Ramblings on Other Religions

The sermon this morning was addressing the question of who or what is God, and eventually came to the answer that God is (in my paraphrase) what makes us know that we're not alone. One thing I like about this approach is that it has room for the religious experiences of a variety of cultures. Pretty much every culture has had religious beliefs of some sort, and just about all of them have included an idea of the presence of Someone(s). So that idea gives me at least some space to assume that all these peoples have had authentic encounters with God.

Not that it's up to me to decide that anyway, but it is something I've struggled with as a Christian – if I really believe that Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God, what does that mean for followers of other faiths or none at all? And like our deacon, I find this to be a personal question because there are people I care about who that question applies to (mostly pagan and atheist/agnostic in my world).

So the idea that these cultures and people have had the experience of someone other than the visible/human being present with them and that that's enough to at least start to claim an experience of God is comforting to me. On the other hand, some of the portrayals of God that have existed over time are problematic: vengeful deities calling for human sacrifice, whether from your tribe or that of your enemies; deities representing the darker sides of creation; deities you might try to appease but perhaps wouldn't really want to have with you – deities that might make you wish you were alone after all.

But on the other hand, some of that can surely be explained by the fact that humans in general have undergone a good deal of development in our theologies. We're not trying to find divine explanations for storms and sickness anymore, at least not as the primary explanation. (We can and do still wonder why God created a world in which such things happen). Without any other competing theory, the idea that crops fail because the gods are mad at you sounds like a reasonable enough possibility, and if it leads to the risk of scapegoating when the gods are angry, it also allows some feeling of control, of being able to do something about it. The pagans I know accept scientific explanations of the world as much as the Christians, Jews, and nonreligous people I know, and they're not looking to kill someone in order to placate their deities. (Granted, there doesn't quite seem to be a continuous tradition of pagan beliefs and practices from ancient times to the present day, but still...)

And of course, the followers of any religion can misinterpret. Christians are as guilty of that as anyone, and misinterpretation is about the kindest explanation that can be given for things like witch hunts or religious justification of slavery. So the fact that so many ancient religions called for violence might have had more to do with people and social situations than with whether God was speaking to them.

When reading “Radical Welcome,” I came across the idea that, although God's covenant with the Jews is most directly important to Christianity, it's quite possible that God covenanted with other peoples through out history. The footnote pointed to a book called “Lift Every Voice: Constructing Christian Theologies from the Underside,” so now that's on my ever-growing reading list. Maybe after reading that I'll have more to say.

A Story of Prayer

I'm not very good at prayer. I don't have any sort of regular prayer schedule, the Prayers of the People is my least favorite part of Sunday worship, and when I'm asked to pray for someone I do it right then and there because otherwise it won't happen. Which is why I'm going to tell a story about prayer that seemed to work for me.

I spent the last several days of last week doing volunteer botany fieldwork with people from my lab and other volunteers. I'd been really looking forward to getting out in the field, and in this particular case, I was excited that I was no longer a completely new student and didn't feel as much need to prove myself, and thought that maybe I could work hard and all but not feel overwhelmed. The law of the universe seems to be that once you're at all competent with what you've been doing, it's time to do something new. So this time I was assigned to be a group leader. To be fair, I had volunteered to do this if needed, though at the time I expected to be in more familiar plant community types. So I did that for two days and muddled through it and was looking forward to the fact that the last day I didn't think I'd be needed to lead, and besides I'd carpooled with a much more experienced friend and we needed to drive back together after the day's work, so we'd have to be in the same place, so he'd be leading, right? Wrong. Well, he was leading, but so was I – we were taking two teams and we'd each be leading one. And to top it off, we were working in one of the tougher vegetation types.

I was not happy. I wasn't angry, and I knew I had volunteered for this, but I was so disappointed at the prospect of spending another day feeling out of my depth. (Again, to be fair, I also really enjoyed most of my time as a leader – in part because as much of it was spent doing the fieldwork as actually leading). So, seeing no other options, I turned to God. I had to go back to my room to pick up a couple things anyway, so I spent a minute or so sitting on the floor turning my attention to God and asking for help. It was mostly wordless, and I think a lot of it was just that I was looking for comfort and a release from my insecurities and worries about doing a bad job, about not being able to identify enough plants, about making decisions I didn't know how to make. Basically to have that taken out of the forefront of my mind and to be able to focus on doing the best job I could and to trust God that it would be enough.

And I got that. My own particular sense of the presence of God, which I've experienced before and which I have trouble describing. A sense of lightness, a sense of calm and joy and peace. The scientist in me points out that this undoubtedly has a physiological component and that there's no way I can prove that what I'm sensing is God. On the other hand, I'm a physical being – everything I experience has a physiological component because that's the only way I understand the world – seeing has a physiological component too, but that doesn't mean the objects I see aren't real. And what makes the most sense to me is that this feeling is somehow connected to God, so that's my working hypothesis.

