Friday, April 16, 2010

Authority of the Word of God I

I am a mystic.  I suspect that I have always been a mystic. Mysticism and fundamentalism are about as diametrically opposed as it is possible for two approaches to the Sacred to be.  Fundamentalism is by definition and by history a rigid adherence to a pre-determined set of legalisms, whereas mysticism is knowledge of the divine by direct experience. I can tell you from long experience that it is categorically impossible to be both mystical and evangelical, even in theory, most certainly in practice.

From the time of my earliest memories I have been highly intuitive, even psychic.  Such things are anathema to evangelical fundamentalism.  My father himself was named after two of the major authors and an editor of The Fundamentals (the set of essays in the early 20th Century that gave the movement its name).  Staunch doctrinal legalism was obviously important to his family and he passed it along the generations.

Prime among the fundamental doctrinal statements is sola scriptura, which declares that the bible is inerrant, infallible, historically literal, the very Word of God and, indeed, the only source by which God may be known. I obviously had knowledge of things beyond my ken.  When that knowledge didn’t corroborate the bible interpretations being preached, where did that leave me? I can tell you exactly: sitting in the back pew with my mother, worried desperately that I was a witch, that I wasn’t really saved, even that I was possessed by Satan.

Not knowing, or acknowledging, that there was any kind of True Christian other than evangelical fundamentalist, I stuffed my mysticism, my intuitive and psychic knowledge, into the deepest darkest closets of my very Being.  Where, of course, it leaked out constantly to disrupt my practice of Christianity!  Oh, how I prayed that God would take away these weird feelings, these visions, the dreams, the knowledge I had of people and of Life Itself.  And how I wished I had been born in Bible Times when it was still possible, permissible, to hear God directly, to be a prophet.  Everything I was seemed much better suited to some other Dispensation than these Almost End Times (or at the very least some other gender).

Religion, mostly evangelical Christianity but really all religions that I studied, always tries to tell me how to know God—what must I do, actions I must take, doctrinal statements I must believe, attitudes and behaviors I must model, in order to be in fellowship with God. The practice of religion is supposed to make possible a connection to the Sacred Other that is Beyond Me.

But the place where I begin my spiritual seeking (my Fundamental, as it were) is to notice that I already have a relationship with Something Beyond Myself that I call God, or The Divine when I want to differentiate from a specific conventional concept of God.  I am a mystic looking to reconcile my experience--what I know that I know that I know--with the intellectual exercise and physical practice of religion.

As a mystic, my ultimate standard of Truth is this experience of the relationship that I already have, rather than a particular canon of scripture or set of doctrinal statements.  My experience of God is so essential and visceral that I can only describe its validity as similar to the validity of knowing that water is wet.  Wetness is not a quality that you can define or explain.  You can learn the chemical formula for water, or the phase changes of the water cycle, you can learn the uses of water; but you cannot learn Wet.  I know God like I know Wet.  

When I read other people's opinions of the nature of spiritual reality--whether that is the bible or other writings--I compare that to what I already know.  When I read other mystics, whether Christian or not, we all sound the same.  Our words are not always the same but there is this quality of knowing the Divine that is so visceral as to be indescribable.  But when I read theologians, they are always trying to define and delimit what my experience should be.  It often feels like going to school for years to learn all about the properties of water and all the stuff water can do before being allowed to walk outside to step into the stream and JUST GET WET.

That's the number one reason that I don't trust the bible to be the Word Of God but rather lots of words about other people's experiences with God--extremely valuable in their own right but not at all the same thing as an ultimate spiritual authority.  If the bible, or any other teacher, doesn't jive with what I already know about Wet, I will search long and hard to reconcile the differences but the final authority for me is, for lack of a fuller description, that still small voice that speaks to me on my very breath.

And that is only the first of many ways in which I am a heretic.

12 comments:

  1. You wrote:
    "When I read other people's opinions of the nature of spiritual reality--whether that is the bible or other writings--I compare that to what I already know. When I read other mystics, whether Christian or not, we all sound the same. Our words are not always the same but there is this quality of knowing the Divine that is so visceral as to be indescribable. But when I read theologians, they are always trying to define and delimit what my experience should be. It often feels like going to school for years to learn all about the properties of water and all the stuff water can do before being allowed to walk outside to step into the stream and JUST GET WET."

