Well said! My grandmother, the Finnish Sami, also said what Goethe said whenever her son, my father, tried to evangelize her. “Mine is a private faith, I have my own Christianity. “. To him, an evangelical, Christianity wasn’t private! It had to be shouted from the rooftops and everyone, except those destined for hell, had to be converted so Jesus could come back and take us from this wretched earth( our Mother) asap! It was all up to us! Although we loved the idea of Sovereignty, because some people, who we hated, were going to burn in hell forever!
What a shitshow.
I channel my grandmother. Or perhaps she channeled me! After all we do live in an eternal Presence(present). I’m never quite sure where the beginning ends and end begins. And I love it that way.
Thank you for being there at the conference and in my heart.
Bravo and thank you Michael. This business of implicitly or explicitly outsourcing our individual responsibilities to others or to the idols -- thank you for bringing this home again. The opposite is a mantle we choose to shoulder and seems to me to be a spiritual praxis that occurs in cycles of intimacy and cycles of distance. Sometimes we are very awake and intimate with the phenomenology and with seeing our patterns, and sometimes we cease being present or cease grappling with the ideas and with reality, and coast -- the lazy way. Thank you for this mid-fall Druid gaze. It's really enlivening. I look forward to being with your conference talk.
I still figure that the Light as such can be phenomenologically disclosed, but not the specific information that the Light is the man called Jesus who lived in a particular place and time. That would be the Good News, learned via external testimony. And then we can match that up with what we do see directly: it's like a double helix model of Nature and Scripture.
I have often thought about the question in your subheading, and I would answer that yes, such disclosure is possible, but for those whom the Spirit has already regenerated through the preaching of the Word. We often think of a Christian as "someone who already gets it," but I don't think this is true 99 times out of a 100 for baptized believers, who, despite their ignorance and failings, having heard the promise and cling to it (however feebly), are Christians indeed. The life of a Christian *is* that sort of phenomenological disclosure of Christ.
But before conversion, being dead in our sins and given over to a depraved mind, humanity must first encounter the preached Word. This perhaps irritates us who are inclined toward mysticism, the hermetic tradition, or other such forms of direct experience, but it seems that God has ordained that the spoken, explicit proclamation of the law (revealing our sinfulness before a holy God) and the gospel (giving people the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of our sins) is integral to it all.
I think that there is perhaps some crossover here with the idea of “Spiritual Materialism” a la Chögyam Trungpa; where we use our spirituality as a tool which reinforces our sense of self.
"Part of my own spiritual journey, as I have mentioned before, is to see if an organic, phenomenological disclosure of Christianity is possible. My experience tells me that it is. If it is true, as Gerard Manley Hopkins proposes, that “The world is charged with the grandeur of God,” then it would seem impossible that an organic, phenomenological experience—a proof, if you will—of the divine could not be a reality. The problem, of course, as I and the Sophiologists who have come before me have found, is that when we return to the world and the marketplace of religious ideas, we find that the interpretive traditions into which we have been born, initiated, or conscripted do not have the available landscape to house such insights. Which is why many of us who have arrived at such insights are branded heretics. In an earlier age, we would have been burned at the stake—and I know that many entrammeled by their own idolatry would burn us now if political conditions allowed. So maybe being born into such times as our own is a blessing."
“Jesus went aside in nature to pray to the Father. The New Testament says that through Jesus by the Spirit we also have ready access to the Father. Simply standing before the Father feeling and knowing his personal loving Isness and being refreshed and enlivened, along with speaking to him, works for me. There is also divination in the original sense - receiving counsel and guidance.”
I shared the above at John Michael Greer’s discussion space in response to a request for advice on a daily spiritual practice. The person was trying out Neopaganism coming from a Catholic upbringing.It’s a pleasant eclectic space with people from varied viewpoints. ecosophia.net
I realize that just because my experience is real and “phenomenological” for me doesn’t mean I can demand that it be real for others so I just share my own phenomena and aim to not go to that condemning Pharisee place.
