Over the years I have discovered that there are three types of people interested in Christian mysticism and contemplative spirituality:
Some are practicing Christians, active in their local parish or church but frustrated by what they see as the lack of spiritual nurture that takes place in such settings;
Others are people who may have been raised in the church, but really have no connection to institutional Christianity; they are interested in spirituality but not religion, and while they might see Christianity as the faith of their ancestors, they are no more loyal to it than to any other spiritual lineage or tradition;
And finally, there is a small percentage of people who want to understand Christian spirituality, but they are practitioners of other faith traditions; they have no desire to convert, they just want to learn.
The third group is, in my experience, the smallest. I am always honored when a Jewish or Muslim or Buddhist person approaches me with a desire to learn Christian spirituality just for the sake of their own personal growth and development. But since those persons are not actually interested in practicing Christian mysticism or contemplation, this particular blog post is not directed at them.
Today I want to write for the first two groups: people who really are interested in taking the wisdom of Christian mysticism and contemplative spirituality to heart, and want it to make a difference in their lives. Some of them are practicing, churchgoing Christians, and some are not.
It is pretty obvious to me that the church-goers and the “spiritually independent” folks have this in common: they both recognize that the church often does a poor job at promoting deep spirituality.
I wish I could say, “It’s not really that bad.” But I’m afraid it is.
So if you feel like your local Christian Church doesn’t support you spiritually — you are not alone.
For evidence to show that this is not just our imagination — that the churches really do have a bias against nurturing spirituality — you don’t have to go any further than the Catechism of the Catholic Church. While this is a Catholic source, I’d be willing to bet that the problem I see in it would be just as true of most Protestant or Evangelical Churches as well.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church is a large book that gathers together the material that the Bishops and the authorities in Rome consider to be essential for teaching the faith. It’s the ultimate syllabus for how a church should teach the faith — not only to children, but to adults who are newcomers.
The Catholic Catechism is divided into four sections, based on the Apostles’ Creed, the Seven Sacraments, the Ten Commandments, and the Our Father (Lord’s Prayer). In other words, the four sections cover what the church believes (doctrine and dogma), how the church worships (liturgy), the church’s ethical teachings (morality), and the church’s spirituality (prayer).
All of those sections sound important, right? So shouldn’t the Catechism be divided more or less evenly between those four sections?
Alas, it’s not.
Here’s how it’s divided up:
The first section (doctrine and dogma) fills approximately 39% of the Catechism;
The next section (worship) is about 22%;
The section on morality takes up about 28%;
And so spirituality gets the leftovers — about 11% of the Catechism.
Looking at the Table of Contents of the Catechism, and seeing how little attention is paid to prayer and spirituality, it feels almost as if it were an afterthought.
The Catechism is an official document of the Catholic Church. So this represents the mainstream reality of church culture. Attend a Catholic Church and you can expect that the clergy and other church leaders will pay the most attention to doctrine (learning to believe “the right things”), followed by morality (how good Christians should behave), with some focus on the rituals and customs of public worship — but as for spirituality, it’s the least emphasized aspect of the faith.
And like I said: I don’t think the Protestant or Evangelical Churches get a free pass here. After all, they are rooted in the same religious tradition. They don’t have official teaching documents like the Catholic Catechism, but I am willing to bet that most of them have the same hierarchy of emphasis: believing the “right” things matters most, followed by behaving the “right” way, followed by worshiping in the “right” manner. But as for nurturing an intimate, lively relationship with God? Well, that seems to be not that important, at least to the institution.
Friends, I’m sure you will agree with me — that no one has ever rejected Christianity by saying:
“I’m dogmatic, but not religious.”
“I’m moral, but not religious.”
“I’m worshipful, but not religious.”
People are walking out of the churches because they are not getting fed spiritually. And the ones who hang on in the church find this lack of spirituality to be an ongoing source of frustration.
Young people, especially, leave Christianity because it doesn’t meet their spiritual needs — and yet the institutional church continues to focus on dogma and morality to the neglect of spirituality. No wonder church attendance continues to decline.
So What Do We Do About This?
The point behind this blog — and indeed, all the books I write and my public speaking work as well — is to make my own, modest, layperson’s contribution to redressing this problem.
I have been very fortunate in my life to have friends, mentors, and community resources to support me in finding the rich spiritual depth of Christianity. Yes, it really exists! But most people, because of the church’s obsession with doctrine and morality, never find those springs of living water. Is it any wonder that many people go elsewhere to quench their thirst?
I don’t judge people who leave, but as someone who has chosen to follow Christ and who finds joy in Christian spirituality, I want to make sure that everyone at least gets to know that Christian spirituality exists, it’s real, it’s mystical, it promises heightened and transfigured consciousness, it leads to happiness and joy (felicity and beatitude), and it’s as deep and beautiful as any other mystical path out there.
If someone raised as a Christian decides to identify as “spiritual but not religious” — again, no judgement — I just want to make sure they understand that they don’t have to abandon Christianity to find the treasure they are seeking.
If you are a churchgoer, try to advocate for more or better spiritual programming in your neighborhood parish or congregation. If none exists, try starting a centering prayer group, or a book group that reads the writings of folks like Cynthia Bourgeault or Richard Rohr, or a prayer ministry that works together to pray for the needs of the church and the world.
Try connecting with a local monastery or retreat center where you can make a retreat once or twice a year. If you are ready to go deeper in your spiritual life, consider meeting regularly with a spiritual director who can assist you in starting or maintaining a daily prayer and meditation practice.
As for those who do not go to church but remain interested in Christian spirituality, first I want to thank you for not giving up on the mystical heart of Christianity, even though you have needed to separate from the institution. I hope you will pray for the institution, and for those who remain within it. I hope you will take responsibility to continue to grow spirituality, which includes being challenged in very real and deep ways. Consider connecting with a monastery or retreat center where you can make retreats or take classes for spiritual nurture. Consider working with a spiritual director. And if it wouldn’t be too painful for you, consider participating in a centering prayer or other spiritually-focused group at your local church, even if you don’t participate in any other way. Your presence there will be a blessing to the other members of the group, and hopefully you will all teach and support each other in your shared spiritual journey.
Ten years ago when I wrote The Big Book of Christian Mysticism, I made a strong case for being part of a church community as an essential mystical practice. A decade later, I am less willing to insist on being part of the institution — I know too many people who have been hurt by it. I still believe community matters, though: so if you are serious about spiritual growth, find your tribe. It doesn’t have to be in a church building. But it does have to be a place where you are both nurtured and challenged to grow.
A friend of mine posted the following fascinating observation recently on Facebook:
I am easing out of parish ministry because there are too many gatekeepers and not much interest in contemplative prayer.
The writer is a Catholic lay minister — but I have heard or read similar words from Protestants as well as Catholics, from clergy as well as laypersons.
I think this points to a serious problem within the institutional form of Christianity. The church gets so wrapped up in gatekeeping — in deciding who’s in and who’s out, and in policing one another — that we basically choke the contemplative spirit right out of our faith communities.
No wonder young people are leaving in droves, while mindfulness is now big business.
Is your church empty? Contemplation could be the key to its revival.
If the church’s only (or main) purpose is to be a moral watchdog, dealing out shame to those who don’t measure up to some standards (usually involving sexuality) while giving others a free pass (usually when it comes to economic injustice), then the church is going to die.
I know I quote Rahner all the time, but it’s so obvious that what my lay minister friend was referring to is precisely the problem that Karl Rahner predicted when he wrote, “The Christian of the future will be a mystic or will not exist at all.”
Let’s be real: “gatekeeping” is not a very good expression of Christianity. Sure, every organization has to have its boundaries, and Christianity is no exception. But if the organization is only about boundaries, then that means it has no center. In other words, its reason for being no long exists.
Religion without mysticism is religion that is dead or dying. A church without a vibrant culture of prayer, meditation and contemplation may just as well be any other kind of service organization. And if you had to choose being a Christian and joining the Moose or Elks or Rotary, well, most people are going to choose the organization that doesn’t shame them.
When Christian communities return to their true reason for being — their mystical heart and spiritual center of gravity — then there is little or no need to circle the wagons or keep an eye on the gates. Instead of worrying about who’s saved or who’s not saved, who’s committed a mortal vin versus who is in a state of grace, a church that keeps its eye on its own mystical heritage becomes oriented toward giving God’s love away, any way it can. It becomes a community pulsating with vibrant, joyful worship. The preaching and teaching is oriented toward joy and hope. The compassionate care of others is not a duty, but a natural outgrowth of a community oriented toward a shared of sense of being loved by God.
Think of your church as a circle. What is the strongest element of your church: the circumference, or the center? If your community is filled with gatekeepers and functionaries who obsess over doctrinal correctness and dogmatic formulations, insisting that the only people who really “belong” or those who think or speak or act a certain way, then yours is a community with a strong circumference, with an empty center. If, on the other hand, your focus is on cultivating a meaningful and living relationship with the God who is Love, and letting that community-wide relationship direct your style of worship, orientation toward hospitality, and shared commitment to prayer, then your community is truly defined by its center — God. And when that’s the case, then the circumference (the boundaries, the “gates”) will take care of themselves.
Please search your heart. If minding the gates matters more to you than cultivating a contemplative heart, I hope you will prayerfully consider how fostering a more intimate relationship with God might be the most important thing you can do to grow as a follower of Jesus. Meanwhile, if your church is more gatekeeper than contemplative, consider what you can do to help call the community back to its prayerful center. That may be a big job that will take years, if not decades, to make an impact. So be patient: God is more interested in sustainable long-term growth than in flashy quick fixes. But also: don’t delay! More and more disillusioned people are abandoning institutional Christianity every day. Help the church to have a future in your neighborhood: embrace the mystical life starting right now.
One of the most popular verses in the Bible is Psalm 46:10: “Be still and know that I am God.” You can go into a Christian gift shop and find paperweights, wall plaques, t-shirts, and various other types of merchandise that prominently feature this verse.
But what does it mean?