    Forgive the analogy, but it is much like sex and sexuality. In a sterile environment and in physiological language we can break down, term by term, step by step, the act of sex. The resulting image can lead one to conclude that lovemaking is as rote as scratching an elbow. The truth is, however, that sex is so much more and involves the whole being ~ mind, heart, body and soul ~ and depending on the individual and the moment, can be joyful, hurtful, playful, intense. Every person sees, feels, and experiences it differently although we can speak the same language and use the same words.

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  2. I think there are a lot of comparisons to be made between religion/spirituality and sex. I suspect that organized religion has always made such issues around the regulation of sexuality because it is both so sacred and so profane, just as the practice of religion can be so sacred and so profane.

    Instead of allowing that both practices can comprise both poles and then some, it has profited the institutions of religion to polarize between practices rather than within practices. By designating sex as entirely profane, it is easier to represent all (of the approved) religious practice as sacred.

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  3. When I took a Theology course from a fundamentalist college, I likened this "study of God" to trying to get to know a person by autopsy: cutting into deep tissue and categorizing all you find into names and definitions. It tells you nothing of the person that inhabits the body.

    We are alike and yet different, Sandra. I consider myself a Christian mystic, because all of my mystical experiences (visions and indescribable direct knowledge of the Person of God, knowings about people and situations that to me comes directly from my connection to the Holy Spirit) have been in harmony with key passages of the Bible. Actually the words pop out at the page to me when the Holy Spirit is using them to talk to me. It's very personal and very real.

    I am a fellow heretic because I think it's ridiculous to claim that your personal experience has no bearing on what you believe. If that's what sola scriptura means, then it's foolishness. Every single person in the Bible narrative based their faith on direct personal revelation of God. Anyone who believes they are connected to the Divine presence of God, or shall we say indwelt by the Holy Spirit, who has no direct personal mystical experience of the person of God is just fooling themselves.

    As one author put it, the Bible declares to us about God. The Bible is not God. Worshiping doctrine over the reality of God is idolatry, imho. It is worshiping the sign that points to the reality, rather than the reality itself.

    I was not raised fully fundamentalist. There was enough charismatic in my background to allow for divine mystical experiences. Thank God for that!

    My husband was raised strict fundamentalist, and it has screwed him over in so many ways. He gave up the doctrine of dispensationalism when he got to college and met Spirit-filled people. Thank God.

    I also showed him how the whole rapture nonsense was made up by proof-texting, and he is coming to realize HOW MUCH of what he was taught was "the conviction of God" was just emotional manipulation and fear-mongering.

    He is a very wounded person. :(

    Yes, sex is meant to be an expression of the Divine in his people. Love encompassing all aspects of our reality: body, soul and spirit.

    When I talk about God, I try not to use Christianese. I call him the Divine Love at those times, but I also call him Jesus.

    The thing is, when you have had those moments of God invading your space and revealing a part of Himself to you, it changes everything. He is all the things Jesus said He was: completely good, merciful, extremely grand and powerful, and LOVE LOVE LOVE!

    That's my experience anyway. I love your experience Sandra. Thanks for sharing it with the cyber-world. It gives me hope today. And I needed hope today!

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  4. ps I have used this analogy before:

    God is so great, I felt as tiny as a baby flea.

    And good is so purely good, I was aware of my own sin and realized I was baby flea shit compared to this goodness.

    And all at that same moment in time, I knew that I knew that I knew that this little baby flea crap was GOD'S FAVORITE THING IN THE WHOLE UNIVERSE!

    That's how it felt when the Divine Love reached down and rescued me, and all at once in a way words can't really describe.

    Sound familiar? =D

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  5. shadowspring said:

    God is so great, I felt as tiny as a baby flea.

    And good is so purely good, I was aware of my own sin and realized I was baby flea shit compared to this goodness.

    Sandra says:

    I've heard these sorts of analogies before and this is the place where I get stuck (based in part in my own insecurities and in part from other teachings I got in church)--where I am fly speck. I never get to the next part where fly speck is God's favorite flavor. I can't get past the judgement, the "eww" factor.

    When I can learned to rewrite the analogy without the "eww", something like I::God = one grain of sand::the universe, something that pivots more on God finding significance in the most insignificant rather than the gross-out, I can intellectualize the Love.

    Really, though I had to have the experience of Feeling the Love (and for a lot of years) before I could even think in those kinds of analogies at all without triggering back into what I call the "Worm Theology" that focusses more on the wormliness, the fly speckhood, of man than on the being loved by God.

