City May 14, 2009 9:16 AM

Theological Thursdays: God and Community

Rev. Drew 12

Here's my thesis: the way we perceive God can and will affect the way we organize ourselves as people.

If God is seen as a King, a ruler, a judge - an authority, then power structures (religious and political) will likely reflect that. For some, "because the Bishop said so" is all the reason needed to take action.

Others see God as spirit, wind, presence. For them, hearing from God means listening to what is happening in the world, contemplation, and listening to other people - who God may be speaking through. The community discernment that goes on when a big decision is made, is reflective of this pattern. While the best example of this is likely the Society of Friends (often called "Quakers"), who make all decisions based on consensus, it can also be seen in other traditions.

All Christians see God in Jesus Christ, but Jesus had a very different approach to power and government. On one hand, he did not resist the governing powers of his day - on the other, he seemed to dismiss them as irrelevant.

Because Christians see God in all three of these ways, it is easy to understand why we so often argue with one another - even as we proclaim God as one. Some churches organize "top down" and others "bottom up" - most try to find a way that is a blend of both.

You can see, in community organizations, the same tension. The people need to be heard, and they need to participate, if there is to be a movement. I believe that Buffalo Rising is a popular site because there is a diversity of posters and commentors.

On the other hand, there is also an identity, and leadership. Your voice can be heard, but the focus remains: local and positive, and a power structure exists to ensure those core values are followed.

Now, I know better than to think that a theological foundation was laid out before the site was created, but I also know that these values come from somewhere. My assertion is that healthy communities follow that dictum on our coins, "E Pluribis Unum," out of many - one.

There are other paths to create unity in diversity, in other religions and without religion, and you are welcome to explain them - and challenge mine. For me, Christianity represents this perfectly - One God, but three persons. Logically, it is difficult to perceive, but a God who exists in relationship is a good foundation for understanding a world where we must live in relationship.

As we consider our own beliefs, and our own actions, we have to ask ourselves? I am a dictator? A follower? A participant? A challenging voice? A consensus builder? A vision caster? Does your practice tend to the emphasize the many - or the one? If you've gone too far in one direction (dictatorship or chaos) it might be because your understanding of spiritual power needs re-consideration.

View image

Comments

12 Comments Leave a comment

PaulBuffalo

May 14, 2009 10:20 AM

'Logically, it is difficult to perceive, but a God who exists in relationship is a good foundation for understanding a world where we must live in relationship.'

Well, many believe that man created the concept of a god to understand a challenging world. (The virgin birth story and the idea of resurrection, for example, were already found in many cultures throughout the world before Christianity came upon the scene.)

Confucious was asked about god and he replied that he didn't understand man, so how could he be expected to understand god? Rather than using god as a barometer, I would instead focus strictly on the various man-made religions as the culprits. What's not to say that religious rules and customs (that have been piled one on top of the other through time) have prevented one coherent and established community from getting along with another coherent and established community? (Christian versus Jew versus Muslim is the obvious example.) Filtering our concept of god and our world through the invented religions may make it more difficult to work with others.

[ Reply ]

Score: 0 ( 0 votes )

Sushia

May 14, 2009 12:22 PM

I think PaulBuffalo has a great point, that filtering our concept of a god, creator or whomever as the greatest possibility to separate us from and make working with others more difficult. I think history is littered with stories of people whom, through the self evaluation and sometimes superior thought of their religion has shaped, changed or eliminated others.
Confucisous's statement about not being able to understand a god as we he did not understand man is a great statement, no one person could every truly say they understand man due to the level of difficulty and diversity that our species has.
For myself I have gone to far in one direction however religion did not pull me out, what drove me back to the other side of the scale was lots work self work and understanding of my own history, my state of mind. In my current state I am no more religious or less then I was before.

[ Reply ]

Score: 0 ( 0 votes )

Rev. Drew

May 14, 2009 12:41 PM

Of course, religious rules and customs have divided people, but at the same time, they can and do unite people. I don't really see it as possible to live without a system to your belief, whether or not you call that system a religion.

At the same time, we must realize that every system is limited, and often (always?) needs to be reformed.

But without a system of belief, there is no baseline to critque another system of belief? Religion has divided people and killed them? Absolutely. Why is that a problem? Your answer to that will point you to what your religion is.

Perhaps Confucius was unable to understand humankind, because he did not look at the whole (humankind in relationship with God). Because so many people believe in a God, understanding people without considering that context is almost like trying to understand men without understanding women.