Obviously, the verse speaks to us in God’s voice: “know that I am God.” It is a proclamation that God exists, and that God can be known. Especially in our age of profound cynicism, skepticism, and nihilism, this is a bold statement indeed. Even people of faith sometimes find it difficult to truly know God. We know about God, but do we actually know God? J.I. Packer’s classic bestseller, Knowing God, sold over a million copies because it addresses this very question: knowing about God is not enough, we are called to know God, directly, intimately, incarnationally.
Back to Psalm 46: the Psalmist suggests that one way, perhaps the best or most efficient way, to know that I am God is simply by being still.
Surely, to know God requires more than just to stop fidgeting.
When we place Psalm 46:10 in context, we realize that it’s at the end of a Psalm filled with martial imagery (remember, this was the Psalm that inspired Martin Luther to write A Mighty Fortress Is Our God). God is our refuge and strength when kingdoms fall and the nations are in an uproar. Waters may roar and mountains may shake, but we need not fear for God is our present help.
But then the Psalm pivots and the psalmist points out not only that God is our “mighty fortress,” but that God “makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire” (Verse 9). So more than just a defender, God actually brings peace, and causes conflict to end.
That’s the setup for this invitation (commandment): to be still, and to know this God who is both a strong defender and the one who brings resolution to conflict.
So on one level, “Be still” carries a connotation of laying down your arms — to become vulnerable, undefended; to place trust in God alone. It is a gesture of openness and trust.
Looking at the Hebew word translated as “be still” — הַרְפּ֣וּ (har·pū) which comes from רָפָה (raphah) — we can see that it carries a rich array of meanings, including stop, desist, relax, cease. But it also carries a connotation of releasing, dropping, or sinking.
I think we could make the case, therefore, that the stillness required to truly know God is an interior stillness. We are invited to relax and sink into the silence found deep in our minds and our hearts — the silence beneath our thoughts and between our heartbeats. There, in that undefended place of deep interior quiet — that’s where we are invited to encounter the living God.
After all, our hearts and bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit (I Corinthians 6:19, Romans 5:5). So to be still and know God, find the silence deep within. And in that silence the Spirit will meet us and invite us to know, truly know, God’s presence.
The Bible study software I use (for Hebrew word study as well as for interpreting the text) is Verbum. Not only is it filled with great scripture-related resources, but you can also get many texts by the great mystics on the Verbum platform as well. To learn more about Verbum, click here: www.verbum.com (this is an affiliate link; if you purchase Verbum, I will receive a small commission at no extra charge to you).
Since I have written about witchcraft and neopaganism — both books and posts on this blog — I often get requests, especially from Christians, who are seeking advice about their interest in magic.
When I answer such requests, I try to be kind, thoughtful, and to avoid the knee-jerk reaction that too many Christians have (“you can’t explore witchcraft, it would be wrong!”). At the same time, since I am someone who explored neopaganism for several years but ultimately returned to Christianity, naturally my response will tend to include encouraging Christian readers to be discerning and careful before embracing a spirituality that, can be, in some real ways, truly at odds with Christian views and values.
In other words, I try to approach questions like this the same way I approach any other request for spiritual “advice” — with a measure of both compassion and contemplation, while seeking to be honest and true to my own values.
Here is the most recent example of this kind of exchange. I know that in posting this, some readers will disagree with my conclusions or with how I responded to my reader. But I hope that even if you disagree with me, you will appreciate that I am trying to be faithful to my own values and beliefs, while seeking to be non-hostile to those who may disagree with me.
Others might question me for trying to discourage my reader from exploring witchcraft. But please keep in mind that this is a Christian, writing to another Christian, asking for advice. I am suggesting that the answer this person is seeking might better be found within their home tradition — Christianity — rather than by “dabbling” in another spiritual tradition.
Here’s the message I received (edited slightly for the sake of brevity/clarity and to protect the reader’s anonymity). I’m posting it (and my response) here with the reader’s permission.
I read your article: “How Should A Christian Respond When a Friend Becomes Interested in Witchcraft and Magic.” I’m a devoted Christian, interested in certain types of witchcraft… I feel like there might be some lost spiritual “remedies/abilities” that can potentially be utilized without going against God or the Bible. I’m mainly interested in deepening my understanding of the “spiritual realm” and how it works, potentially tapping into any benefits or knowledge it might offer. I struggle with demonic attachment, so I was thinking a better understanding and utilization of the spiritual world and my own spirit might help me combat “my demons.” They’re wreaking havoc, nothing has worked at all to stop them so far, and they’re destroying me. So, maybe I could use certain types of witchcraft to strengthen myself spiritually and fight back… I thought I would contact you and see what you think about my situation. Can I explore witchcraft and the spiritual world without unintentionally going against God?
Here, edited slightly to protect the reader’s anonymity, is my response.
Hi, and thanks for your email. Yours is a rich question and I think ultimately only the Holy Spirit will be able to truly answer you. But I can give you a few thoughts from my experience and maybe that will help you with your discernment.
Your question about remedies and abilities brought to mind one of my favorite texts in the new testament: “I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13). I guess if I felt the same desire or longing that you are feeling, my first question would be this: What, truly, am I looking for?
In other words: What kind of remedies, what kind of abilities? What would they allow me to do? Would they help me to be a better person — a more kind, compassionate, friendly, gentle, forgiving, merciful person? Do these remedies or abilities help a person to cultivate the fruits and gifts of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, moderation, wisdom, knowledge, understanding, counsel, fortitude, piety, and awe?
What difference does it make?
You see, I am less worried about whether a practice is “Christian” or “Buddhist” or “Wiccan” or whatever, and more interested in what difference the practice would make in my life. Is it something that would be a big ego-trip? Or would it lessen my attachment to my narcissism and self-obsession? God is Love, so does it help me to be a more truly loving person? If so, then how does it help me get closer to God? These are the questions I’d be asking.
Exploring the spiritual realm is part of the joy of any mystical practice, Christian or otherwise. But I think it’s important to remember that spirit and matter are not enemies. So, for example, true spirituality does not contradict science. As a friend of mine who is a Wiccan priestess likes to say, “I have a great spell for boiling water. Take a cup of water, pour it in the kettle, put the kettle on the stove and turn on the stove. Wait five minutes and you’ve got it!” She’s playfully reminding her students that spirituality is not some sort of irrational or unscientific pursuit.
So often I think people turn to magic and witchcraft because they are looking for a kind of spiritual shortcut in life (I don’t know if that’s your situation or not, but I’ve seen this a lot in others). They want a spell for falling in love, or losing weight, or making lots of money. When, in fact, they already have everything inside themselves, right now, that they need to achieve their goals. But it will take good old fashioned commitment, perseverance, work, trust, setting boundaries, being nice to others, etc. to “work the spell.”
Now, you mention demonic attachment, which can mean many things. First of all, you’re not alone, pretty much everyone has a shadow side they struggle with. But you use very strong language in describing your situation (“They’re wreaking havoc, nothing has worked at all to stop them so far, and they’re destroying me.”) To be honest, I’m not sure that witchcraft is going to give you what you want, especially since you already have a strong commitment to love and serve God.
Christians believe that Christ promises us victory over sin and evil, but that victory comes through him (through Love), not through any efforts on our part.
This, then, is the biggest problem I have with magic and witchcraft. Even though magical work may involve summoning angels, or gods/goddesses, spirit animals, etc. to help us achieve our goals, the unstated assumption in all magical work is this: that the results are, ultimately, all up to me (“As I do will, so mote it be”).
What is missing here? The will of God.
God is Love, God is Light, God is the fountain of all compassion and mercy and joy and forgiveness and health. Whatever “demons” we struggle with just scurry away like so many roaches when faced with the true light of healing love.
So if you’re seeking victory over evil, begin by trusting in what is truly good. Trust in Love. Trust in the gifts and fruits of the Spirit. Trust in prayer, meditation, and contemplation as a process of slowly allowing your heart and mind to be transformed into the image and likeness of God. That trust is going to do much more to help you to deal with your demons than any spell or incantation ever could.
Now, there’s still a practical question: are you dealing with unloving or self-destructive behaviors that you can’t seem to control or stop? Obsessive or negative thoughts? Anxiety or depression? Alcohol abuse or other kinds of addictions? So often when we are caught in the grip of the shadow, that’s what “wreaking havoc” looks like. And now we’re back to the boiling water analogy. Sometimes what we need is not a magical spell, but a caring and insightful counselor/therapist. Or perhaps we need to find a twelve-step group, or some other support group to help us overcome our negative or hurtful thoughts and behaviors.
Here’s the thing: Christ assures us the victory, but old habits die hard. It’s like having a house that’s covered with ivy. Christ — Love-with-a-capital-L — is like the machete that you use to kill the ivy at the roots. But then you still have to go back and do the hard work of yanking all the dead vines down, strip by strip, that have already crawled up the house. It’s hard work, not a lot of glory in it, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel and once you do the work, the house is restored.
Spirituality works the same way. Christ cuts off our sins at their roots. (Notice that I have pivoted from talking about demons to talking about sin. I think it’s important to take responsibility for our own lives. When we talk about demons, sometimes we are trying to evade responsibility: “the devil made me do it.” But when we remember that Christ — Love — is victorious over all evil, then we can choose to be empowered to take responsibility for our own well-being. Christ is very liberating. But like the ivy, we still have to do the hard work to clean up after ourselves).
There’s good news: you don’t have to be subject to the “havoc” that you feel is being wreaked in your life. It really is possible to connect with that love, joy and peace that the Spirit offers you. Demons are puny and weak compared to the love of God! Our bodies and minds are engineered for health and wellness. We can overcome negative thought patterns, destructive behaviors and habits, and repair relationships that have been hurt by our negative actions. And when relationships have been hurt beyond repair, it’s possible to build new relationships that are based on love and trust rather than on deception or abuse. It takes time, and perseverance, but it’s worth the effort.
So Can Christians Explore Witchcraft?
Now, to your last question: “Can I explore witchcraft and the spiritual world without unintentionally going against God?” I think you need to ask God that question directly. The Holy Spirit will guide you. But remember, God is Love. So one other step you might have to take is what is called “healing our image of God.”
