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Not Alone, But With the Holy Spirit

7/31/2022

Romantic Christianity is often denigrated for its apparent "go-it-alone" approach. This raises many red flags with mainstream Christians concerned about matters of spiritual authority.

William James Tychonievich succinctly tackles this "spiritual authority" concern by pointing out that -- contrary to appearances -- Romantic Christians are not really "going it alone" at all:

"The ultimate spiritual authority is the Holy Ghost speaking to each believer's mind and heart, and all other authorities are downstream from that."

Man, I wish I had written that.

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On Being Branded an Enemy of Christianity

7/31/2022

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A little over a week ago I wrote a post in which I challenged the altar-civilization model promulgated by some of the writers at the Orthosphere. At the end of that post, I stated that the content was not meant as a "swipe" but rather as a call to "encourage the expansion of exploratory thinking beyond the altar-civilization model to which so many Christians seem indivisibly wed".

I had not written the post to spark a debate between the Orthosphereans and Romantic Christians and was somewhat surprised when it did. The initial Orthosphere responses hinted that there was much room for agreement concerning salvation and personal spiritual discernment, but when I brought up the birdemic church closures, the overall tone of the discussion took an icy turn.

I finally disengaged after Kristor Lawson published his self-described “splash of hellfire: of hard hot adamantine opaque and impenetrable truth”, which he employed to brand all Romantic Christians as “enemies of the Church of Christ” and by logical extension, enemies of Christ and Christianity.

I suppose I could write a formal rebuttal – compose my own little splash of hellfire, but I won’t.

I am now thoroughly convinced that most Orthosphereans/Orthosphere readers are indeed indivisibly wed to the altar-civilization model. I also know that the very idea of exploratory thinking beyond the altar-civilization model repulses them. And that’s enough for me. I won’t suggest these sorts of things to them anymore.

I don’t believe Kristor, the other Orthosphereans, or their trad/mainstream readers are enemies of Christ, and it’s not my place to brand them as such. Having said that, I must confess that the deep respect I once held for some of the Orthosphereans is now quite shallow.

But I don’t want to harp on about that sort of thing. What I’ll do instead is close with two recent comments taken from Romantic Christian blogs. My aim here is to provide some insight into how “the enemies of the Church of Christ” think:

The first is from David, who runs the excellent New World Island site. The comment appeared on Bruce Charlton’s blog today:

“When I was first introduced to Mormonism (and Christianity, again as an adult, beautifully clarified by the missionaries) I was also asked to seek personal revelation. After some time I did believe it to be true, but I had no desire to become a Mormon or join the Church. I did however become a Christian.

It did not seem necessary to me that a loving God, who is primarily concerned with my salvation, would require my allegiance to a particular church or denomination, but would rather prefer a personal ongoing and unlimited relationship that was Jesus-centered and unhindered by any outside or second-hand influence.

I follow this path knowing that there is no earthly authority (no man, no government, no church) that supersedes my inner awareness of Christ who dwells within all men as "the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world."

This is quite freeing. And therefore regardless of what happens with any church or church system in the future, I am confident this will have no effect on my faith or trust in God.”

The second is from Luke, who added the following thought to one of my posts:

“There are those who are aware of their own freedom and bear upon themselves the responsibility for their own souls, and there are those who wish to renounce their own will and flee their sense of responsibility. For a little while longer the latter may be possible, but I do not think the future will belong to them.”

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Definitely Not a Lifeboat Christian

7/30/2022

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For many Christians, Christianity amounts to little more than the sort of thing Mihály Zichy (1826 -1906) depicts in the painting below.

Though understandable, this view does not reflect my primary Christian beliefs.

Simply put -- I'm not a "lifeboat" Christian, and I have no desire to be one.

Lifeboat - Mihály Zichy - 1827-1906

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The First Eggs!

7/29/2022

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The ladies have begun producing eggs a few weeks earlier than expected -- I found these two little treasures neatly deposited into one of the nesting boxes earlier today. Definitely the start of something good!

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The Answer to the Grand Inquisitor's Rebuke of Jesus

7/27/2022

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In yesterday's post, I briefly explored the grand inquisitor's chastisement of Jesus for expecting too much from "weak and dishonorable" humanity and asked about the validity of the grand inquisitor's argument.

Dr. Charlton provided a nail-head answer to that question in a comment today (bold and underlining added):

The deepest truth is that Jesus made things extraordinarily *simple* - "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:

And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand" John 10: 27-8; and "believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name" (John 20: 31) - indeed, that simplicity is the problem.

