The current progressive Christianity movement arose in response to the
fundamentalist movement that has in the last 30 or 40 years knitted itself
closely to conservative politics. Seemingly debunking anything academic
and scientific, the conservative Christian movement has caused many to
separate, to run.
And as is naturally the case in running from something, sometimes
we humans can run so far that we leave behind some of what was important. In
the case of Progressive Christianity, while re-embracing education and
science (which itself is surely of God, as science is the study of nature, and
nature is God’s creation), is it possible we might have also left behind that
whole spiritual realm which cannot be experienced with the five senses? If it
can’t be seen, heard, or proven, have we dismissed it? In the process of rejecting what
the fundamentalist Christians have gotten wrong, have the progressives also
abandoned a most central part of the Christian faith?
Ironically this focus on the senses is not so different from what
got the fundamentalists off track: reading the Bible only literally and
interpreting it as a rule book for 21st century American life. If one sentence
says something in black and white, these literalist Christians take it as proof
for some applicable-to-every-situation life rule, straight from God’s mouth,
because, while God is invisible and shrouded in mystery, the words on the page
are clearly visible with physical eyes. Unwilling to move beyond the literal
words on the page, they get stuck on the words and miss the big picture. They
miss a whole world of spiritual depth that lives between the black and
white. The five senses have prevailed.
But before we become too judgmental about what the literalists are
missing, let’s look at what we progressives might have lost reactively.
Seeing that the literalists' interpretation of the Bible has blinded them to
what can actually be observed or reasoned scientifically (the creation of
earth, sexual orientation, women in ministry, etc.), have progressive
Christians also left behind all that cannot be proven, reasoned, seen, or
intellectually embraced?
Both groups are seeking God and hanging onto the Christian faith,
albeit from mutually reactionary angles, and both stumble when it comes to
leaving the realm of our five senses. Both groups, from very different
angles, have gotten away from that part of the Christian experience that our
spiritual predecessors embraced as mystery. What if while both groups are
making their arguments, God is somewhere else?
Spiritual mystery is beyond what we can experience with our senses
and beyond what we can read on any page (although many Christians throughout
history have written about it). Mystery lives in another realm, a realm
that surrounds us all, but a realm in which we don’t seem to allow ourselves to
explore or repose for any length of time, returning quickly to the comforts of
our five senses. We busy ourselves, filling our lives with
noise, sometimes even "churchy" noise, that drowns out that invisible realm.
When life is falling apart though, that’s where we go. At
those times in life when everything has shattered, our soul yearns deeply for
the God beyond the senses. It is often during our most difficult human moments
that we are able to most intimately dwell in that outside-the-senses realm.
There are also those rare breakthrough moments, like the birth of
a baby with its tiny little fingers and toes, or watching a sunrise over the
ocean with no other sound but that of the crashing waves. In those very
special moments, we can become intimately enveloped in the God realm, and, with
practice and discipline, we can go there anytime, in our own solitude, quietly
alone without the distractions of tv, radio, internet or phone, maybe outdoors
surrounded by God’s creation, a quiet walk through the woods, or a rest beside
a babbling mountain stream.
photo credit: sercc.com
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