Many people learn, especially in childhood, very toxic or unhelpful ways of seeing or thinking about God. They see God as extremely angry, judgmental, cold/distant, only interested in tallying up our sins to see if we “deserve” heaven or hell. But those are not Christ-centered ways of thinking about God?
Those are man-made images, and can be very destructive of our efforts to truly grow in a mystical and spiritual way.
God is Love: pure, unconditional love. God cares about everyone, including you. God wants you to be healthy and happy. God wants you to be a good person and to treat other people with respect and kindness. God wants you to take good care of yourself, so if you are in relationships that are abusive, God wants you to find a way out of the abuse. And if you are an abusive person, God wants you to stop, because your behavior hurts yourself as much as it hurts the other person.
So it’s really important to get to know God as God truly is, rather than the caricature of “God” that floats around our world — even in many churches!
God is a Spirit, so of course God wants you to explore the spiritual world! But as you already know, not every spirit is your friend. Just as there are certain neighborhoods in any major city that are dangerous, there are “neighborhoods” in the spirit realm that are best left alone. Some spirits promise us shortcuts to happiness, or quick power, or revenge, or feelings of self-importance, or pleasure without responsibility. These spirits do not have our best interests at heart!
I’m not saying we need to be paranoid about the spiritual realm, but there is a place for being careful and prudent. We know enough to lock our house at night and our car doors. We need to take similar spiritual precautions.
Prayer is a good spiritual precaution. So is meditation. So is taking time to do good things for other people, like volunteering at a homeless shelter, or helping out with the special olympics, or cleaning up litter in your neighborhood. These things are like spiritual “security systems” that repel negative entities and help us remain more connected to angelic and divine spirits.
Will God be angry at you if you explore witchcraft? Only God can answer that question, so take it to God in prayer. But I would suggest that before you get too immersed in witchcraft, try to explore the mystical and spiritual side of Christianity first. I’d be willing to bet that everything you’re looking for is already available, and more so, within the Christian world.
I hope this is helpful. Let me know if any of this doesn’t make sense or if you have other questions.
This is why I love your writing. That said, a certain part got me curious. The idea of leaving Christianity, is like one saying “no” to God. Why does leaving Christianity automatically assume saying no to god? That seems a bit overstated. Perhaps moving to a more authentic expression of god? Or moving to a tradition where one more profoundly experiences god. But it doesn’t mean a rejection. Unless it is in the rejection of a particular expression of god. But we all do that, Christian and not. Like rejecting the fundamentalist god. Sometimes it’s a good thing.
I live in the American south — the Bible belt — where you can still hear earnest evangelical Christians say that a man with a pierced ear or a tattoo has “a rebellious spirit.” Never mind that in the 1860s this entire region had a “rebellious spirit” (and not in a good way!) — there is certainly a bias among many Christians, that a “rebellious spirit” is somehow, and always, anti-God.
And leaving church: well, that’s about as rebellious as you can get.
I think there’s an unfortunate theology behind this way of thinking. It’s an authoritarian theology — where God is understood primarily in terms of power which means that the appropriate human response to God is submission. Certainly there is language in the Bible and in Christian tradition to support such a way of thinking about God.
But is it the only way to think about God? No, thank heaven.
It’s All About the Image
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post (Can Christians Use a Mantra?) in which I talk about how different ways of thinking about (“imaging”) God can have consequences in how we pray or even the shape of our belief. I think many Christians have this idea of God as a monolithic figure, that’s there’s only one way to think about, or imagine, God. But in fact we have as many different ways of thinking about God as there are ways to think about life. The sum of our thoughts, feelings, ideas, and concepts of God is what is called our “image of God.”
For some people, God is an angry judge, a being of power who demands total obedience and will punish all who disobey (even though, mercifully, he might spare those who place their faith in him).
For others, God is a distant figure, a capricious ruler who blesses some and ignores others, and who just might bless us — if not in this life, then in the next — if we conform to what our religion demands of us.
And then others may see in God a fountain of unending love and mercy, calling us into community with God and with one another, encouraging us to make loving choices and helping us to see that unloving choices are a dead end.
I’m sure there are many other ways of imaging God.
Back to the reader I quoted above, who asks, “Why does leaving Christianity automatically assume saying no to god?” Just to be clear, I don’t make that assumption. And I assume that those who do make that assumption tend to be working with an authoritarian or excessively wrathful image of God.
But my reader goes on to muse that leaving Christianity often amounts to letting go of a limited image of God:
Perhaps moving to a more authentic expression of god? Or moving to a tradition where one more profoundly experiences god. But it doesn’t mean a rejection. Unless it is in the rejection of a particular expression of god. But we all do that, Christian and not. Like rejecting the fundamentalist god. Sometimes it’s a good thing.
I think there’s a lot of truth here.
Limited Image = Limited Consciousness
I once studied with an elderly Baptist minister who had some interesting things to say about fundamentalism. “It’s a stage of consciousness,” he pointed out to me — a perspective that I found also in the writings of Ken Wilber or Don Beck. “Many people move through that stage of consciousness when they are young, maybe 13 or so. But others never seem to grow beyond it.”
In other words, an authoritarian image of God is consistent with an authoritarian understanding of morality or society, which can be appropriate for some children or even young teenagers. But just as children need to outgrow an authoritarian model of morality (moving from “I won’t do anything that Mommy says is wrong” to “I won’t do anything that my own conscience recognizes is wrong”), so we also need to outgrown an authoritarian image of God.
But some of us never do — and those are the fundamentalists or ultra-traditionalists (of any religion).
Just for the record: I think when we are involved in a healthy, open-hearted faith community, it is possible to move from a fundamentalist image of God to a more mystical or loving image of God, without having to leave church. But I understand that for many people, shifting out of a limited image of God to one that is more inclusive/loving/mystical might necessitate leaving church (at least for a while), or at least changing which church we participate in (see Rachel Held Evans’s Searching for Sunday for an example of someone in our time making the shift out of fundamentalism and into a more expansive expression of Christianity.
Let me finish by reiterating the statement that inspired my reader to comment in the first place:
“God loves us whether we remain Christian or not.”
But here’s what matters: do we love God enough to allow our image of God to keep growing and expanding, to become more inclusive, more compassionate, more loving, more just, and — most of all — more mystical?
A reader, who identifies as a contemplative/mystical Christian, posted this question to me on Facebook:
Carl….when I meditate/contemplative prayer…can I use a mantra such as-OM or Hare Krishna or something similar?
It’s a great question, and the short answer is, it depends.
Some Christians are allergic to the very idea of a mantra. They see it as the importation of a “foreign” (non-Christian) practice, an adulteration or impurity that God will reject in anger.
That “God” is neither one I believe in or I experience, but for those who are particularly drawn to the more tribalistic passages in the Bible, this can very much define their faith.
Language can be found throughout the Bible that describes God as wrathful toward those who worship other gods, as a jealous god, as one who punishes not only sinners, but their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Consider this little gem from the Exodus version of the 10 Commandments:
You shall not bow down to them or worship (other gods); for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me… (Exodus 20:5)
People who take the Bible literally are more likely to have an image of God shaped by this kind of language: a tribal God of reward and punishment, who reacts with fury at any hint of spiritual infidelity.
But it’s not the only image of God found in the Bible, and certainly not the only image of God found in Jewish or Christian history.
There is also the God who loves justice and mercy, who is the very embodiment of Love (with a capital L), who stresses compassion and hospitality above purity and partisan identity. Consider these verses:
He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)
and
God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world.There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. (I John 4:16-19)
But let’s be clear: just a few verses earlier (I John 4:3) the author writes, “every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.” So, once again, those who read the Bible in a literalist way are more likely to relate to other religions through fear, rather than through the love which casts out fear.
It really boils down to your image of God:
Is your image of God primarily shaped by power, limits, and control — in other words, do you see God as an authoritarian, patriarchal figure who establishes order by punishing those who transgress the limits he sets?
Or do you see God primarily as a profound mystery, Love and mercy in sentient form, the one who continually creates, saves, redeems, heals and guides all people of good will, urging us toward lives shaped by mercy, compassion, hospitality, kindness, and joyful hope?
And then the next set of questions to ask: regardless of your image of God, which of these approaches to spiritually appeal more to you:
Do you feel it is important for your spiritual practice to consist exclusively of historical Christian practices?
Or do you feel called to explore a spirituality that is more universal in scope, grounded in Christianity-in-dialogue-with-other-faiths?
Generally speaking, if you answer “yes” to the first question in each of these sets of questions, I would encourage you to avoid non-Christian mantras, since using one would just cause you internal conflict. But if you find you are more likely to say “yes” to each of the second questions, then you might find such a mantra to be very meaningful.
Mantra ( मन्त्र) is a Sanskrit word that literally means “instrument of thought.” I would encourage anyone interested in mantras to spend a few minutes reading the Wikipedia entry on “Mantra” — it becomes evident in a hurry that mantras take many different forms across world religious traditions, and have different functions in spiritual practice. Some mantras are meaningless words, that are used in meditation to give the discursive mind something to play with while the meditator seeks to settle the mind into silence. But others — like the two examples my reader gave, OM and Hare Krishna — do carry meaning.
I think the simplest way to understand a mantra is this: it is a word, phrase, or utterance that is used as a means to gently focus one’s attention during meditation. In this sense, it has an obvious parallel in repetitive forms of Christian prayer, including the Jesus Prayer/Prayer of the Heart, Centering Prayer, and even the Rosary. In Centering Prayer, the meditative word is called a “prayer word” rather than a mantra, which I suppose is helpful as a subtle reminder that in a Christian sense, the exercise is prayer (communication with God) and not just an exercise in awareness or concentration.
Now, let’s look at OM and Hare Krishna specifically.