So simple is Jesus's work and message, that people can't believe it, and insist upon something extremely complex.

They ask for some specific answer, argument and rule for every possible (and imaginary) question and eventuality. They ask for a cure to the world's ills, and demand a 'system' that will 'make' all Men into Christians.

Perhaps the special nature of *these* times is such that we may be able to shake free for centuries of obfuscation (as well as expedient or dishonest misrepresentation) and (re-) discover that simplicity - each for himself.

Of course, 'simple' does not mean 'easy' - but it does imply a straightforward, albeit tough, choice; which when made correctly will be followed by more such straightforward-tough choices.

To which I responded (some editing and additional words added):

That's the answer.

People can't bring themselves to believe in the simplicity and straightforwardness of Jesus's message. They demand the Grand Inquisitor's coercive miracle, mystery, and authority model instead.

The further development of Christian consciousness hinges upon the (re)discovery of Jesus's simple, straightforward message and the straightforward, "tough" choices that follow.

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Did Jesus Expect Too Much From People?

7/26/2022

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Look around you and judge, now that fifteen centuries have passed, take a glance at them: which of them have you borne up to yourself?

Upon my word, man is created weaker and more base than you supposed! Can he, can he perform the deeds of which you are capable?

In respecting him so much you acted as though you had ceased to have compassion for him, because you demanded too much of him—and yet who was this?

The very one you had loved more than yourself! Had you respected him less you would have demanded of him less, and that would have been closer to love, for his burden would have been lighter.

The lines above are from Dostoevsky's Legend of the Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov. In them, the grand inquisitor rebukes Jesus for valuing humanity too highly and expecting too much from fundamentally "weak and dishonorable" men.

And what constitutes the "too much" Jesus expects from mankind? In two words, freedom and love:

Thou didst desire man's free love, that he should follow Thee freely, enticed and taken captive by Thee. In place of the rigid ancient law, man must hereafter with free heart decide for himself what is good and what is evil, having only Thy image before him as his guide.

The essence of the kind of faith Jesus expects from his followers is that it be:

directly known
freely chosen
keenly discerned
internal / internally-validated
personal
experiential
heart-centered / love-centered
creative

The totality of these aspects combine to form the unconquerable conviction that whole value of man is intrinsically connected to his freely chosen, creative participation in Creation -- in his participation in divine life and heaven.

When you stop to think about it, Jesus's high expectations don't seem that high at all, but they do entail relying on the internal rather than the external and taking personal responsibility for one's choices and faith.

Nevertheless, the grand inquisitor is quick to point out that that only a few "chosen ones" are capable of such things; the vast majority of humanity inevitably falls by the wayside:

"In what way is the weak soul to blame for not having the strength to accommodate such terrible gifts? And indeed, did you really only come to the chosen ones and for the chosen ones?

But if that is so, then there is a mystery there and it is not for us to comprehend it. And if there is a mystery, then we were within our rights to propagate that mystery and teach them that it was not the free decision of their hearts and not love that mattered, but the mystery, which they must obey blindly, even in opposition to their consciences."

Unlike Jesus, the grand inquisitor expects little from the "weak souls" but vows to correct Jesus's overestimation of humanity by providing a purpose for those unable to follow Jesus freely:

And that was what we did. We corrected your great deed and founded it upon miracle, mystery and authority.

And people were glad that they had once been brought together into a flock and that at last from their hearts had been removed such a terrible gift, which had brought them so much torment.

Were we right, to teach and act thus, would you say?

Did we not love mankind, when we so humbly admitted his helplessness, lightening his burden with love and allowing his feeble nature even sin, but with our permission?

The grand inquisitor presents himself and his institution as loving and merciful and Jesus's expectations as unrealistic, even cruel.

Is the grand inquisitor correct? Does Jesus expect too much from people?

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Sunset Amid Storm Clouds

7/24/2022

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Hungarian painter László Paál (1846-1879) is best known for his forest paintings, but he was also an adept landscape painter, particularly when it came to evoking mood.

His Sunset Amid Storm Clouds provides a good example of his skill at "mood creation." Despite its mostly unimpressive technical aspects, the painting effectively conjures a striking "aura".

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Morrissey on Experiencing the Crushing Burdens of Late Twentieth-Century Society

7/23/2022

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This post includes a short video featuring the English singer-songwriter Steven Patrick Morrissey -- known professionally simply as Morrissey -- recollecting his childhood and youth in Manchester.