    It was when I started trusting my own mystical experiences of Love over the teachings I was getting from the Word of God that I could understand this analogy.

    I am just beginning to see that other people don't have that sort of reaction to the fly speck analogies and that their connection to the Divine is truly deepened by meditating thusly.

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  6. shadowspring said:

    I consider myself a Christian mystic, because all of my mystical experiences ... have been in harmony with key passages of the Bible.

    Sandra said:

    I too find validation in the Bible. I've never had a vision or experience that didn't have precedent or explanation in the Bible. My problems came when there was other stuff in the Bible that contradicted (or at least I was taught the interpretation that contradicted) the other passages and my experiences.

    I have more to say on this but I think I'll turn it into it's own follow up post.

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  7. Yay! Can't wait to read it!

    Sorry that my choice of words don't resonate with you. It is impossible for words to do justice to the experience. LOL- I don't like the grain of sand words because sand is inorganic.

    And, too, it is highly possible that because the flop house in which I was living at the time was infested with fleas, that it has influenced greatly the words I initially chose to describe what I experienced.

    After I posted the word "sin" I wanted to take it out too. I used to use the word "holy" instead of the words "pure goodness" to describe that aspect of what I experienced of God, but I switched them out because people have very different definitions of "holy" that aren't at all good.

    What I experienced of God was pure goodness- no hint of malice or judgement or recriminations or accusations. No meanness or pettiness or grudging. Nothing but pure goodness.

    What I meant when I used the word "sin" was that in the presence of this pure goodness I was aware of all that was petty and mean and grudging and cruel in me. The contrast was evident, but I did not feel rejected for it nor called out for it in anyway.

    On the contrary, with the truth about my smallness and God's greatness obvious, with the truth about God's goodness and my not-always-goodness to plain, the delight of God in knowing and loving me was overwhelming!

    I don't meditate on my inadequacy to describe God, I only meditate on who He has revealed himself to be to me. I apologize if my completely fumbling and inadequate words trip anyone up.

    Live loved. n_n

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  8. After leaving mormonism and fundamentalism, and finding myself a 58 year old woman who simply wants to learn to love and bring more peace into my life and into others, for me, not for all, but for me, a universalist approach has brought me where I need to be right now. I still belong with my Presbyterian congregation, because they accept all, atheists, gays, anyone, and we are so involved in social justice that I find my inner calling complete. And I am never questioned about my doctrine being different than theirs. I think we all have to find that place of inner peace, wherever it may be.

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  9. In the Lutheran Church, from which the term “sola scripture” comes, it does not imply inerrancy as much as not allowing the scriptures to be relegated to a place of importance less than other things. Luther was strong on this simply because the Roman Church was ignoring scripture or saying that their ideas (like indulgences) superseded it. That’s as I recall it, anyway. The article you link to states that it is the “doctrine that the Bible contains all knowledge necessary for salvation and holiness.”

    Terry Gray

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  10. I am finding that most of the doctrine that is so stridently upheld by Evangelicalism is much more liberal in its original context than in its practice today. I do believe that the bible contains everything necessary for salvation and holiness, but I also believe that the complete works of Shakespeare or CG Jung or the Vedas contain all the knowledge necessary for salvation and holiness. Maybe I should reference something else besides sola scriptura when I mean a doctrine of inerrancy and the Bible IS the Word of God?

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  11. Whoa! "Shakepeare, Jung, Vedas?" I think you’ve passed me by on that one. Possibly you’d like to elucidate a bit on it.

    Terry Gray

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  12. The works of art that still touch us deeply, especially works that were created in a different time and culture, endure precisely because they speak of the profound things that all humanity must confront regardless of time or culture. I think it is the contemplation of these profound questions of meaning that leads to “salvation” (which, as I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I don’t define theologically but rather as it is understood in literature and art). The fact that you can still buy works of Shakespeare in any bookstore four hundred years after they were produced, or English translations of medieval Sufi poetry or, even more ancient and maybe not in every bookstore, the Vedas from which Hinduism developed, is strong evidence that these works help us to find meaning out of our conscious existence. Maybe Jung is a bit of a stretch because his works have yet to stand the test of time and culture—I just really like Jungian psychology as a mythology through which to understand the interplay between the individual and the Divine.

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