“OM,” (ॐ) also rendered “aum,” according to Wikipedia…
…is a sacred sound and a spiritual symbol in Hinduism, that signifies the essence of the ultimate reality, consciousness or Atman… the meaning and connotations of Om vary between the diverse schools within and across the various traditions. In Hinduism, Om is one of the most important spiritual symbols. It refers to Atman (soul, self within) and Brahman (ultimate reality, entirety of the universe, truth, divine, supreme spirit, cosmic principles, knowledge)… It is a sacred spiritual incantation made before and during the recitation of spiritual texts, during puja and private prayers, in ceremonies of rites of passages (sanskara) such as weddings, and sometimes during meditative and spiritual activities such as Yoga.
Some spiritual teachers suggest that “om” shows up in English words like “home” or “omni-” suggesting it is as big as the universe and as intimate as our hearts. I’ve also heard it suggested that “amen” is related to “om.” Since English is an Indo-European language, I suppose it’s possible, but I don’t know that there is solid evidence to support this; still, it makes for a nice idea.
So can a Christian recite ॐ during meditation? I don’t see any reason why not. The word’s meaning has more philosophical than theological content. And anyone interested in fruitful interreligious or interspiritual exploration between Christianity and Hinduism (see the writings of Ramon Panikkar or Francis X. Clooney I’ve listed below), might find this a rich word to use in their prayer or meditation.
Hare Krishna is actually the beginning of a 16-word mantra: (Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Hare Hare, Krishna Krishna, Hara Rama, Hare Rama, Hare Hare, Rama Rama) “Hare,” “Krishna,” and “Rama” are all names of Hindu deities. Once again, different interpretations exist as to the meaning of these names, particularly Hare.
So this mantra has more theological content, in contrast to the philosophical OM. Which means that some Christians might feel less comfortable using this mantra: now you are in the arena of invoking deities from another faith.
But others may see all the names of all the gods as pointing to the one nameless mystery, and may find it culturally meaningful to approach the one-who-cann0t-be-named using names from a tradition other than the faith of their upbringing.
Why Use a Mantra?
It seems to me that mantras (or prayer words) have multiple purposes. As “instruments of thought,” they are tools for occupying our endless capacity for thinking — which enables the heart of our awareness to open up into the silence to which God calls us (“be still and know that I am God;” “the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him”).
But whenever a mantra or prayer word has meaning — whether abstract and philosophical like OM or more devotional like Hare Krishna or Jesus, mercy — then in addition to distracting the thinking-mind to allow attentiveness to silence, the word or phrase also functions like a spiritual vitamin: its meaning is repeatedly “spoken into” consciousness, which means we are basically entraining our mind accordingly.
Repeat the word “Love” in your mind for thousands of times over the months or years, and you are gently “programming” your mental computer to be oriented to love.
Same goes for any other prayer word or mantra.
Even though in the act of contemplation / meditation / centering prayer itself you are placing your attention on silence, the prayer word is still resonating in the background. So over time, it will undoubtedly shape how you structure your thinking.
People in recovery (alcoholics anonymous, etc.) talk about “stinking thinking” — the kinds of thoughts that breed anxiety, fear, resentment, judgment, low-self-esteem, arrogance, and so forth. But there’s an alternative to stinking thinking: graceful thinking, thoughts of love, compassion, mercy, forgiveness, generosity, reconciliation, peace, joy, hope. If stinking thinking makes us more vulnerable to substance abuse, then logically doesn’t graceful thinking fortify us to live a more healthy and integrated spiritual life?
So I think it does matter which mantra or prayer word we choose. Whether or not you choose a word (or name of a god) that comes from Sanskrit, or Hebrew, or whatever language, to me matters less than what that word or concept or name means to you: does it open your heart and mind to the mystery of love, of joy, of peace, of the other fruits and gifts of the Spirit? I would encourage you to entrain your meditative mind to a word that says “yes” to Divine grace in a real and loving way.
For Further Reading
If you want to learn more about mantras from an interspiritual (and Christian-friendly) perspective, check out Eknath Easwaren’s wonderful little book The Mantram Handbook: A Practical Guide to Choosing Your Mantram and Calming Your Mind. Spoiler alert: he recommends Christians stick with the name “Jesus,” since that is the name that has the most spiritual resonance and meaning for most Christians.
Finally, no discussion of Christian/Hindu interfaith dialogue would be complete without mentioning Bede Griffiths (The Marriage of East and West), Sara Grant (Toward an Alternative Theology), or Abhishiktananda (Prayer), all of whom were European Catholics who moved to India to explore this rich opportunity for interreligious dialogue.
One thing I love about the mystics is just how weird they are.
Obviously, there are mystics who see visions, who hear voices, who smell beautiful aromas that no one else can smell, that sort of thing.
There are also stories out there of mystics who levitate, who survived for who-knows-how-long eating nothing but the daily eucharistic Host, and whose bodies remained incorrupt after dying.
I don’t know how true any of these stories are — but you gotta admit, they’re weird!
Even if we pull back from the supernatural or extraordinary stories associated with the mystics, there’s still plenty of weirdness around the edges.
Margery Kempe used to go to Mass, sit in the back of the church, and proceed to cry (as in sob and wail) so loudly that it would interfered with the liturgy (and annoy the priest to no end).
Thomas Merton stood on a street corner and fell in love with everyone he saw. Just like that.
And don’t get me started on St. Simon Stylites, who spent how many years living on the top of a pillar?!?
For that matter, why is it that various mystics have opted to live as hermits, live in the desert, become monks and nuns, move into the poorest neighbors just to be of service to others, or seclude themselves in small rooms where they devoted their lives to prayer and meditation?
Mystics come in all shapes and sizes. Not all of them are oddballs, eccentrics, visionaries, or super-introverts. But some of them are.
And I love that about the mystics. In fact, here are three reasons why I love how weird the mystics are…
Mystics remind us that there are many different ways to follow Christ. C. S. Lewis once said, “How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been; how gloriously different are the saints.” True wisdom there. When we become the people God created us to be, we become more distinctive, more unique, more singular in our identity and expression. If that means some of us get weird, well, so be it.
Mystics invite us to consider what it means to live 100% for God. Forrest Gump said “Genius has its limits, but stupid goes on forever,” but when it comes to the spiritual life, that dynamic gets inverted: the more we live just for ourselves, the more limited our lives eventually become; but when we give our lives with trust and joy to God, the horizon just keeps expanding. Let’s face it: anyone who gives their lives 100% to something gets viewed as “weird” by our culture. So whether you’re a Harry Potter fan, a Beatlemaniac, or just obsessed with good cheese, others will think you odd. Me? I’d rather be odd for God!
Maybe the mystics seem weird because they’re the only ones who aren’t weird! In a society where everyone is crazy, the sane person appears to be crazy to everyone else. Ours is a cynical and oh-s0-hip culture, and so we don’t want to admit that we hunger for love, that we long for a sense of meaning and purpose, and that we hope there is something bigger to life than what meets the eye. But most of us would never admit any of this — we learned when we were about eight years old that the cool kids make fun of the dreamers. But the mystics dare to say, “Hey, we aren’t the dreamers — we’re the ones who are awake. Don’t you want to wake up too?”
It’s fun that hipster communities like Austin TX or Asheville NC are associated with bumperstickers that say “Keep Austin Weird” or “Keep Asheville Weird.” I love places like that — because for them, “weird” usually means a large concentration of artists, musicians, and other creatives.
Evelyn Underhill suggested that the next closest thing to a mystic is an artist (or a poet, or a musician…). So just as artists invite us to be “weird” with creativity, the mystics, those Godly-weirdoes, invite all of us to find our own creative weirdness, deep in the heart of God.
As long-standing readers of this blog know, I have not always been a Catholic; I embraced Catholicism in 2004 after a Protestant upbringing and then about a seven-year stint in which I followed a neopagan spiritual path. Indeed, I wrote a number of books about paganism, a fact I discussed in an earlier blog post, You Wrote Books About Paganism? These days, my work as a writer is primarily geared toward Christians, but I do not consider myself hostile to paganism (the Catholic tradition has always taught, even before Vatican II, that Catholics should respect what is good and true and beautiful in other religious traditions).
But just because I am not hostile to paganism, does not mean that I do not have opinions about paganism — including some criticisms. Today’s post, inspired by an email I received from a reader recently, looks at some of those criticisms. The reader wrote to me because a friend of hers, who is a Christian, is exploring magic and witchcraft, and she is not sure how to respond to this. So she turned to me for my thoughts on that question.
The Reader Writes:
I have a dear friend who is a follower of Christ and also has a fascination with magic and witchcraft. At this point, they have not pursued their interest but I know it continues to be a draw for them. I was just wondering if you have any concerns, thoughts, or wisdom to share concerning whether or not a Christian should pursue the magic arts. I personally don’t have any experience with this and feel it would be helpful to seek wisdom from someone who does. I care about this person deeply and don’t want them to get hurt. Thank you for your time!
My response:
Thanks for reaching out. Many Christians find magic and witchcraft interesting or appealing. I imagine there are many reasons why this is so. By the same token, other Christians are drawn to explore Hinduism or Buddhism or other traditional religions. All of this falls under the umbrella terms “interfaith dialogue” or “inter-religious dialogue” or “interspirituality.” I do believe God calls some of us to function like bridges between the different faith traditions, in the interest of promoting understanding and unity as much as we are able. There are very real cultural and values differences between the different faith traditions, that should not be glossed over. Even so, it’s important to remember that we are all human beings, we share the same planet, and it is important we learn how to love one another, without violence and without constantly trying to control or change each other.
But to your specific question. I think the first question your friend needs to wrestle with: are they thinking about leaving Christianity altogether? It’s one thing to be a Christian with a lively interest in another tradition (like I described above), and another thing to change one’s spiritual path altogether. I think having clarity about their intentions (which may mean doing some deep inner work, so that they are aware of what is driving them, even subconsciously) is really important. God loves us whether we remain Christian or not, but of course the decision to change one’s spiritual path should not be made lightly, as it can have real repercussions with one’s family and social network.