I don't know much about Morrissey, and I'm not particularly motivated to know much about Morrissey, but I found his poignant remembrances of childhood and his incisive discernment of the crushing burdens of the 1960s and 1970s quite intriguing. So the key here is to focus on what the man says rather than focus on the man himself.

In the video, Morrissey explains why the place he grew up no longer exists and how this has left him feeling as if a part of his childhood had been torn away from him. He describes the the tightly community his family and extended relations had established in a place called Queens Park, and how all of this came to end in one fell swoop when the place was demolished to make room for garish socialist-like apartment buildings in the 1960s, heralding the end of community and the beginning of anonymous society. Morrissey also touches upon his education and recalls the barbarism he experienced in high school.

I found the short video interesting for a number of reasons. For starters, it mirrors my own experience growing up in Canada in the 1980s. More importantly, it addresses many of the problems our modern societies created or exacerbated in the late twentieth century -- alienation, faceless bureaucracy, lack of community, government schools, soul-destroying jobs and careers, etc.

From a spiritual perspective (my own, not Morrissey's), the video reminded me that the world is inherently entropic and that some degree of alienation is practically inevitable even if we manage to avoid some of the experiences Morrissey recounts.

Morrissey's recollections also highlight how extremely effective and efficient late twentieth-century society -- with its emphasis on the bureaucratic implementation utility and altruism -- was at intensifying entropy and alienation for the purpose of soul destruction.

Note added: It's also interesting to note how Morrissey escaped the crushing burdens of the modern world through creativity and the feeling that he what he had to say was "terribly important". As far as I know, Morrissey is a lapsed Catholic, not a practicing Christian, and I suspect that in many ways he is deeply anti-Christian, at least deeply anti-organized Christianity (re: his song, I Have Forgiven Jesus), but his embrace of creativity can be considered instructive if we are willing to compare apples and oranges, so to speak.

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The Altar-Civilization Model is Over

7/22/2022

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If you visit The Orthosphere fairly regularly, as I do, then you have surely noticed the "Wherever an altar is found, there civilization exists" quote beneath the site's title.

The quote comes from Joseph de Maistre, the Savoyard philosopher who railed against the French Revolution and its rationalist rejection of Christianity in favor of the traditional social and religious hierarchies the Revolution sought to replace. Simply put, Joseph de Maistre was a reactionary; when it came to matters of civilization, he argued for the tried and true model of a civilization ordered around Christian supremacy and its contingent external institutions and hierarchies.

The placement of de Maistre's "wherever an altar is found" quote on The Orthosphere site serves as somewhat of a declaration of the perspectives, attitudes, and viewpoints of the site's writers, most of whom identify as reactionaries of some stripe or other.

Like de Maistre, Orthosphere writers heavily emphasize the social, cultural, and political aspects of Christianity and, quite rightly argue that society, culture, and politics in the West all tend to go to hell once Christianity is taken out of the equation.

Remove the altar and you remove civilization. In this sense, sites like The Orthosphere continue the de Maistre reactionary impetus to steer civilization back toward a model based on God and Creation, and in this impetus, they have my complete sympathy for the simple reason that any civilization not based on religion will inevitably collapse and cease to exist. At the same time, I do not believe that our civilization can be saved. Moreover, I increasingly sense that our civilization will probably have to collapse for Christianity to flourish once again.

Though I respect and support the utter necessity of basing civilization on religion, I am wary of the motivation behind the restoration of the traditional Christian civilizational model lauded by reactionaries like de Maistre. To begin with, I do not believe such a restoration is even possible today. The time chasm and gaping cultural abyss separating contemporary reactionaries from their eighteenth-century role models are far too great to bridge.

The traditional altar-civilization infrastructure still existed in some cohesive form – both externally in the world and internally in the minds and hearts of men – when de Maistre and his contemporaries worked to restore it, but the same cannot be said of today.

Our modern world marks the terminus of the traditional altar-civilization model. Civilization abandoned the altar, and the altar eventually abandoned civilization. In our time and place, altar and civilization are merged into an anti-civilizational force that is explicitly opposed to God and Creation. Thus, de Maistre’s dictum regarding altars and civilizations no longer rings true, at least not in the conventional sense.

Having said that, I continue to have the deepest respect for sites like The Orthosphere for one simple reason – they understand that civilization – in the proper sense of the term – can only exist if it is based on and motivated by religion.

