Introduction
FOR TEN YEARS I MINISTERED to the Unity-Midtown
Church in Atlanta, which I founded in October 1990. Since its inception I experimented
with the creation of a new kind of church. This "new church" is inspired
by and modeled after Jesus' statement, "Wherever two or more are gathered
in my name, there am I in the midst of them." Rather than being a new religion
or denomination that promotes a new twist on the traditional Christian belief
system, this church is designed to provide access for its participants to the
direct experience of God. As such it is more a spiritual than a religious venture
and represents an evolutionary leap in Christian faith: for the sole intent
of this church is to facilitate the spiritual growth and development of individuals
toward the realization of their essential spirituality-the full recognition
and expression of their human/divine nature. It does so within a context of
committed relationship, self-inquiry and spiritual practice described within
these pages.
This book recounts how and why I came to commit
my life to the transformation of traditional notions of what church should be
and to the unfoldment of a New Church for the twenty-first century. There are
three parts. For the greatest understanding of this proposed New Church, I suggest
you read them in the order presented.
Part One of the book is autobiographical. It
chronicles part of my life story beginning with the religious influence surrounding
the circumstances of my conception and concluding with my decision to pioneer
a new church. I've included this narrative of the highlights of my life to show
how in many ways I was an unlikely candidate for ministry. Despite my refusal
to follow a traditional religious path, I still found the need for a community
in which to deepen my spirituality and returned to church, albeit this new kind
of church.
Part Two gives an analysis of the traditional
Christian, or Old Church. In it I attend to the task of naming and discussing
what I think are the major problems that have developed in Christianity over
the past two thousand years. I will show how these problems, stemming from the
early Christian founders' interpretation of Jesus' words, reflect their somewhat
limited psychological stage of development rather than the enlightened one attained
by Jesus. The result is a major distortion of Jesus' intention regarding church.
I analyze six aspects of the Old Church in the
chapters of Part Two. I approach each of these as "partial truths"-ideas
and practices that may have been appropriate for the time in which they were
formed, but which lose much of their validity when seen from an evolutionary
perspective that takes in a wider view. The viewpoint informed by two millennia
of psychological and technological development is able to form a more complete
context, more of the whole truth.
I offer my critique of traditional Christianity
with the understanding that those responsible for promoting the distortions
described in this section were ignorant of their motivation for doing so. The
benefit of seeing and articulating the negative consequences of that ignorance
is not to place blame so much as to open the door to a more complete understanding.
Then, it is hoped, the suffering caused by past misdeeds might in some way be
redeemed by the resolve to learn more effective ways of doing and being.
Part Three suggests what that resolution might
be, provided there is a wider or relatively more whole perspective in place.
It describes a new kind of church, or New Church, and how to create one. In
Part Three, I give a point-by-point response of the New Church to the six major
problems of the Old Church. I present an evolutionary framework that includes
those religious and spiritual forms inspired by Jesus. This lays the theoretical
foundation for a Curriculum for Transformation which describes the New Church,
as well as an important bridge to the New Church that I call Transitional Church.
Finally, for those with an interest in implementing New Church ideas, either
by expanding the services offered by an already existing church or by starting
a new one, there is a set of basic guidelines based on my experience of doing
this.
***
When I speak with people about the ideas in
this book, they object something like this: "Well, Ellie, what you're describing
sounds really great-but it isn't church!" Or another complaint: "I'm
turned on by what you're describing, but I hate church and don't want to go
to one. Can't you call it something else?!"
After ten years of experimenting with New Church
ideas and practices, I've also wondered why I've insisted on calling my discovery"church."
Why not let church be as it has been for the last two thousand years? Why not
call this kind of transformational work by some other name?
Rather than discouraging me, this line of conversation
simply renews my passion for sharing the ideas in this book. Ideas about church
are deeply embedded in our culturally conditioned minds; everybody already thinks
they know what a church is supposed to be. They accept this definition as gospel
and are stuck, either in trying to fit themselves into this too-small box, or
resisting it altogether.
The New Church I describe challenges the conditioned
belief of what a church is and should be. The New Church invites us to reflect
anew on what Jesus really intended when he spoke of founding a church. Did he
mean an institution dedicated to the worship of the person of Jesus, that condemned
those who didn't believe in him to eternal hell? Or did he intend some vehicle
by which people could learn the truth of the divine principle he embodied when
he said, "These things that I do, greater things than these will you also
do?" Did he want to confine our experience to religious observances that
would guarantee a future salvation? Or could it be that he really desired we
should taste the bliss of spiritual awareness in our own realization of "I
AM" and "The Father and I are One?"
My devotion to the mission of expanding the idea of what is considered church is fueled by a persistent urge -one I sometimes wish would go away - to discover and honor Jesus' original intent regarding church. Perhaps I've projected my own feelings that I haven't been properly understood by those around me, or maybe I am operating from some other neurotic motivation. Or is it possible that there actually is a shred of truth in what I've observed, and this simple form I call the New Church-for all its dissimilarity with traditional forms-is really like the transformational and spiritual church that Jesus intended to create? I invite you, then, to open your mind to the possibilities contained within these chapters, and decide for yourself.