness which wants to Become through total committment to immediately gratifying, selfish and consumative activity (to which the idea of eternal life is ultimately an offensive and unpleasant prospect) - but let's not go there.
The initially radical claim of the man Jesus on the Divine Being, an intimate and tangible and uniquely individual and communal procreative relationship with The Unknowable Infinite through a culturally forceful Father God, is of course, freely shared by him to His entire Human Family, whom He associates Himself with in His Totality, even the good and bad - joyfully. Through Death - even if brutal because the material is, when Only In Itself, an illusion. We know now because of this particular revelation of Spirit, that the death moment is also the birth-end transformative event, giving us in the now the conciousness of the Resurrecting Moment and an ultimate path of Ascension to The Unknowable Infinite through Union with said Father God (see aslo Jewish Kabbalistic discipline as a very useful element for true Christian mystic-discipleship, as well as the unbounded concisousness contribution of Buddhist spiritual spiritualism). This ultimate equalizing moment, when brought into embodiment in the now and held in hand with the conciousness and behavioral selflessness of heartfelt and intelligent discipleship reveals Heavenly Existence, not achievable, but recievable in the now - and only Collectively manifested in its Ultimate Form, which brings about cultivation of the ground of human life, and the spread of the seeding message. It can only be lived to be known, for what we live, we become, we are, and we generate.
--
~MfMaskow~
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[Comment Deleted]
Posted September 30th, 2009 by admin in response to 'Seemingly' Offensive
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I'll take that as a compliment to us all.
Posted October 6th, 2009 by Michael Maskow in response to [Comment Deleted]Your words are very kind, and encouraging. We are all making poetry together and I wish everyone (including me - ha!) FELT that way through every interaction with their own embodiment, this, that and the other. Some artists work merely in stone, some in flesh, but we all work in Spirit, and when we are awake, then truly all the rest.
Poetry:
'If you see words, so be it. I only ever see a face and work carefully at not applying make-up.'
--
~MfMaskow~
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Huh?
Posted September 30th, 2009 by Greg Mayers in response to 'Seemingly' OffensiveMichael:
All I can say is "WOW!" And you're an economist. I've been looking for an economist to take up Pope Benedict XVI challenge to the world: come up with a new financial system that avoids the fatal flaws of the current capitalist system...
--
Greg Mayers
Zen taught me everything I can do.
Christianity taught me everything I can't do.
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Economy joke
Posted October 1st, 2009 by Alan Sato in response to Huh?"come up with a new financial system that avoids the fatal flaws of the current capitalist system..."
The Chinese have already done that!
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Relative claims
Posted October 1st, 2009 by Alan SatoYou wrote: "And it simply refuses to be explained away or analyzed into absurdity. It seems to be able to take all the punches and be unaffected by them. Even its own worse self inflicted wounds can’t execute spiritual suicide on it."
This is a relative statement. In an absoulte sense, this claim is false.
Statement 1) "And it simply refuses to be explained away or analyzed into absurdity." There are many forms of Christianity that have done just that. Thus it HAS been explained away, and by Christianity itself. Who are you to judge someone who claims to be Christian?
Statement 2) "It seems to be able to take all the punches and be unaffected by them. Even its own worse self inflicted wounds can’t execute spiritual suicide on it." There are many forms of Christianity that have been affected by them. If these statements were absolutely true, the ethnocentric church would be the only church out there. It is by fact, not the only form of Christian church. You, yourself, in fact are hard to place, because you culturally reside in world-centric understanding and use that language in a very subtle way to mix in ethnocentric values into your religious interpretation. Carl Rove is a great example of a 2nd tier thinker who religiously resides in Amber. But you wouldn't agree with his very ethnocentric form of Christianity.
Aside from the fact that this statement conveys nothing of significance, that any one form of a religion refuses to go away while not recognizing the other forms, you yourself are not of that church. Those that claim they haven't changed God's word would not recognize your convoluted seemingly world-centric writing as fundamental. It simply is not. You are unique in your interpretation. Quite unique. Therefore, this statement implies that despite your falling astray, the conservative church goes on without you, and it does. And you go on too. It all works out.
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the possibility of offense...
Posted September 18th, 2009 by camfreeThank you Greg,
Yes, the Gospel is offensive - because it is transformative, and transformation is a difficult and painful process... It's great that you have the courage to simply tell the truth about that.
As Poet W.H. Auden wrote on this conviction that Jesus is Lord:
'I believe because He fulfills none of my dreams, because He is in every respect the opposite of what He would be if I could have made Him in my own image.'
But why not one of the other great teachers, like Buddha or Mohammed? Because, Auden wrote, chillingly, 'none of the others arouse all sides of my being to cry "Crucify Him".'"
Of course, Jesus of Nazareth mostly offended those upright spiritual folks who considered themselves 'saved' - the card carrying members of the the ecclesiatical hierarchy whose self-identity was propped up by an image of their elevated (second-tier?) status. And at the same time, Jesus offered unconditional mercy and grace to the lost and sinful, his heart was continually wrenched open and moved by compassion for the destitute - widows, prostitutes, cripples, lepers and the demon possessed...
So the possibility of offense centers on a curious paradox: Christ was seized by a great affection for the most unlovable of us while unleashing his blessed rage for the justice directly at the Temple authorities... We see this same kind of dissonance in his most well known parable, where a rebellious son after squandering his inheritance on whores and debauchery in a far away country is welcomed home by his father with an extravagant banquet – no questions asked... while the obedient son who never once stepped out of line is outraged and finds himself in self-imposed exile from the homecoming party...
These awkward, strange paradoxes reach their ultimate enactment and fullfillment in the crucifixion and resurrection, where the foolishness of God triumphs over the wisdom of the world...
So Greg is very bold and perceptive here, and I too mainly concerned about those who are not offended by the Gospel. If Integral Christianity is going to be Christian then it cannot paste over the cracks of this scandal...The possibility of offense at the cross roads of faith is a tremendously healthy sign, while a seamless integration of the Gospel with a post/modern world-space is deeply disturbing. Thanks for pointing this out Greg,
Cameron
www.camfreeman.com
--
"Become passers-by" (Jesus of Nazareth)