At the same time, I find the casual dismissal or downgrading of consciousness development espoused by many of the writers at sites like The Orthosphere troubling. Such writers and thinkers support the view that civilization has taken a step – or several steps – in the wrong direction, and that the only way to right our sinking civilizational ship is to retrace our steps to the spot where we took the wrong step and re-establish ourselves in traditional Christendom, complete with Christian social hierarchies anchored in a strong and unified Christian church that holds sway over all temporal matters.

The problem with this approach is it doesn’t fully consider the reality of consciousness development – that is, the simple fact that modern people are much different from the people who inhabited traditional Christendom. Nor does it offer any satisfactory answers to the question of why people chose to step away from the traditional altar-civilization model of consciousness. It also offers poor explanations as to why the altar eventually chose to follow civilization rather than lead it.

Another problem with the altar-civilization paradigm is it leaves reactionaries and conservatives with very little room in which to maneuver spiritually. If Christianity is primarily a cultural, social, and political force, then what becomes of Christianity if all the cultural, social, and political forces of the world – including the altars – are subverted against Christianity? Moreover, how much should individual Christians invest into “saving” or “restoring” a civilization that has willfully abandoned its altars? What exactly would a Christian be saving or restoring? And would such saving and restoration hinder or fulfill Christianity?

Times like these are a crucial test for those who adhere to the conventional altar-civilization model of Christianity, but they don’t need to be.

On the one hand, the collapse of the altar-civilization model can be viewed as the catastrophe of all catastrophes, a gaping gorge from which it will be extremely difficult if not impossible to emerge. On the other hand, the collapse of the altar-civilization model can also be viewed as the beginning of a heightened form of Christian spirituality and religiosity, one that rises to fulfill Christianity.

The reactionary model seeks to restore in order to avoid collapse, but the present suggests that the way forward lies not in reaction and restoration, but in resurrection and creation, in something resembling what Nikolai Berdyaev outlines in The Divine and The Human (bold added):

Religious discussion centers upon the possibility of new revelation and a new spiritual epoch. All other questions are secondary. The new revelation is not at all a new religion, distinct from Christianity, but rather the fulfilment and completion of the Christian revelation, bringing it to a true universality. This we do not have as yet. But we cannot simply wait for the revelation of the spirit. It depends upon man's creative activity as well. It is not to be understood as only a new revelation of God to man: it is also the revelation of man to God. This means that it will be a divine-human revelation. In the Spirit, the divisions and contradictions of the divine and the human will be overcome, while the distinction between them will be maintained. This will be the crowning of the mystical dialectic of the divine and the human.

The opening of a new epoch of the Spirit, which will include higher achievements of spirituality, presupposes a radical change and a new orientation in human consciousness. This will be a revolution of consciousness which hitherto has been considered as something static. The religion of the Spirit will be the religion of man's maturity, leaving behind him his childhood and adolescence....

In the religion of the Spirit, the religion of freedom, everything will appear in a new light: there will be neither authority nor reward: the nightmare of a legalistic conception of Christianity and of eternal punishment will finally disappear. It will be founded, not upon judgment and recompense, but on creative development and transfiguration, on likeness to God.

The religion of the Spirit is the expectation that a new human and humane sociality will be revealed, radiating love and charity. It is also the expectation of the revelation of a new relationship between man and the cosmos, of cosmic transfiguration. The process of the decomposition of the cosmos ... is nearing its end. {but} least of all does this mean an optimistic concept of the destiny of history.

The discovery of light does not mean a denial of darkness. On the contrary: before the advent of the epoch of Spirit man will have to pass through deepened shadow, through the epoch of night. We are living through the tragic experience of the de-spiritualization and devastation of nature, as it were, the disappearance of the cosmos (the discoveries of physics), the de-spiritualization and devastation of history (Marx and historical materialism), the de-spiritualization and devastation of the mind (Freud and psycho-analysis).

The end of the war and revolution has disclosed terrible cruelty: humaneness is vanishing. It is as though the Creator has withdrawn from creation. He is present only incognito (a favorite expression of Kierkegaard). But all this may be understood as a dialectic moment in the revelation of the Spirit, and a new spiritual life. One must die, in order to live again. Man and the world are being crucified. But the final word will belong to the Resurrection.

Note added: This post is not a swipe at The Orthosphere or its bloggers. The gentlemen at the Orthosphere are all highly intelligent, well-meaning Christians. I support their blog and maintain cordial relations with them. As I mention above, I have a deep respect for The Orthosphere, and I believe its bloggers are all on the right side. What am I trying to do here is encourage the expansion of exploratory thinking beyond the altar-civilization model to which so many Christians seem indivisibly wed.