If your friend is clear that they want to remain Christian, but still wants to learn more about magic and witchcraft, then I would recommend reading a few books on the topic. Ronald Hutton’s The Triumph of the Moon is very important; it’s academic but easy to read, and it is the most balanced and in-depth history of modern witchcraft and paganism that I have come across. So I think that is a “must read.” Another classic is Starhawk’s The Spiral Dance, which looks at witchcraft from a feminist perspective. Finally, at the risk of a bit of shameless self-promotion let me suggest my own When Someone You Love is Wiccan, which I wrote back when I was still a practicing pagan. In fact, that might be a good book for you to read, especially if your friend does go ahead and begin to practice witchcraft.
When Someone You Love is Wiccan
These books are all sympathetic to witchcraft and magic. To try to keep things balanced, normally I would also recommend one or two books that take a more critical view, but unfortunately most of the anti-witchcraft books, at least that I know of, are very poorly written, usually from a fundamentalist Christian perspective. I think anyone with an open mind who reads those books would think “gee, witchcraft sounds better than Christianity!” Fundamentalism is NOT the answer to magic or witchcraft.
So maybe I should give you (and your friend) just a few thoughts to be able to think about magic and witchcraft objectively. In writing this, it is not my purpose to gratuitously attack or denounce paganism. Rather, I am trying simply to be honest about my own concerns. I think anyone who explores the topic needs to have a balanced perspective, and so I offer these points in the interest of that balance.
My Honest Concerns
First of all, I would caution anyone interested in magic to think carefully about the basic premise: that you can use spiritual power to attain your goals. On the surface, that sounds like a good thing: after all, isn’t the purpose of life to be happy and make the most of it? My question would be: where is the balance? If my life is all about just making myself happy, isn’t that ultimately rather narcissistic? Isn’t love more important than wish-fulfillment? For example: let’s say I want a new lover, so I cast a love spell to get that person. They show up. I may have a torrid love affair but in the back of my mind I’ll always be wondering if the person really loves me, or if they are just bound to me by the spell. In other words, if I hadn’t cast the spell, would they have still come into my life? If so, then the spell was unnecessary; but if not, then that means the “love” is not real, it’s just a product of the spell.
The story of King Midas applies here. Magic promises to make us happy, but it seems there is always a catch. And I think the “catch” ultimately is this: that getting our wishes fulfilled is not the ultimate path to happiness. That path is the path of love, not power.
There are all these spell books on the market, filled with spells to lose weight, make more money, become more attractive, get a lover, get lots of lovers (!), find the perfect job, boost self-confidence, etc. etc. etc. At the end of the day, it seems like “it’s all about me.” That’s why I think it’s narcissistic. Love, on the other hand, focusses not on how to make myself happy, but rather how to build happy relationships, which means balancing my own needs with the needs of my friends, my spouse, my neighbors, co-workers, etc.
So I came to see that magic is really unnecessary, as long as I have dedicated my life to becoming a more loving person. When I realized that, that’s when I started to let go of witchcraft and return to Christianity.
Now, some people will say that witchcraft, and especially paganism, is more about spirituality than magic. It’s about reverencing the earth and the Divine Feminine (the Goddess). And I think for some people this is really true. And I think Christianity, historically, has done a poor job at acknowledging that God encompasses both masculinity and femininity — the Goddess in many ways is a “reaction” against the hyper-masculinity of traditional Christian ideas about God. Likewise, I think because Christianity has tended to emphasize heaven above earth, paganism’s emphasis on venerating the earth is a similar reaction agains the excesses of Christianity.
But here’s my question: if witchcraft/paganism venerates the Goddess and the Earth as a reaction against Christianity’s emphasis on the Father God and heaven, doesn’t that make modern-day paganism simply a protest movement against Christianity? And if that’s the case, perhaps what Christians need to be doing, instead of becoming witches, we need to be cultivating a healthier form of Christianity: one that acknowledges that the earth is good (but without worshipping it), and that acknowledges that God ultimately is our Mother as much as our Father.
What is most important, for you and your friend, and really for any Christian who feels drawn to magic or witchcraft, is to remember simply this: that God is Love, that God loves us very much and wants what is best for us. I think many Christians turn to magic and witchcraft because they have been hurt by Christianity or have found Christianity to be boring and stifling. That certainly happens. But I believe when Christianity fails to live up to its own mystical beauty, the answer is not to abandon Christianity for another path, but rather to discover the beauty and wonder that lives at the heart of true Christian mysticism.
I’ll keep you and your friend in my prayers. Please pray for me as well.
A Final Word
Finally, here are a few thoughts specifically for the reader, and for anyone who is facing a situation where a Christian loved one is turning away from Christianity to explore a different religion or spirituality.
It can be scary when a friend or loved one explores a new or different religious tradition, and even scarier if he or she abandons their old faith to embrace something new. Christians sometimes feel as if their friend’s soul is now in eternal danger, and therefore may try to dissuade the friend from their spiritual exploration. But such efforts often backfire: they too easily come across as fear-mongering and controlling, if not judgmental.
If your friend thinks you are trying to frighten or control them, they may cut off your friendship. So I think it’s important for Christians to focus on loving our friends, which leads to a delicate balancing act. Sure, it’s only fair that we express our misgivings when a friend abandons Christianity: but we need to own that this is our misgivings. “It saddens me to think that you and I will no longer be doing ministry together, or going to church together, or studying the history of Christian spirituality together.” Maybe even take it further: “It even scares me a little to think of you embracing a different type of spirituality.”
Always finish with: “But I want you to know that I love you and I want us to remain friends, and I hope you’ll feel like you can talk to me without judgment or condemnation. And if I say or do anything that seems to be judgmental, please call me on it — after all, I’m only human!” I think what people who abandon Christianity need from Christians, more than anything else, is love — we need to be conduits of God’s love and grace to the world, which is after all our mission as people who recognize we are created in God’s image and likeness.
So if you feel sad, or afraid, because someone you love has embraced a non-Christian form of spirituality, own your feelings as your feelings. And then take a look at your own relationship with God. Do you harbor any secret fears that God will reject your friend now that they’ve changed paths? Do you see God primarily as wrathful and judgmental? Or do you recognize that God is love, which means that even when someone says “no” to God (directly or indirectly), God still loves them, unconditionally? Those are good questions for Christians to explore; as we become more secure in God’s love, we become more capable of relating with compassion and clarity to those whose spirituality is different from our own.
A Book for All Time: Why Evelyn Underhill’sMysticismStill Matters
For pretty much my entire adult life, if anyone would ask me who my favorite authors are, without hesitation I would say Evelyn Underhill and Thomas Merton. To me, the work of Evelyn Underhill represents the call for the revival of mysticism in our time, while Merton anchored the call to mysticism in the urgent political and social concerns that shape life in America over the last fifty years or so.
Evelyn Underhill (Image: Public Domain)
As a woman and a man, a layperson and a monk, an Anglican and a Catholic, Underhill and Merton together offer a rich, almost stereophonic invitation to the contemplative life for our generation. Of the two, Merton is by far the more well-known author, at least here in America. But for now, let’s set Merton aside. I’d like to tell you a little bit about my relationship with the writings of Evelyn Underhill and with the spirituality that they point to. I’m doing this not because my story is particularly interesting — it’s not — but in the hopes that you might be inspired to fall in love with Evelyn Underhill, and with Christian mysticism, yourself.
When I was eighteen years old, I had a dream about the end of the world. It was filled with plenty of dramatic imagery: the sky grew dark at midday; a silence descended over the world, and one by one the stars fell from the sky. The imagery probably came into my mind from the last volume of the Chronicles of Narnia, as I was reading those books that summer; the emotional content of the dream was no doubt driven by the fact that I had just graduated from high school and were about to leave home for college, so in a very real sense my world really was coming to an end.
While I can easily explain away the psychology of this dream from the safe remove of thirty years’ time; when the dream occurred it was raw, visceral, and frankly, frightening. The next morning, rattled by how vivid and real —or, should I say, unreal — the dream felt to me, I turned to a trusted older friend, a former organist from my church. David was what my parents rather dismissively referred to as a hippie — despite being a church organist, he had shoulder length hair, still rather scandalous in small-town Virginia in the 1970s. He played Bach and Wesley for a living, but his own taste in music ran rather toward John Coltrane and Jimi Hendrix. As for his faith convictions, he was a Unitarian, and so he was just as likely to talk about the Buddha or Krishna as Jesus Christ or Saint Paul.
I went to David’s house and told him about my unsettling dream. He listened intently like any good friend would, and then said he had a book he thought I would like to read. He rummaged through on overstuffed bookcase until he pulled out a thick little paperback book with an hideously unattractive cover. He told me I could have the book, and I still have it today, one of my prized possessions. It is, of course, Evelyn Underhill’s Mysticism.
I know to say “a book changed my life” is almost a cliché, but in my case, yes, Underhill’s Mysticism changed my life. It did so in two ways. First, it gave me a language for spiritual experience that was not anchored in either Pentecostalism or secular psychology, which were the only two models for the inner life available to me at the time. That was helpful enough. But even more to the point, Underhill introduced me to the great mystics of the past, and in doing so performed a valuable function: she helped me to discover the chain of spirituality that extended from Biblical times to the present day. Growing up a Protestant in the American south, my religious education suffered from a significant defect: the 1500 year period that extended from the close of the New Testament to Luther nailing his 95 theses on the church door in Wittenberg was never discussed.
It’s as if Christianity were frozen in time for a millennium and a half, except that by Luther’s time those pesky Catholics were up to all sorts of mischief, like selling indulgences and making everybody believe in purgatory. Along came Luther and swept all that trouble away — but it was up to Evelyn Underhill to help me see that those fifteen centuries were not just an extended Dark Ages, but rather teemed with a vibrant tradition of spirituality and the quest for communion with God — and those who were at the forefront of this quest are whom we now celebrate as mystics.
My first copy of Underhill’s Mysticism looked like this. Don’t judge a book by its cover.