So at that point I was ready to go, still feeling somewhat nervous but ready to give it a shot. I made up my mind to sort of “check in” with God every few hours – sort of thinking that there might be a reason why all those monks prayed the hours. And I found it very helpful. It didn't take long, just a few seconds every few hours to try to align myself with God – my mental imagery involved using John Polkinghorne's metaphor of a laser – if God didn't want a geek, He should have made someone else. And it was a really great day, despite thunderstorms and briars and tiredness. It was also a day of great people, challenging but possible work, beautiful plants and animals, and an enormous sense of satisfaction when the work was done.

Now it's disclaimer time. I absolutely believe that God was present and that His presence helped me through the day and filled it with joy and meaning. I do not for one minute believe that prayer will in all cases make everything nice and fluffy. I was dealing with a situation where the problem was mostly with myself and my own attitudes and fears. Real pain and grief do exist, and though I believe God can help us endure them, I don't think prayer magically gets rid of things like the pain of losing a loved one. Nor am I certain I would want it to – I seem to feel that in some way appropriate grief is a way of honoring those we love when they're gone. But that's a topic for another time, and of course different people feel things differently.

Meanwhile, I am trying to keep up with the regular checking in with God, using the monastery idea of every third hour (but 6 gets moved to 6:30 because that's when I wake up). Some days I'm halfway decent at being attentive, some days I barely manage a “Hi, God” because I'm just clamoring to get on with what I'm doing. And of course this is all based on a sample size of about four days.

The thing that's somewhat tricky for me to keep in mind but also very important is the idea that God truly wants to be in communion with us, does not get tired of us and want to be left alone, does not think that the things we pray about are too silly and minor for Him to get involved with, and does not want to punish us for our failings as much as heal us of them. And that God is capable of doing “more than we can ask or imagine” and that if our lives are indeed caught up in God anyway, it's not only okay but makes sense to rely on Him.

Radical Welcome

Tonight at church after some work in the garden and a delicious dinner, I went to the first in a series of discussions about “radical welcome,” based around Stephanie Speller's book of the same title. The basic idea is that society has power structures, and those power structures naturally tend to show up in churches as well, with the same people who are marginalized in society as whole often being left out in church. More specifically, there's the issue of “doing for” as opposed to “doing with.” If someone is hungry, of course it's good to provide them with a meal, and even with shelter and job training and child care. But also important, and perhaps in danger of being forgotten, is that people also need relationships and community and the opportunity to contribute. To say that anyone can come into the church and join the worship service is necessary but not sufficient. Necessary because the alternative is to exclude people, which is just unacceptable according to the Gospel message. But insufficient because it's only allowing people to take or leave what's already been decided – not inviting people to be co-creators of the community.

One one hand, I think this is really, really important. On the other hand, I think it can be really, really hard. Hard for the simple reason that if you truly integrate people into the power structure who historically haven't been part of it, then in all likelihood people are going to use that power and are sometimes going to use it differently from how you would use it. And that can mean change, and change can be difficult. In some ways, I think that change might be especially difficult in a church. I chose the church I attend because it worked for me – the style of worship, the values expressed by the congregation, the sorts of activities carried out by the church. There's always the chance that changing something to meet someone else's needs might mean changing something away from the way it currently meets my needs.

But I do think it needs to be done. And the reason I think it needs to be done is that the message of Christ is more important than my specific preferences. One of the big, major points of the Gospel is that there is no outgroup where God is concerned. Jesus took time for people his society didn't look twice at, people his culture condemned, people who were unpopular, people he, as an observant first-century Jew, had no business being involved with. And he told his disciples to do the same. Historically, the church has often been very bad about doing this; my guess is ever since Constantine made Christianity the official religion, the very human people that make up the church have had some investment in the status quo. The church was for people who “belonged,” those who were accepted as part of mainstream society, which is about as upside-down as you can get from the idea that the whole point of the church is that everybody belongs.

One of the interesting parts of the conversation for me was hearing how my own church has changed its views on gay people and on the Liberian community within the parish. In both cases, the church has moved over the years towards greater acceptance and inclusion, so that by the time I joined, I had no idea that things had ever been different. Of course gay people are welcome here! Of course the Liberian community is a joy to the whole parish! How could it be different? This gives me hope that eventually we'll be able to cast a wider net, and 20 years from now people will say of course that's how it is – of course there are people from the homeless shelter next door singing in the choir. Of course there's a member of the substance abuse recovery program on the vestry. Of course our music reflects the diversity of styles valued by different members of our community. Of course. The Gospel is for all. How could it be otherwise?