I have a very old friend who is an interfaith evangelical minister, grew up in LA in Catholicism, writes books, taught, and is a mountaineer and sports person. He runs groups for atheists and travels to spread the gospel. He is utterly patient when I say heretical things like "all of theology is idolatry" or "how do you explain Paula White?" His last suggestion to me was to read How God Becomes Real: Kindling the presence of invisible others by T.H. Luhrmann. I think this author may set aside the truth claims of faith, so that has to be ignored, but the ideas and practices sound really insightful, though I haven't read it yet. But your lovely thoughtful essay made me think of it, in terms of addressing phenomenology.
Regarding Goethe, it’s also true that he was a great admirer of the Quran and the Prophet, which may have colored his views about Christ. Considering how “heavy” many of the pronouncements in the Quran can be (which I discovered after my temporary sojourn in a Sufi order years ago), I’m not sure to make of Goethe rejecting the Church’s dogmas. What do you think of Goethe’s relationship to Islam? What might his "private Christianity" have been?
I had to look up inhere. I like your piece but I’m trying to remember why I turned on a path that includes going to church and, for about forty years, preaching. It was an accessible path. I loved many of the people and felt loved. Also, spared certain harms. About idols and icons, I hate idols because they have strangled me. Am going to think about them a little differently today.
Finally got my mind wrapped around what phenomenology is. A real understanding of what you mean by sophianology beyond there is some sort of mother goddess out there eludes me. She, in your opinion being pretty much censored out of the New Testament and in first few centuries early Christianity as it was formulated. Feel free to enlighten and/or correct me.
Like how Jesus is presented in the Gospels I am a Father/Holy Spirit focused guy. My approach is Jesus as my elder brother, whom I am to listen to and obey, firstborn among many brethren, and being a co-heir I walk with him as a fellow son of God, growing in knowing the Father as he did. Here is the core of my objection to Hesychasm Jesus plainly taught the focus of prayer is the Father with Jesus as our way and means to draw close to the quite accessible Father, our being baptized into the body of Christ being the free, ready, and gracious link instead of a years long gradual attainment.
Well said! My grandmother, the Finnish Sami, also said what Goethe said whenever her son, my father, tried to evangelize her. “Mine is a private faith, I have my own Christianity. “. To him, an evangelical, Christianity wasn’t private! It had to be shouted from the rooftops and everyone, except those destined for hell, had to be converted so Jesus could come back and take us from this wretched earth( our Mother) asap! It was all up to us! Although we loved the idea of Sovereignty, because some people, who we hated, were going to burn in hell forever!
What a shitshow.
I channel my grandmother. Or perhaps she channeled me! After all we do live in an eternal Presence(present). I’m never quite sure where the beginning ends and end begins. And I love it that way.
Thank you for being there at the conference and in my heart.
love you
Bravo and thank you Michael. This business of implicitly or explicitly outsourcing our individual responsibilities to others or to the idols -- thank you for bringing this home again. The opposite is a mantle we choose to shoulder and seems to me to be a spiritual praxis that occurs in cycles of intimacy and cycles of distance. Sometimes we are very awake and intimate with the phenomenology and with seeing our patterns, and sometimes we cease being present or cease grappling with the ideas and with reality, and coast -- the lazy way. Thank you for this mid-fall Druid gaze. It's really enlivening. I look forward to being with your conference talk.
I still figure that the Light as such can be phenomenologically disclosed, but not the specific information that the Light is the man called Jesus who lived in a particular place and time. That would be the Good News, learned via external testimony. And then we can match that up with what we do see directly: it's like a double helix model of Nature and Scripture.
I have often thought about the question in your subheading, and I would answer that yes, such disclosure is possible, but for those whom the Spirit has already regenerated through the preaching of the Word. We often think of a Christian as "someone who already gets it," but I don't think this is true 99 times out of a 100 for baptized believers, who, despite their ignorance and failings, having heard the promise and cling to it (however feebly), are Christians indeed. The life of a Christian *is* that sort of phenomenological disclosure of Christ.
But before conversion, being dead in our sins and given over to a depraved mind, humanity must first encounter the preached Word. This perhaps irritates us who are inclined toward mysticism, the hermetic tradition, or other such forms of direct experience, but it seems that God has ordained that the spoken, explicit proclamation of the law (revealing our sinfulness before a holy God) and the gospel (giving people the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of our sins) is integral to it all.
Excellent post Michael!