The words “mystic” and “mysticism” are troublesome words, contested by Christians on either side of the Reformation divide. The Reformation, at its heart, is an argument about authority, with Catholics defending the absolute authority of the church against the Protestant argument for the supreme authority of scripture. In the midst of that dogfight, mysticism — with its emphasis on the authority of personal experience, an authority that is by its nature decentralized and not conducive to ecclesiastical obedience — soon fell under suspicion on all sides. The rise of modernity and the scientific way of thinking about the cosmos and anthropology marginalized mysticism even further.
Evelyn Underhill realized this, and if one looks at all her books chronologically, we can see that the more deeply she became immersed in the life of the Church of England, the more she replaced language of “mysticism” with the far less threatening alternative of “spirituality.” Indeed two of her most accessible books clearly reflect this: Practical Mysticism was published in 1914, and offers an approach to mystical prayer for “normal people,” which is to say those of us who are not clergy or monastic; whereas in 1937 a similar short and accessible book, drawn from several radio talks Underhill gave, was called The Spiritual Life.
How shall we understand the difference between mysticism and spirituality? Aside from the obvious etymological distinctions — one word reminds us that God is the ultimate mystery, while the other points to the Third Person of the Trinity — I think the case can be made that mysticism is a subset of spirituality. All mysticism, at least all Christian mysticism, is spiritual, but not all spirituality is mystical. Underhill defines the spiritual life as “soaked through and through by a sense of His reality and claim, and self-given to the great movement of His will.”
In other words, spirituality can be anchored in faith rather than in the necessity of experience, and it is oriented toward conformity with God’s will rather than communion with God’s nature. This may seem to be splitting hairs, but I think it is important for a number of reasons. Some people find mysticism intimidating, while others are uncomfortable with its emphasis on such things as darkness as unknowing. Karl Rahner may have been right when he insisted that the Christian of the future must be a mystic in order to exist, but I think in the economy of God’s love, many Christians will choose to walk a lowly path of spirituality before being called to the higher mountains of mysticism.
By orienting herself toward spirituality in her maturity, Underhill did not repudiate the important work she did in making mysticism accessible and attractive to a modern audience; rather, she continued to support mysticism by inviting her readers to take the all-important first steps of embracing spirituality in a broad and general sense.
Evelyn Underhill died 30 years after the publication of Mysticism, which means this June will make the 70th anniversary of her passing. In those 70 years the church has seen a veritable explosion of interest in the spiritual life. Underhill’s work bore fruit in the continued growth of interest in key mystics like Julian of Norwich, The Cloud of Unknowing, Meister Eckhart, Teresa of Avila, and John of the Cross. The very same year that Underhill died a young man from New York entered Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky, and when his autobiography was published seven years later, Thomas Merton became what in our time we might call a “rock star mystic” — a spiritual writer whose vision and authority was met with worldwide celebrity.
Meanwhile, other visionaries were beginning to connect the dots between spirituality and other areas of inquiry: Teilhard de Chardin looked at the relationship between mysticism and science; Dorothy Day articulated a political vision informed by the Catholic faith; the Second Vatican Council encouraged an entire generation of both Catholic and Protestant seekers to study the ancient writings of key Christian thinkers, including the mystics; and Merton himself was among the first of several important writers who began to explore the possibility of fruitful engagement between Christian spirituality and the wisdom of other faiths. Within a few short decades of her passing, Evelyn Underhill’s legacy had blossomed into an extraordinary rebirth of spiritual hunger, not only among “professional” Christians but even, and especially, among the laity.
To what extent did Underhill contribute to the spiritual renaissance of our time? Did she influence it, or merely anticipate it? Perhaps there is no real way of answering this question. We know that Merton was familiar with her work, C. S. Lewis was a fan of hers, and that even the hippie mystic Alan Watts acknowledges her place as an authority on the mystical life. But Underhill was a laywoman, affiliated with no religious order; she never held a faculty chair, and left behind no movement, institution or organization. Her influence, while amplified by the ongoing success of her writing, is really not so different from how most of us live out our calling to “Divine fecundity” — she quietly influenced those who knew her, who corresponded with her, who encountered her through her words. In other words, her legacy is a humble and quiet one. And given how knowledgeable and, I believe, advanced she was in her own mystical practice, I suspect that is just how she would have wanted it.
A newer edition, with a much more pleasant cover design.
Seven Ways to Think About Evelyn Underhill
What I’d like to do now is to suggest seven ways that we can think about Evelyn Underhill and her legacy for our time. I hope that if you are not familiar with Underhill’s writing, that you will purchase a book or two of hers and use them as part of your personal devotion. These seven dimensions of Underhill’s legacy might help you to approach her, in a way that might particularly speak to you. For me, all seven of these ways of thinking about Underhill matter. I suspect that the more you read Underhill, the more you will find value in each of these approaches as well.
Evelyn Underhill as initiator — she ushers us into the mysteries.
If we trace the concept of mysticism back to its origins among the pagan Mystery Religions of ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt, we see that an essential concept related to the mysteries is initiation, or being ushered into a new dimension of spiritual reality. Christianity has its own rite of initiation — baptism, and to a lesser extent, confirmation. Initiation means to be brought into something new, and in terms of Christian mysticism, this means a new depth and reality to our relationship with God. Throughout her long and prolific career as a writer, spiritual director, and retreat conductor, Evelyn Underhill devoted her entire ministry to helping others undergo this kind of spiritual initiation. For me, reading Mysticism when I was 18 years old meant being ushered into an entirely new way of understanding the love of God and how God can make a difference in our lives, and it is not overstating the case to say that this “initiation” changed my life.
Evelyn Underhill as inspiration — her writing is elegant and lovely.
Evelyn Underhill is a writer’s writer. Her books are a delight to read, for her style, while at times showing the limitations of the formalism of her generation, is for the most part limpid yet poetic, erudite yet accessible, intelligent yet never burdened by an excessive cerebralism or academic stuffiness. Although part of the delight of Mysticism lies in how generously she quotes from an astonishing number of the classic mystics, the quotations she selects are always both relevant to the point she is making and interesting in their own right, marking her as a brilliant editor as well as writer. It is rare to find an author whose work simultaneously appeals to the scholarly community as well as the general public, and the fact that Underhill found respect both as an invited lecturer at Oxford as well as a popular retreat director speaks not only to the importance of her message but her skill in delivering it.
Evelyn Underhill as spiritual director — she teaches the path of discipleship.
One of the most important dimensions of authentic Christian spirituality is that it is relational and communitarian in nature. As Christians, it is knit into our DNA to care for one another, nurture each other, and bear one another’s burdens. Underhill exemplifies this in both her public and private writings. While she is an advocate for mysticism and spirituality, she never diminishes her message by resorting to mere boosterism. She is always careful to point out the potential dangers, snares, and blind alleys that can derail the spiritual life at any stage along the journey. She brings an astute, perceptive understanding of topics that we often are not very comfortable considering: such as sin and the human tendency to reject or resist what is best for us. For Underhill, the spiritual life is never just a cozy cuddle-party with God; it is always a demanding challenge to let the Spirit completely remake us according to the stern yet beautiful demands of love.
Evelyn Underhill as soul friend — her warmth and optimism are encouraging.
Perhaps I am repeating myself, for what is a good soul friend but a spiritual director? But there is a subtle difference here, and my point is that Underhill embodies both the most challenging demands of a classically stern spiritual director, but also the warmth, familiarity and gracious encouragement of a dear spiritual friend. Her letters are particularly instructive here, for it is in those personal and often informal missives that we catch a glimpse of the affection and kindness that she brought to bear on the many people who turned to her for spiritual guidance. Because of her keen awareness that, for Christians, the Holy Spirit is the only true director of souls, she brought a sanity, a sense of proportion, and even a sense of joy and humor to her work helping others to grow in grace.
Evelyn Underhill as mystical historian — she reveals the tradition to us.
Part of what makes Mysticism such a delight to read, and continually relevant today, is the wealth of direct quotations from mystics throughout the history of Christianity. Underhill quotes over 100 different mystics — a stunning achievement in its own right. Clearly, she worked hard to grasp the rich history of mysticism as part of her research to write about this topic. Thankfully, this means that reading Underhill — especially Mysticism, but also her 1925 work The Mystics of the Church — is to be ushered in to a literary museum in which the history of experiential Christian spirituality comes vividly to life. Underhill understood not only how mysticism evolved over time, but also what made each of the many Christian mystics special and unique. She honestly assesses which mystics are truly great, and which ones made lesser contributions, and she understands that every individual mystic is a unique personality, which means that she often would point out the unique, charming, or even oddball characteristics that sets each individual mystic apart. History can be a dry and dull topic in the hands of a mediocre writer, but with Evelyn Underhill, the treasures of the past come vividly to life.
Evelyn Underhill as artist — she clearly understood beauty as a central category of the spiritual life.
Underhill recognized that the Platonic categories of goodness, truth, and beauty are essential elements of authentic Christian spirituality. But where theology is the discipline concerned with truth, and ethics explores the question of goodness, the heart of spirituality as lived experience is very much a quest for the beauty of God. That she understood this is clear when we consider how important art itself is to Underhill’s explanation of mysticism. She repeatedly stresses that artists are those who come the closest to understanding and living the contemplative life, and so it is not surprising that she repeatedly uses illustrations from the world of art to explain and illuminate the mystic way. To be a mystic is to be an artist, working not with paint or words or music as one’s medium, but with the soul itself. The beatific vision is the vision of ultimate and eternal beauty, and in her writing and her thinking, Underhill repeatedly commends such beauty to those who would follow her on the mystical journey.
Evelyn Underhill as peacemaker — the culmination of her life’s work was to take a stand for nonviolence as a central mandate of the Christian life.
“My peace I leave with you,” Christ promised his followers. At the summit of her life’s journey, Evelyn Underhill took the courageous and risky path of affirming this aspect of the Christian faith, even in the midst of the beginning of World War II. After a lifetime of studying not only the gospel but the witness of saints like Francis of Assisi and Julian of Norwich, Underhill came to the recognition that Christianity is a path of reconciliation, not aggression. She stood for peace quietly but firmly, and as such can be an inspiration for anyone who wishes to follow the Prince of Peace, even in an environment that seems wholly ordered toward war.