When you understand the object of a person's belief and/or devotion, you understand them better. I think this might even be at the heart of my writing here.

[ Reply ]

Score: 0 ( 0 votes )

nick

May 14, 2009 1:04 PM

I think the question is from where does your system of belief eminate and are not religious rules and customs only larger constructs of any type of community? Any community from the nuclear family, through a neighborhood, city, stadium of fans at a sporting event are a community with common beliefs and constructs.

I guess as I've grown away from the church, and its comforts of faith, my system of belief has become myself, not in a selfish way, but in that I can control what I do, whom I affect and how I treat others. Although so many people believe in God, or some construct of a higher being, as you say everyone has different dogmas, and in the end it comes down to the individual. Humankind is all encompasing and I think takes away from indivdual responsibility. I may have a better understanding of someone if I know their faith, or it may cause confusion in actually getting to know someone by covering actions and thoughts with professed dogmas and titles.

[ Reply ]

replied to Rev. Drew

Score: 0 ( 0 votes )

PaulBuffalo

May 14, 2009 2:09 PM

Perhaps, Confucius didn't claim an understanding of god because he didn't believe in the concept of a personal god (i.e. a god that answers prayers and communicates with the adherent on an intimate level). In spite of his humility regarding god and man, his legacy proves that he did indeed have a good understanding of human nature.

I mentioned the Confucius reference to suggest that religion can actually get in the way of our understanding of each other and, to a degree, reality. Religious practices taken literally (for example, the Catholic concept of transubstantiation wherein the wafer becomes the literal body and blood of Christ) had an impact in a time when people needed such rituals to explain a world before science. How many people are now going through the motions of hollow beliefs in a world that is now round?

Do we need a belief system? Yes, if only in the sense of it being a framework of rules or practices upon which we generally conduct our lives. Does it have to mean religion or devotion? No. Do I have a better understanding of someone because I can identify them as Christian, Jew, Muslim or Hindu? Perhaps, when I'm speaking with an observant devotee. However, people have so many layers that we cannot be understood by religion alone as we cannot be understood by politics or race alone. Personally, I've found understanding only when these mental and societal bits of armor are taken off by all parties involved and common human traits are shared. (It's best done over a good meal.) Isn't that why we all want to be like children who have not yet built these walls? Our belief system is really our survival system and it emanates from protecting ourselves against the fear and suffering to which we are all born. Those very human traits are usually obscured behind the layers we've built on top of them, including our gods.

[ Reply ]

replied to Rev. Drew

Score: 0 ( 0 votes )

Rev. Drew

May 14, 2009 4:05 PM

Interesting. Yes, I know that Confucius had a great knowledge of humanity, so I guess I was just being snarky by taking him literally when that clearly wasn't the intent behind the quote.

I fully agree that the best way to understand a person is to share a meal with them and be as honest as you can possibly bear. And yes, for many, faith is armor that people built up around themselves to protect themselves.

But that is not what faith has to be, nor should it be. What I see in Christ (forgive me again for always bringing it back to Christianity, but I write what I know) is one who's faith led to him not hiding, not attacking, but making himself a servant, and a vulnerable one at that.

Faith has given people the motivation to kill, but it also gave Martin Luther King Jr., and countless others, to lay their life on the line for somebody else. It can protect us from fear and suffering, or motivate us to enter it and do something about it.

[ Reply ]

Score: 0 ( 0 votes )

PaulBuffalo

May 14, 2009 5:01 PM

You raise a good point that people use faith to overcome their fears and that's a powerful motivator, to be sure. When I visit churches in Mexico, some of the very old Spanish displays of a wax or wood Christ figure being crucified are quite graphic -- in some cases too graphic for a modern American audience. The displays are simple illustrations that encourage us to recognize the acknowledgement of suffering and the ability to rise above it.

You might find the Jose Saramago novel 'The Gospel According to Jesus Christ' interesting. It raises the question of whether Jesus' faith was relevant to a deathly outcome that was pre-ordained. Faith has given people courage, but love -- without any attachment to a god -- has been the impetus for courageous acts, too.

I would probably find more in common with you on a bike ride than I ever would through the veil of religion. (I'm a helmet-less afficionado, too.)

[ Reply ]

replied to Rev. Drew

Score: 0 ( 0 votes )

Lorem Ipsum

May 14, 2009 6:19 PM

Really enjoying this series, Drew. PaulBuffalo keeps saying what I think, only better.