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Overcoming The Triumph of Societal Objectification/Thingness

7/21/2022

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This is one of those sloppy posts where I try to say to much all at once. Anyway, here goes . . .

The triumph of objectification at the societal level is the solidification of society as a world of objects in which human beings are treated as things and turn themselves into things. The root of objectification is despiritualization, and the consequence of despiritualization is, inevitably, dehumanization.

When people allow themselves to be despiritualized at the individual/personal level, they inevitably place themselves on a path toward eventual dehumanization. People who do not recognize the reality of spirit within themselves and others do not accept the very essence of what makes a human a human. This thinking then extends to all the other beings in Creation.

The rejection of spirit relegates all relationships, communication, and participation in Creation to the level of thingness. The result is isolation, alienation, and inauthenticity. Instead of spiritual beings having human (or other, non-human) experiences, the world becomes a place of spiritual beings having "object" or "thing" experiences.

Part of the spiritual learning we undergo in this world involves challenging and overcoming thingness and objectification, and a big part of that appears to involve the understanding that thingness and objectification cannot be completely overcome at the societal level.

If we are connected to our true natures and our divine creative powers, we have the opportunity to relate to other people as spiritual companions, perhaps even as companions in a spiritual community, but this entails that our companions (or our community/society) are also be connected to their true natures and divine creative powers. Without these connections, our societal communication and participation quickly degrade into objectification and the manifestation of an anonymous society in which everyone is essentially “alone together” in thingness.

Participation, communication, and relationships grounded in our true natures and divine creative powers reveal, add to, and expand Creation. At the same time, it very much appears that most of the “products” of spiritual participation, communication, and relationship are confined to the objectified world.

For example, picture an individual choosing to help another financially because he feels such assistance offers the possibility of spiritual benefit. The spiritual benefit of such an action expands Creation, but the money involved and the material ends toward which the money is invested remain grounded in the objectified world. At best, the money and the material ends it purchases exist as symbols. They can point to the spiritual action, participation, communication, and relationship, but they are not the spiritual action itself. Those attuned to their true natures and divine creative powers will recognize and intuit the spiritual action toward which the material results point; “objectified”, despiritualized people will see nothing but thingness.

Another example – imagine two artists collaborating on a project. The creative collaboration they engage in (the communal, societal action of cooperation) overcomes objectification if the creativity aligns with the God and Creation, but the end product they create does not – at least not entirely. As a symbol, the created work may inspire others to seek, recognize, or align with the spiritual essence behind the created work; however, for despiritualized people in society, the created work remains just a thing, capable of little more than enjoyment, amusement, or distraction.

On the other hand, evilly aligned people might recognize the spiritual aspect of the created work and aim to subvert, invert, distort, or destroy it. The subversion, inversion, and distortion of spiritually-motivated created works can do much to hide or bury spiritual essence, especially if the bulk of society is already despiritualized.

By the same token, not even the destruction of any created work in the objectified world can obliterate or damage the spiritual “good” and expansion of Creation that occurred while the work was being “thought of” and created. Put another way, the product “produced” from spiritual creativity and love can be totally destroyed in the objectified world, but the spiritual creativity and love that went into the product overcame objectification and, thus, can never be destroyed.

The healing miracles Jesus performed were primarily spiritually creative acts. Though these acts provided an immediate and undeniable physical benefit to their recipients, Jesus’s primary motivation was aimed at benefitting the recipients’ spirits and souls. After all, death would eventually extinguish the cured blindness, but the spiritual benefit Jesus made possible could overcome even death. It is interesting to note that Jesus shared no grand vision of overcoming societal objectification in this world, and his mission indicates that such an overcoming at a mass scale is likely unachievable. Nevertheless, he did leave clues about how individuals and communities might be able to overcome the thingness inherent in all societies.

The triumph of objectification at the societal level in our time and place is undeniable, but this should inspire us rather than dissuade us. Instead of succumbing to the pressure of an objectified world, we should challenge the triumph of objectification by nurturing relationships, communication, and participation based on spiritual love and creativity.

The triumph of the objectified world is – now – largely a matter of quantity; thus, our concerns should be largely a matter of quality. All thinking, action, and creativity that aligns with God adds to and expands Creation; however, much of what constitutes the “products” of God-aligned thinking, action, and creativity in this world remains firmly embedded in the realm of objectification.

At best, all such "products" can do at the societal level is act as symbols that point toward an example of overcoming objectification, but they cannot provide the actual overcoming itself. That is exclusively the business of individuals or small communities of individuals, not society.

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