Reflecting On Underhill’s Legacy
I’d like to conclude by sharing with you just a few thoughts on Evelyn Underhill’s legacy, by pondering this question: why does mysticism, and specifically Christian mysticism, matter today? After one hundred years, does it still make sense for us to read Underhill’s book on this topic, not just as an academic exercise, but as a means of nurturing our soul?
Another edition.
I can only answer this question with as enthusiastic a “Yes” as possible. Mysticism matters, because here in the twenty-first century, mystery matters. Over the last century we have seen the emergence of the postmodern world, thrown into being by its birthpangs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and given a framework of meaning through the internet and the triumph of media. When Mysticism was published, the great threat to society was war, as exemplified by the horrors of the Great War, or what we now call World War I. Fifty years later, “threat” was understood in ideological terms: in the west, we felt most threatened by communism. Today, our primary threat is terrorism, which brings to mind those words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: the main thing we have to fear is fear itself.
But as our world has grown smaller and our sense of what threatens us has become more abstract, we who identify as Christians have discovered that our world view is only one among many, and that other ways of seeing and understanding the cosmos deserve our consideration, if not our respect. A mere fifty years ago, when Thomas Merton began studying zen, this was thought of as idiosyncratic, if not heretical. But today, interreligious dialogue is becoming increasingly widespread not only among theologians and church leadership but indeed among ordinary clergy and laypersons like you and me. Here in Atlanta, for example, we have a vibrant interfaith community in which events regularly occur drawing not only Christians but Muslims, Jews, Vedantists, Buddhists, and adherents of other faiths. Christianity in the twenty-first century is now a faith that, for the first time really, has to learn how to be a good neighbor.
Meanwhile, the world of science continues to impact the way we understand theology. Sometimes this is a hostile encounter, as exemplified by the critique of religion by “celebrity atheists” like Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens. But others, from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to Raimon Panikkar to John Polkinghorne, offer a more friendly conversation in which the empirical truth of science and the revelation and theological tradition of Christianity come together, but leaving neither unchanged. At its worst, science insists that Christianity be limited to a system of moral and ethical inquiry. But at its best, the dialogue between science and religion brings us to the frontier of human knowledge and understanding, where the propositional declarations of our faith shade off into the mystery of unknowing, where God is no longer a philosophical problem to be solved, but an ineffable presence to be encountered — and loved.
So in a time when Christianity must be a good neighbor to the great faiths of the world, on the one hand, and to the splendors of natural science on the other, the old catechisms suddenly seem shrill and inadequate. I don’t know many Buddhists or educated atheists who are going to be swayed by Campus Crusade’s Four Spiritual Laws. But in the challenges of our time, we Christians have essentially three choices: we can abandon our faith, which as we know many of our brothers and sisters are doing. We can retreat into a reactionary fundamentalism, but I suspect I do not need to detail the many reasons why this is a fundamentally unsound option. But if we neither abandon our faith nor armor ourselves with a naïve anachronistic theology, we are left with the invitation that Karl Rahner issued some thirty years ago: we are invited to become mystics.
Embracing Mysticism Today
We are invited to join in the work of people like Ken Wilber and Father Thomas Keating, a Buddhist-influenced philosopher and Trappist monk who explore the relationship between contemplative practice, interfaith dialogue and the science of human consciousness. We are invited to join in the work of Benedictine and Cistercian leaders like Mary Margaret Funk and David Steindl-Rast, who under the auspices of the Monastic Interreligious Dialog have engaged in meaningful dialogue with contemplatives from other faith traditions. Even here in Atlanta, there is Ben Campbell Johnson, who after a distinguished career as the professor of Christian Evangelism at Columbia Theological Seminary discovered the riches of the contemplative tradition, which immediately impelled into a new career as a leader in the interfaith community here in our own town, engaging in numerous programs designed to bring Christians and the members of other faith communities together.
I’m not suggesting that contemplation is necessarily linked to interreligious dialogue; that is a personal passion of mine, so naturally it is something I would highlight. But my point is that contemplative practice, with its roots deep in the history of Christian spirituality and yet with a thoroughly contemporary emphasis on mystery, unknowing, the love of God, the practice of silence and listening, and a faith grounded in optimism, community and reconciliation, is a dimension of Christian spirituality uniquely appropriate for the needs and demands of our time. Evelyn Underhill’s Mysticism matters because we need a spirituality grounded in mystery and contemplation now more than ever.
So I hope that you will consider Evelyn Underhill’s invitation to explore the rich history and contemporary practice of experiential spirituality, not merely as an interesting footnote in the history of twentieth century Anglicanism, but as a meaningful invitation for all of us today. Underhill understood that there is a great diversity in the world of Christian spirituality and mysticism. For some, the life of prayer means a rich, almost sensual experience of falling in love with the Source of Love. But for others, it is a profound and mysterious journey into the farthest reaches of consciousness, into a realm of darkness, unknowing, uncertainty, and doubt that can only be navigated by the most vulnerable type of faith. Is mysticism the sacred marriage as described in the Song of Songs? Or a silent, dark, almost agnostic experience of meditation, like what is documented in The Cloud of Unknowing? Underhill understood that mysticism is both these things, and much more. That here is diversity in the heart of God and in the practice of Christian spirituality.
There is no one right way to be a mystic or a contemplative. But the important thing is to step out, in the mystery, and begin the journey. A Carmelite friar named William McNamara, writing in the 1980s, said “The mystic is not a special kind of person; each person is a special kind of mystic.” Evelyn Underhill would have understood this, and agreed with him. So for you and me, here in the opening years of the third millennium, mysticism represents an invitation to find our unique and true identity — in God. Like Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila, Thomas Merton, Meister Eckhart, John Ruysbroeck, and many others, Evelyn Underhill speaks to us from the past, but offers timeless wisdom that can illuminate and even transform our spiritual lives today.
Underhill’s English Heritage Plaque, at her London home where she lived for most of her adult life. Photographed by Gwynhafyr. Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC 4.0)
This paper, in a slightly different form, was first presented at the Evelyn Underhill Conference sponsored by the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta’s Institute for Ministry and Theological Education, February 19, 2011, to mark the 100th anniversary of the publication of Underhill’s Mysticism. To purchase a copy of the book, click here. Or, click here to purchase it for your Kindle.
The late Kenneth Leech used to tell the story about giving a lecture at a seminary in America on the topic of race relations, and afterwards a seminarian seemed surprised to learn that he was the “same Kenneth Leech” who wrote books on spirituality. Apparently, the mind of this seminarian couldn’t equate a social-justice Christian with a contemplative-prayer Christian.
But yes, Leech-the-expert-on-racism and Leech-the-expert-on-mysticism were one and the same.
I often have a similar conversation with people who read my writing or attend one of my talks or retreats. These days, while I do some interfaith work, most of my writing and speaking is meant for Catholics or mainline Protestants. I write and speak about topics like Christian mysticism, contemplative prayer, monastic spirituality, and Celtic Christianity. But it doesn’t take a lot of digging on the Internet to discover that I didn’t always write or speak on these topics.
“Are you same Carl McColman who…?”
I know what’s coming when someone says, “When I heard you were going to lead our retreat, I googled you.” That usually leads to some variation of this question: “Are you the same Carl McColman who writes books about Paganism?”
My Pagan books…
The conversation generally goes like this:
“Well, it’s more accurate to say I used to write Pagan books — the last one was written in 2004 and published in 2005. I haven’t written books specifically for Pagan readers since, well, I left the Pagan world to become a Catholic.”
“So you used to be a Pagan.”
“That’s correct.”
“You were into Wicca, Druidism, shamanism, Goddess worship, all that stuff?”
“That’s correct.”
“But isn’t that stuff evil?”
“I think it’s dangerous to apply stereotypes to entire groups. Not all Christians are good, for example.”
Most people get this, and will acknowledge that money-grubbing TV preachers or clergy who abuse children are just two examples of Christians who undermine the integrity of our faith.
I go on. “You could say the same thing about Muslims, or Jews, or Buddhists. Remember the Buddhist who shot those people at the DC Navy Yard? Human nature being what it is, you find good and evil in all walks of life, all groups of people. So, yeah, there are some Pagans whose behavior I consider to be unethical, if not sinful or evil. But many other Pagans are dedicated to good things like building community or fostering environmental sustainability. So I think we need to avoid using simplistic labels.”
“Well, if it’s not evil, why did you leave Paganism?”
“After exploring Paganism for a number of years, I realized I didn’t belong there. My heart belongs to Jesus Christ. I made a mistake when I turned my back on him to pursue a spirituality that regarded him as just one among many spiritual teachers. By returning to Christianity and becoming a Catholic, I profess Jesus as the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, which is to say, a unique expression of God’s love.”
… and my contemplative Christian books.
“What’s a nice Catholic like you doing in the interfaith world?”
Sometimes the conversation will focus not just on my Pagan past, but also my interfaith work, which has continued to the present day. “I saw online that you also do interfaith work.”
“That’s true. And out of that work, I remain deeply respectful of other faiths — all other faiths. Judaism and Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam, Wicca and Taoism, Sikhism and Shinto — as a Catholic Christian, it is my duty to be respectful of all religions, to respectfully criticize what I think is wrong or misguided but to just as respectfully affirm all that is good and true and beautiful. In every faith. And incidentally, the Catholic Catechism supports this perspective.”
“So let me get this straight. You wrote Pagan books, but you are no longer a Pagan. You realized Paganism wasn’t right for you, and that you love and follow Jesus Christ, but you don’t run around calling Paganism bad or evil because you believe it’s important to respect other religions, even minority religions like Paganism.”
“That’s correct. Mind you, I don’t believe ‘anything goes.’ I think it’s wrong to force women to wear birkas, or to practice animal sacrifice like in Santeria, or any other practice that is unjust, exploitative, or abusive. But to the extent that religions provide people with positive meaning, purpose, and ethical guidance, I believe as a Christian it’s my job to be in dialogue with such faith, not in hostile opposition.”