I think that there is perhaps some crossover here with the idea of “Spiritual Materialism” a la Chögyam Trungpa; where we use our spirituality as a tool which reinforces our sense of self.
Agreed
"Part of my own spiritual journey, as I have mentioned before, is to see if an organic, phenomenological disclosure of Christianity is possible. My experience tells me that it is. If it is true, as Gerard Manley Hopkins proposes, that “The world is charged with the grandeur of God,” then it would seem impossible that an organic, phenomenological experience—a proof, if you will—of the divine could not be a reality. The problem, of course, as I and the Sophiologists who have come before me have found, is that when we return to the world and the marketplace of religious ideas, we find that the interpretive traditions into which we have been born, initiated, or conscripted do not have the available landscape to house such insights. Which is why many of us who have arrived at such insights are branded heretics. In an earlier age, we would have been burned at the stake—and I know that many entrammeled by their own idolatry would burn us now if political conditions allowed. So maybe being born into such times as our own is a blessing."
Great! Very well put.
thanks
“Jesus went aside in nature to pray to the Father. The New Testament says that through Jesus by the Spirit we also have ready access to the Father. Simply standing before the Father feeling and knowing his personal loving Isness and being refreshed and enlivened, along with speaking to him, works for me. There is also divination in the original sense - receiving counsel and guidance.”
I shared the above at John Michael Greer’s discussion space in response to a request for advice on a daily spiritual practice. The person was trying out Neopaganism coming from a Catholic upbringing.It’s a pleasant eclectic space with people from varied viewpoints. ecosophia.net
I realize that just because my experience is real and “phenomenological” for me doesn’t mean I can demand that it be real for others so I just share my own phenomena and aim to not go to that condemning Pharisee place.
I have a very old friend who is an interfaith evangelical minister, grew up in LA in Catholicism, writes books, taught, and is a mountaineer and sports person. He runs groups for atheists and travels to spread the gospel. He is utterly patient when I say heretical things like "all of theology is idolatry" or "how do you explain Paula White?" His last suggestion to me was to read How God Becomes Real: Kindling the presence of invisible others by T.H. Luhrmann. I think this author may set aside the truth claims of faith, so that has to be ignored, but the ideas and practices sound really insightful, though I haven't read it yet. But your lovely thoughtful essay made me think of it, in terms of addressing phenomenology.
Great analysis. Distinguishing between the Idol and the Icon is a way to stay sane in this mess. Thank you.
Thanks right back
Can’t believe I missed that conference in Olympia 😢
Regarding Goethe, it’s also true that he was a great admirer of the Quran and the Prophet, which may have colored his views about Christ. Considering how “heavy” many of the pronouncements in the Quran can be (which I discovered after my temporary sojourn in a Sufi order years ago), I’m not sure to make of Goethe rejecting the Church’s dogmas. What do you think of Goethe’s relationship to Islam? What might his "private Christianity" have been?
As far as Christianity goes, it was probably, as with many, due to his early experiences of it. As far as his attitude to Islam, I plead Orientalism.
I had to look up inhere. I like your piece but I’m trying to remember why I turned on a path that includes going to church and, for about forty years, preaching. It was an accessible path. I loved many of the people and felt loved. Also, spared certain harms. About idols and icons, I hate idols because they have strangled me. Am going to think about them a little differently today.
Finally got my mind wrapped around what phenomenology is. A real understanding of what you mean by sophianology beyond there is some sort of mother goddess out there eludes me. She, in your opinion being pretty much censored out of the New Testament and in first few centuries early Christianity as it was formulated. Feel free to enlighten and/or correct me.
Like how Jesus is presented in the Gospels I am a Father/Holy Spirit focused guy. My approach is Jesus as my elder brother, whom I am to listen to and obey, firstborn among many brethren, and being a co-heir I walk with him as a fellow son of God, growing in knowing the Father as he did. Here is the core of my objection to Hesychasm Jesus plainly taught the focus of prayer is the Father with Jesus as our way and means to draw close to the quite accessible Father, our being baptized into the body of Christ being the free, ready, and gracious link instead of a years long gradual attainment.
He's definitely rolling around in his grave. With Mary. In France.
Unless The Vatican really did exhume and steal his bones, but he ain't there NO MO, regardless.
Religious nuts need to read them some Schwaller de Lubicz.