A few observations: all religions are belief systems but not all belief systems are religions. As in: all Buffalonians are New Yorkers but not all New Yorkers are Buffalonians. To be called a religion, belief in a deity or supernatural being is required. Free market economics and dialectical materialism are two examples of influential but God-free belief systems. As a nontheist, I absolutely have a belief system, but I resent it when believers counter that this makes me "religious," too.

Also: Drew, you're dead right that metaphors can either expand or narrow our thinking, and therefore our conduct. Since metaphors are an element of language, what you are getting at is that language shapes perception.

Here's a good definition of metaphor:

"a figure of speech in which one thing is referred to as another; for example, 'my love is a fragile flower.'" From:
kmhs.typepad.com/parrott_ap_english_langua/files/rhetorical_terms.doc

[ Reply ]

Score: 0 ( 0 votes )

PaulBuffalo

May 14, 2009 7:17 PM

Lorem raises an important point regarding language and perception. The poster child of the inability to fully convey perception through language was Antonin Artaud, the 20th century French philosopher/actor. He really destroyed himself in his passionate attempt to fully explain his thoughts. I think his life magnified the flaw in the human experience because we can never explain ourselves adequately through language. It's why the Greeks put the poets above the philosophers, priests, government officials, and artists: poets came the closest to expressing and shining light on the human experience. (It's interesting that modern society has essentially tossed poets into the corner.)

The reason I brought up the shared experience of the meal earlier is because it's a ritual that everyone understands and can appreciate. The religious experience succeeds, in no small part, because it has invented satisfying rituals. Dry texts can only go so far. We learn to understand and bond in our physical actions and engagement with family and the larger community. Understanding people of other faiths and beliefs can be accomplished when we go beyond those faiths and beliefs and engage in simple tasks like going on a bicycle ride together.

[ Reply ]

Score: 0 ( 0 votes )

Lorem Ipsum

May 14, 2009 9:17 PM

Agreed, Drew, we all have some sort of belief system and mine, like everyone else's, may obscure as much as it illuminates the world around me. I happen to think that not relying on a supernatural power to explain the world is more illuminating than obscuring, but everyone secretly knows that their beliefs represent reality better than the next guy's.

PaulBuffalo, I'll venture an uninformed guess that the reason Antonin Artaud (who I know nothing about) was so frustrated was because he put the cart before the horse. I hold that language precedes thought or structures perception, as per Sapir-Whorf:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir_Whorf

Meaning that people usually do not or cannot perceive what they have no words for. If you do not know what a Palladian window is, you will never see one until someone points one out or you learn it from a book or website. Then you suddenly see them all over Buffalo.

[ Reply ]

replied to PaulBuffalo

Score: 0 ( 0 votes )

PaulBuffalo

May 14, 2009 10:16 PM

Well, Artaud assuredly suffered from mental illness, too, because language and perception became such a singular focus. Peyote was also involved. It gets murky. His writings induce severe headaches.

I don't see that language precedes perception, but I do agree that language confirms our perceptions. We can't acknowledge what we cannot experience. However, if we can't express our perception of an event clearly does that mean that our perception was cloudy? I don't go along with that part. Language is a tool as you mention with the window example, but the perception doesn't occur until we actually experience the window. The baby perceives the parents, and the baby later uses language to confirm the perception of the parents. Isn't language used in the formation of memory?

I'm intrigued by the linguistic theory that different languages reflect different perceptions. Don't the Inuit have over 20 words for snow? I would've figured that Buffalonians would have at least a handful, too, by now. (So many wonderful things to learn and ponder, yet not enough time.)

[ Reply ]

replied to Lorem Ipsum

Score: 0 ( 0 votes )

Rev. Drew

May 14, 2009 7:31 PM

@Paul I'll look for the book--I have a vacation coming up and I could use a good read. I'd also enjoy a ride, even though I promised to start wearing a helmet.

@Lorem
Glad you like the series. I guess I can't call you religious anymore, but whatever it is we are, all of humanity works through some lens, system, and/or assumption. If you are evaluating an other system without acknowledging your own (a particular weakness of some of my brothers and sisters), you've got problems--nobody can do theology objectively. Objectively evaluating another theology, however, isn't my goal. I don't see the goal of theology as winning the argument, but living a life that is a faithful response to what has been revealed.

(That being said--I like to win the argument,even if I shouldn't)

[ Reply ]

Score: 0 ( 0 votes )