“Do you believe in the devil?”
“Evil is real. Just ask any slave, or abused child, or victim of trafficking or corruption. Whether ‘the devil’ is a sentient being or a mythical embodiment of evil, is, to my mind, irrelevant. We must fight evil either way. But I also think we need to be careful to avoid stereotyping groups of people as ‘good’ or ‘evil’ — instead we should simply oppose evil in whatever form it takes or whatever context it arises, and likewise we should support the good that can be found in whatever context or setting we find it.”
“Well, I have to admit, this all makes me uncomfortable.”
“I’m sorry if it bothers you that I wrote books about non-Christian spirituality over ten years ago, or that I remain committed to positive dialogue between faiths. My exploration of Paganism was a chapter in my life, and I’ve met many Catholics and other Christians who also explore other faiths, for a season or a decade. It’s something many people do. Nowadays, I only talk about Paganism or interfaith dialogue when I am asked to do so by the sponsors of my retreats or classes, and I always do so from the perspective of a committed follower of Jesus Christ. Even when doing interfaith work, I strive to keep my theology, ethics and beliefs well within what is generally accepted as orthodox Christianity. I myself have a spiritual director, a confessor, and numerous teachers and mentors within the Christian world.”
The Main Question
“As a Christian, why should I trust you?” This, really, is the main point behind conversations like this. It’s a great question, and perhaps one that readers should ask of all writers.
Here’s how I answer it:
“As to why you (or anyone) should trust me, what matters more to me is that you trust yourself. If you do that, then you can evaluate my work fairly. I believe that my current work speaks for itself. Read my blog. Read my books published since 2010. And when you attend my retreats or classes, listen to what I have to say with a discerning mind. Frankly, I think we should always practice discernment when listening to any teacher or speaker — even the ones we do trust! Even the best teachers make mistakes, and even the worst teachers come up with good ideas now and then.”
I always try to finish the conversation on a positive note.
“I know that not everyone is drawn to the topics I explore in my work: contemplative prayer, monastic spirituality, Christian mysticism, or Celtic wisdom — and, of course, interfaith dialogue. That’s fine. If this isn’t your cup of theological tea, then please find teachers more to your liking. But I hope you will be able to see that my intention is to promote authentically Christian, while interfaith-friendly, expressions of spirituality, mysticism, and wisdom.”
Generally, a conversation like this satisfies most people. Sometimes I run into people who are so genuinely frightened of interfaith dialogue, or of Paganism, that they simply cannot accept me, even now as a committed Christian. That saddens me, of course. But whenever possible, I like to talk to folks who are willing to hear about my spiritual journey. I love to share my experience: that a lively interest in the wisdom of other religious and philosophical paths, far from lessening my faith in Christ, helps me to become even more devoted to him. And I believe that can be true of anyone who approaches interfaith dialogue with a loving heart, a discerning mind, and a grounded commitment to your own faith.
To learn more about my spiritual journey from Paganism to Catholicism, read After the Magic, originally published on Beliefnet in 2005.
As a young man growing up in the American south, I heard the phrase “God fearing” a lot. As in, “He’s a God fearing man.”
I think it comes from Psalm 111:10: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” or its near corollary, Proverbs 1:7: “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.”
So someone who is “God fearing” is someone, presumably, with wisdom or knowledge: who knows better than to sin, or for that matter to do anything that would offend the Almighty.
It’s not really about somebody who loves God, or who has known the love of God in his or her life. It doesn’t suggest confidence, but rather anxiety. To be God fearing suggests not really knowing if you’ve pleased God or not, so you need to make sure you don’t do the slightest thing that might displease him (and I do mean “him,” — all the rhetoric of fearing God seems to be intimately bound up with a male-gendered way of talking and thinking about God).
Now, I am all for people making choices in their lives that reflect spiritual wisdom rather than narcissistic sin. But I know that I grew up with an idea of God that was, frankly, kind of scary. I saw God as wrathful, punishing, angry, and quick to condemn. I had no problem being afraid of that God. But I sure wasn’t about to love him, either.
I’ve come across spiritual writers over the years who have tried to deconstruct the word in the Hebrew Bible that gets translated as “fear” — yirah — suggesting that it ought to be understood not as angst or dread, but rather should be seen as denoting awe or reverence. This “fear” is similar to the response we might have when contemplating the mystery of death, or the vastness of the cosmos, or the beauty of nature. The awe of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Reverence for God is the foundation of knowledge.
That makes a lot of sense, and I am willing to go with it. But still, the word yirah is used over 300 times in the Hebrew Bible, and the vast majority of times it is translated into English as fear. So it seems to me we’ve got it pretty hard-wired into our religious narrative that God is someone we should be scared of.
But then there’s the first letter of John, especially the fourth chapter.
That’s the chapter where John says, more than once, that “God is Love.” And then, in verses 18 and 19, he really pulls out a zinger:
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us.
As Neo in The Matrix would say: “Whoa!”
So the fear/awe/respect of God represent the beginning of knowledge and wisdom — but if I’m reading John correctly, it’s only the beginning. Because ultimately, love casts out fear, and when we are perfected in love, we have a relationship with God that is based not on fear (or punishment), but on giving back the love which has already been given to us.
There’s a kind of basic logic here. We know that early human cultures (including Hebrew culture) often related to God (or the gods) in terms of sacrifice and propitiation. In other words, humans made offerings to the gods, trying to buy them off, so to speak. We made offerings to secure good fortune, or a bountiful harvest, or to ward off evil. We bargained with God (or the gods). Our relationship with Divinity was grounded in fear. We had to perform the right rituals or make the right sacrifices — or else.
But even in the scope of the Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament) we see that the understanding of God — and God’s dealings with humanity — evolves. Perhaps the watershed moment comes in the prophetic writings, where we see verses like Hosea 6:6: “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings” and Micah 6:8: “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
So even if we begin with fear, awe, reference, a kind of holy dread which recognizes that God is a whole lot bigger than we are — Biblical spirituality seems to suggest that we don’t drop anchor there; but that we move from being God fearing to a place of God loving where the heart of spirituality is not fear or sacrifice, but is love, justice, mercy, kindness, humility, and knowledge of God (all of which sounds mighty contemplative to me).
But if this is the trajectory of spiritual development, then why did we praise people for being “God fearing”? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to laud someone for being “God loving”?
This brings me to the point of today’s post. It occurs to me that, even though the heart of Christian spirituality is the love of God, many people remain stuck in fearing a God who punishes, rather than trusting a God who loves.
God is a mystery. God is bigger than human language, human thought, human imagination. So we all, all of us, relate to God through images of God, which we either concoct on our own or inherit from our families, churches, or even society at large.
Everyone — even agnostics and atheists — has an image of God (just because you don’t believe doesn’t mean you don’t have a mental image about the God you don’t believe in). Our image of God shapes how we think about God, how we understand religion, our understanding of ethics and morality, and yes, our spirituality. It shapes how we pray (if we pray), and how we approach meditation, contemplation, and mysticism.
If you have an image of God that is anchored in fear — fear of a God who punishes, who condemns sinners, who is angry at those who disobey in even the smallest of ways — then this will shape every aspect of your identity and behavior as a person of faith. And you will be communicating, consciously or unconsciously, with everyone you come into contact with, that you fear a God who is fearful.
Chances are, you will try to control other people, for no other reason then your belief that if they don’t shape up, they will face the wrath of the punishing God. So, in a rather twisted way, your attempts to control other people is your way of showing you care. Of course, most people don’t want to be controlled, and will respond to your efforts to control them by trying to put as much distance between you and them as possible.
But does your image of God have to be so fearful? So punishing? So… wrathful? Sure, you can point to plenty of Bible passages that promote precisely that kind of God-image. I know they’re there. But to every one of them, I reply, “I John 4:18-19.” When we settle for a fear-based image of God, our love is not yet perfected. We still have some growing to do, some learning to do, some maturing to do. We need to truly discover God’s vast and lavish love for us — so that we can in turn love God back, and love others, and even love ourselves and our enemies.
I am convinced that when a person’s image of God is anchored in fear, he or she is handicapped when it comes to love. They don’t do a very good job at loving God, their neighbors, themselves, or (especially) their enemies. They might love some — even the world’s greatest sinners still were capable of some degree of loving. But it’s a limited love, a broken love. It’s not grounded in the love that flows to us from God, enabling and empowering us to love.
I don’t want to overstate this distinction. A spirituality grounded in the love of God is not an “anything goes” spirituality, where rules no longer matter and morality is abandoned. Far from it! But when spirituality and faith are grounded in the love of God rather than the fear of God, then what naturally follows is a morality and a way of life that is likewise grounded in love. From our sexual behavior to our dealings with money to the way we relate to people who are different from ourselves, our choices and commitments will be anchored in love. Which is to say, anchored in compassion, in justice, in mercy, in forgiveness, in peace and joy and kindness. We will still live by an understanding of right and wrong. But we will be motivated by the love of the good, not fear of the evil.
So my friends — how is your image of God? Maybe most of us have messy and sometimes even contradictory images of God, blending elements of fear and elements of love together. Perhaps this is something to reflect on in your own spiritual practice. How is your image of God? What can you do to retire your fear, and foster your love — knowing that the love you share comes from the love that God has given you?
I invite you to pray about your image of God. And to ask God to bless you with an image that is grounded and anchored in love.
In his 1981 book Concern for the Church, Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner made his famous prediction, “the Christian of the future will be a mystic or he will not exist at all.”
A third of a century later, has Rahner’s prediction come to pass? The “not exist at all” part seems ominously real, as more and more congregations face declining membership, a shortage of priests, nuns, monks and volunteers, and difficulty raising enough money to pay for clergy salaries or building maintenance. But I think Rahner was trying to challenge followers of Jesus Christ to think outside the ecclesiastical box and envision new ways of spiritual living and faithful discipleship to re-shape our identity as Christians, both as individuals and as a Church.
With this in mind, I’d like to offer seven hopes that I have for the Christian — and Church — of the future. (more…)
